Harvard Project Catalogs Lawsuits Against Online Speech
A new Harvard database shows a rising flood of lawsuits against those who push the boundaries of free expression on the Internet. The Online Legal Threats Database was created by the Citizen Media Law Project, an offshoot of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. It tries to count any “adverse action that a person or organization is threatened with because of their activities involving online speech.” The online database holds details of copyright infringement lawsuits filed against bloggers, cease and desist letters claiming defamation sent to MySpace users and other actions from 35 states and 9 countries.
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“As individuals engage in speech online, whether by writing blogs, posting photos and videos, or republishing the work of others, they are finding themselves in legal disputes with corporations, and governments,” said project Director David Ardia. “Unlike established media organizations that have the resources to pursue important reporting in the face of legal challenges, nontraditional journalists are particularly vulnerable to legal threats and coercion.”
A lawsuit involving a religious group that protests the funerals of U.S. soldiers has attracted the most hits. In Snyder v. Phelps, Albert Snyder, whose son Matthew was killed in Iraq in 2006, sued for $10.9 million the Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group that believes God is killing soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. The church picketed Snyder’s son’s funeral. Congress and some states have recently been passed laws restricting the protests.
Westboro operates several Web sites including www.godhatesfags.com. It has posted an essay entitled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder” saying “Albert and his wife had raised Matthew “for the devil,” “taught him how to support the largest pedophile machine in the history of the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity,” and “taught Matthew to be an idolator.” Snyder sued in U.S. District Court in Maryland alleging defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The judge granted summary judgment Oct. 15 for the defendants on the defamation claim and the invasion of privacy claim based on publication of private facts. The court said: “These comments -- as extreme as they may be -- they are taken in terms of religious expression. This is not the type of language that one is going to assume is meant as a statement of fact.” But Oct. 22, a jury awarded Snyder $10.9 million on the remaining counts of invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A more humorous case drew the second most hits. A&P v. D'avella involves two supermarket employees who created rap parodies about their work. New Jersey brothers Mark and Matthew D'Avella’s tunes, aka “Fresh Beets,” posted on their MySpace page and Web site www.fakelaughs.com, songs including “Always Low Prices” and “Produce Paradise,” a homage to Coolio’s 1995 “Gangsta’s Paradise.” The brothers made a video for “Produce Paradise” in the store after hours and posted it on YouTube and on their own site. A&P’s parent, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, sued for $1 million in New Jersey Superior Court on allegations of defamation, business and product disparagement and federal trademark infringement and dilution. In court documents, the company alleged that “Produce Paradise” depicted the brothers “performing their rap song in various recognizable areas of the Califon (New Jersey) A&P, including the fresh produce department, the corner bakery, the stock room and the employee bathroom,” and that in the video “at least one defendant is wearing a hat with a recognizable A&P logo.”
The suit complained of the brothers’ “disparaging and disgusting lyrics pertaining to produce and groceries, and the store in general” and their “doing various disparaging and disgusting things to produce and groceries.” A&P alleged that “at least one customer,” having recognized the store and Mark and Matthew as employees, complained to A&P about the video, saying she was “disgusted and distressed by the scenes depicted in the video” and “would not be shopping in [A&P’s] stores in the future owing to the repulsive acts depicted and performed by defendants in the Rap Video.” The lawsuit continues.
The database is updated daily. It’s paid for by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Citizen Media said it plans to launch several other projects in the next few months including a set of legal guides covering the 15 most populous states and District of Columbia for citizen and other nontraditional journalists. Alexis Fabbri