First Amendment

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has filed papers with the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mammoth County seeking to extract the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia) from a defamation complaint filed by Barbara Bauer, dba Barbara Bauer Literary Agency (Docket Number: L-1169-07)¹.

Periodically a case comes along to remind us that possessing First Amendment Rights is no guarantee that those rights will be responsibly, reasonably, or artfully exercised!

There's a book in here somewhere...

Res: EFF, Bauer v. Glatzer

Web:

• UPDATED 07/02/2008Wikinews, Libel case against Wikimedia Foundation dismissed. If Bauer proceeds with her case it will be without Wikimedia Foundation as a defendant—as a general rule internet sites hosting internet content are not and should not be responsible for the content users post to the site.

  Most responsible internet hosting sites nevertheless have policies for reporting and removing unlawful or patently shocking and offensive content.

• UPDATED 05/17/2008 Wikileaks, Wikinews suppressed article on Barbara Bauer vs. Wikipedia case

  • Slashdot, Wikimedia Censors Wikinews

-----notes-----

1. In addition to Wikimedia Foundation the complaint names civil defendants Jenna Glatzer, MacAllister Stone, James MacDonald, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, Brian Hill², Dee Power², David Kuzminski, Thomas Tully, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc., Victoria Strauss, Shweta Narayan, Lesia Valentine, Christina Walden, Stephan Spencer, Kristen Fischer, Gregory Ludwig, and Aimee Amodio.

The complaint alleges that the defendants defamed Barbara Bauer and harmed her business by writing or facilitating the writing in the blogoshpere or wikiosphere statements about Barbara Bauer and her business like: "The Dumbest of the Twenty Worst"; "no documented sales at all"; "[will] vacuum out your savings account [and] lie to you"; "[has] threatened 2/3 of internet at least once"; "[is] inept-but-abusive supposed literary agent"; "[is] a dodgy player"; "[is] a scammer"; [engages in] ...random nuttiness"; "[is] a faux literary agent"; "[is] kooky...that lunatic"; "questioning her Ph.D. degree"; "[is] among a group of questionable agents”; ”she engages in dirty business practices"; posted a photo of [Barbara Bauer] superimposed on it an indecent licking actions over the mouth area"; "caused to be published on You Tube videos about Barbara Bauer entitled "Crouching Snark, Hidden Dragon and Miss Snark's Happy Hooker Crapstravanganza"; "[she] is a crook"; "[she's] a thief";...

2. See comment section for more poster information.