Thursday, April 25, 2013

And the Good Guys Win Another One

Amid all the antics of the Prenda Copyright Trolls, who are in the midst of an amusing and hopefully fatal meltdown, comes notice that Patterico has won his defamation defense case.

Long story short on the Patterico case - P commented about a woman who was involved in illegally recording congresswoman Maxine Waters. The woman sued P, claiming P said all kinds of things. The judge read what she claimed P said, read what P actually said, and read what harm she claimed to have suffered because of P and what laws she wanted to recover from P under. Bottom line - she presented no actual facts that would support recovery under her theories.

Also, to keep the case in Federal court, she would have to prove at least $75K of real damage attributable to his unpriveleged words, and didn't even prove that. Mere allegations without facts that demonstrate clear probability of liability are insufficient to proceed.

conduct that is merely consistent with liability is not enough to get you there either.

Case dismissed, half with prejudice, half without. She's appealing, but it's unlikely she'll prevail.