BLOGGER BUSTED

Did you happen to read the news story of blogger Crystal Cox losing a defamation suit to the tune of $2.5 million?

Crystal claimed she was protected from the lawsuit by the “Media Shield Law.”

Apparently, she wasn’t. At least not in Oregon. But an attorney later pointed out that if her case had been tried in the neighboring state of Washington, she would have been protected.

The applicable Oregon media shield law reads in part that ‘no person…engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required…to disclose [their] source of…information.’ This became a focal point in the lawsuit because her negative blog remarks wouldn’t be defamation if they were true. And although Crystal produced documents indicating her remarks were true, she would not reveal her source of that information, and therefore the truthfulness of those accusations could not be confirmed.

So, interestingly, actions in Oregon apparently can cost one person millions of dollars even though the exact same actions taking place across the street in the neighboring state of Washington would not. Doesn’t seem fair does it?

It turns out that the Oregon law listed examples of ‘people engaged in the medium of communications’ and made no mention of blogging on the Internet. (Apparently, the law was written before Al Gore invented the Internet.) However, the law in Washington was written later, and did include a reference to the Internet and electronic distribution.

One aspect of this whole ordeal that I noted was that the judge applied the Oregon law literally, rather than according to its apparent intent. That caught my eye because of its implecations in our rapidly changing electronic age – there is no way that any law can keep abreast of technology. There will also be a lag.

The implication of this is that our legislators have no way of providing desired protections to their constituents in areas impacted by technology. Unless of course they can foresee the future and write their legislation accordingly.