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Stand By Me Playing For Change Song Around the World PAISOLA

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:50:00 +0000

Welcome to Western Capital's Reputation MD- How May We Assist you today!

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Robert Paisola: The Western Capital VIP Program - The best home videos are here

Attack The Man. Crucify The Reputation, Forget the Facts : Posted by Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:47:00 +0000

And You Wonder why GOOD PEOPLE will not even DEAL with the political sysyem in Utah..

20 days before early voting began in 2008, Utah State Rep. Greg Hughes was hit with a politically-motivated smear campaign.

The attack was consistent with what has happened in other states, and seems to be a growing trend among left-wing activists. The formula is simple: make last-minute allegations of ethical wrongdoing; grab the headlines; drive your opponents approval ratings down; steal the election.

By the time the charges are cleared, it is often too late.

This video is the story of one such attack in the Salt Lake County suburb of Draper, Utah. According to records that were revealed during the investigation into these allegations, the architect of the attack was none other than the single largest donor to Rep. Hughes' political opponent, who also has served as his opponent's family attorney.

In this case, Rep. Hughes fought back and despite dealing with a committee that allowed all forms of hearsay evidence, with no ability to cross examine witnesses, and one that was controlled by a majority of lawmakers opposed to his position on school choice, he was cleared.

Rep. Hughes accusers could not even get the four Democrats on the committee to find him guilty of the primary charge of bribing a fellow colleague.

It was the ultimate October Surprise.

Do You Want the Best Life has to Offer, By Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:58:00 +0000

Watch this video and email us today at vip@westerncapitalvip.com

www.WesternCapitalVIP.com

Trusting the Press, By Donald J. Trump, Posted by Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:40:00 +0000

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with the press. Over the years, they’ve written some pretty great stories about me. And, over the years, there have been a lot of lies printed too. I’ve talked to some pretty incredible reporters and some who are just horrible and seem to make up whatever they want to write.

If it’s that way about me, I know it’s that way about almost everything I read. So how do you know when to believe what you read in print or what you hear on the news?

If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. Right now, more than half of Americans say they tend not to trust the press. They take what they read or what they hear with a grain of salt, knowing maybe they’re not getting the whole story. And I think that’s pretty smart. You just can’t believe everything you hear. Nobody can be that gullible.

Maybe somewhat surprisingly, these days people tend to trust Internet news and information sites more than they trust television. They trust radio news even more...which is why I have a radio commentary.

It’s an election year, so you have to be smarter than ever. Sift through what you hear and what you read on the news and form your own opinions. Don’t trust everything.

Executive Reputation Management , Reported by Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Perhaps the best-known example of reputation management in Corporate America occurred almost 100 years ago when oil titan John D. Rockefeller hired a public relations manager named Ivy Lee to burnish his image. It was Lee who conceived the idea of having Rockefeller hand out dimes to the public and made sure that only positive pictures of the magnate were released to the public.
Today, with the advent of the Internet, managing public opinion is a lot more complicated, intransigent and global. The result being, that a separate discipline called “reputation management “ or “executive reputation management” has been carved out of the public relations basket of options.

Obviously, corporate mavens have always tried to manage their public personae, but the pervasiveness of the Internet has made the task much harder because negative comments and verbal portrayals have a life beyond the local community. Anyone with a computer anywhere in the world can find out anything about you as a public person, and those same people can create statements online, in a personal blog that can cloud other’s opinions of you.

If one little thing that is disparaging about you or your company gets tossed into the information infrastructure, “you have to imagine that it is floating into every single household,” says Michael Bayer, the chief client officer and senior managing director with FD, a New York-based business and financial communications consultant. “It’s hard to get your head around that concept as it has never been the case in the history of mankind. Reputation management has never been more intense and more critical.”

Today, almost all research begins with an online search engine.

“Everybody is just turning to Google as their first point of reference on just about anything,” observes Nino Kader, who in 2006 created International Reputation Management, based in Washington, D.C., a unique public relations firm that solely focuses on ensuring clients are well represented on the Internet. Business, he says, is booming.

There are a number of search engines on the Internet, but Google is the market leader and as such creates the biggest online impact. “Google has taken such a dominant position in the market that who Google says you are very quickly becomes the reality of how the market perceives you,” adds Mike Myatt, managing director and chief strategy officer for N2Growth, a Portland, Ore.-company that provides reputation management services.

Not only do scandals and debacles quickly become the fodder of Internet entries, but if bloggers get a hold of some idea about you and start running it around the Web, immediately thousands of negative pieces of information about you can be circulating around the Internet—none of it may even be true

“The first thing 80 percent of the population does when they want to find out something is they go straight to the Internet,” says Myatt. “So, how you show up on the Internet has a high impact on other’s initial decision about you.”

The mistake a lot of companies and executives make is that they only hire someone to help with their reputation when they are already in trouble. Then it’s often too late to repair the damage.

“A brand takes years to build, whereas a reputation can be destroyed over night,” says Bayer.

Most mainstream and Internet public relations and reputation management firms recommend being proactive.

“Everyone needs to pay attention to, engage in and help shape their own reputation because we live in a world where information can suddenly get passed around globally. And because it is not necessarily accurate information, it makes reputation management even more crucial,” notes Kathy Bloomgarden, co-CEO of Ruder Finn Inc., a New York public relations agency, and author of Trust: The Secret Weapon of Effective Business Leaders.

There are a couple of first steps in regard to executive reputation management. The first is to stop pretending you know what your reputation is and that you have the skills to manage it. This is a time-consuming task, so hire people who know what to do and will dedicate the time to it, because you are paying them to do so. A company like IRM asks for a minimum six months contract because it takes time to get written articles, quotes, etc. placed and indexed properly into Google.

IRM, for example, had a client who worked at a small management-consulting firm and needed to get more credibility in regards to the energy industry. “What we try to do is find gems in someone’s background and highlight those on the Web,” says Kader. “As it turned out, this person had a lot to say about energy but was never published. We worked with him on a white paper, which was picked up by an industry publication and put on their Web site, appeared on his company’s Web site, plus on blogger’s Web sites. It looked like this person has been talking on this subject for a long while.”

Some firms recommend a reputation “audit”, which pretty much of what it says it is, an audit of all the information out there about you and your company.

If negative publicity about you and your company starts threading through the Internet, or bloggers have been creaming you, the most important thing not to do is go on their turf to answer the attacks. The best response is to gather all the good information about you, create positive position statements (a white paper, announcement of awards, press releases, etc.), and then have the professionals make sure they get you the best Internet exposure.

“What we try to do is have more of the positive listings show up above where the blogger commented and have that one get pushed back so it does not appear front and center,” says Kader.

Traditionally, says Bloomgarden, the three basic rules to follow when your reputation was under siege were, “Be fast (in response), be honest and be accessible.” Today, it’s necessary to add one more direction and, “be on the Internet.”

TAV
Proactive vs. Reactive
It is much easier to maintain a reputation than trying to build a new reputation from the ruins of a damaged one.
If something negative about you goes to the Internet, develop a position and get it on the Web quickly.
Do not try spinning information that is not true. Remember, the truth is probably just a mouse click away.
Continually monitor what is being written about you on the Internet.
Use reputation management as part and parcel of career management.

John Brewington, Phoenix PI Writes- Robert Paisola Responds

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:10:00 +0000

Hello to all of our readers around the world. Today has been an incredible day at Western Capital as we continue to work on the plans for the hospital that we are preparing to make possible for the people of Mexico.

We have spent three years on this project and it is finally coming to fruition.

To those of you who do not know, there are a few people in this country that do not support our mission, passion or commitment to change the American Penal Landscape. Among those people are Bill "Billie Bauer" ,John Brewington, a private investigator in Arizona who absolutely detests everything we stand for and a few others.

Well, this evening, we received a letter from Mr. John F. Brewington, and we feel that you deserve to see what type of opposition and judgment that we have to deal with AND at the same time focus on our long term goals of truly creating world change.

For the record, this is an unedited and non-redacted version of Mr. Brewington's letter.

From: John F. Brewington [mailto:jfb@jfbainc.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 6:16 PM
To: robert@mycollector.com
Subject: Life

Robert,

I have been very busy and haven't had time to respond to you from the last email. I wonder if you realize that Rachel filed a complaint against you with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children? While I believe you are capable of all sorts of wrongs, it hasn't escaped my attention that this may just be a person striking out at someone she has issues with. Using the internet as a weapon of choice, something you know about. Of course your keen interest in escorts has been observed maybe she has a real reason to roll over on you, metiphorically speaking.

Your trial is coming up very soon and you will be going back to prison. The question is will you be banned from the internet forever. Whether you know it or not that would be the best thing for you. Keep you out of the cross hairs of guys like me, the press and LE. You can actually work at Jiffy Jube or Macdonalds and with your talents create something you can be proud of and develop of healthy self esteem. You are what you are.

Next time you post on the Rip Off Report consider the consequences. These two stories have done far more damage to you two than anything you can possibly come up with.

I have advised you before and I suggest again. Go back and fix some of the things you have done. You can't ask for mercy till you give it. Plus you're going to need something to show the judge at your sentencing.

John Brewington PI
JFB Acquisitions
AZ PI 1551859
602-490-0676
jfb@jfbainc.com
International Association of Commercial Collectors
National Association of Investigative Specialists
Arizona Association of Licensed Private Investigators

Our Reply to Mr Brewington:

Salt Lake City, Utah
January 9, 2008

Hey John,

Thanks for writing to me. I appreciate the time you have taken to write to me. I have no ill feelings against Ms Guyon and as far as the filing of a complaint with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, I am wondering who she is thinking may be missing. She is just a girl that has issues, but does not everyone?

Regarding the trial, We have a great defense group and I feel that the court will be fair as the issues surround data that was submitted that was not correct. We have talked to many people on this issue and have come to the joint conclusion that my registrations were not wanton disregard for the law, but data that was incorrectly filed, like the zip code issue and the Mail Box address mix up.

As far as having to go to prison, that is not a reality at this point, as we have reached an agreement that takes care of all of the pending issues. I truly believe that all of the calls and letters to the courts from my clients around the nation who are in support of me and my agenda have helped.

You are right, that there are people like yourself and Bill Bauer and Steven Dark that I will never be able to prove change to, so to those, I simply can only ask you to look at my successes at this time.

Yes, there is a possibility that I could spend some time in county jail for the registration issue, however, if the judge feels that is the best interest of the situation then I will simply do the time.

My advocates around the nation are very vocal and I am assisting many people. I have another pending book deal and a movie is in the works. All because of the public stance that I have taken on offender reform.

As far as the rip off report, I have no control what Ed does in his magical world. I have moved on to bigger and better things.

So, I will deal with the cards of life as they fall and I always am up front with my clients and the people I assist, however, they say time and time again… we could care less what happened 10 years ago, and if I need to spend a few months in a county jail, then that is what I will do. But you can better believe that my publisher in New York will be taking care of me….just like most people that truly get to know me.

So no, I do not think that I will be working at a jiffy lube or a Mc Donalds, as I have so much to offer this world that we live in. And the good news is that I am 100 percent open about everything, and in America, people respect and honor that. That establishes trust and SHOWS that I am absolutely clear on my mission of helping the less fortunate. Just look at the work that we have done on the Rick Koerber and Franklin Squires Projects. Look at the other foundations that we are now aligned with. Look at the constant investigative data that we provide to stop this abuse that is going on. People DO see past the past, John.

In conclusion, let me state that the courts around the nation have looked at the reasonableness of devoiding someone the right to access what is essentially the worlds communication system, the internet, and even the supreme court has chimed in on this issue, and a ruling like that id outside the bounds of reasonableness, in today’s world, especially when I am living in an internet environment.

I am going to post this commentary on the blogs as well as your letter. I think that it will give people direct insight as to the reasons that you have chosen to take two years to pursue me, just go back and re-read the letter (that we will also post for our readers) that you wrote to the Utah Attorney General.

A simple posting on the Rip Off Report…. And all you had to do was call and it could have been resolved in two days.

John, I wish you the absolute best that life has to offer. I wish you success in all that you do and I have absolutely no ill will feelings toward you or your loved ones.

I am sure I will see you at the trial..

With Warmest Regards,

Robert Paisola
CEO
The Western Capital Foundation
www.PrisonPartners.com

Free Lessons On The Secret Today! Posted By Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:06:00 +0000

As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, Where is the Limit? Posted by Robert Paisola

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:18:00 +0000

As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, Where's the News?

Citizen-generated content has a significant role to fill in the dissemination of information. But they won't replace traditional media.

Wa are in the very early days of citizen journalism (or grassroots media, or we media, or whatever you choose to call it). Everyday people are taking photos of and writing about their experiences in natural disasters and other news events, then submitting them to news organizations, Web sites, and blogs. And most often, they're not getting paid for it.Oh, sure, there are psychic rewards.

The hurricane survivor who submits a photograph to MSNBC.com or a text account of his personal experience to BBC News gets public exposure and even maybe a bit of temporary "fame." The community member who submits an analysis of a local zoning proposal to Backfence.com's Reston (Virginia) citizen-news site gets some added community credibility, as fellow citizens perhaps perceive her as an expert.

Other views of blogs:

Bloggers here to stay by John Naughton
All the news that's fit to blog by Charles Cooper

The jury is way out on what business models, if any, work for blogs and citizen journalism. The noise-to-signal ratio in the new media forms remains alarmingly high. And it's time to stop this silly stuff about replacing big media. Says who? Contrarian me or some other nostalgic MSM dinosaur? No, that's Dan Gillmor, the justly acclaimed author of "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People," who quit a comfortable day job chronicling new technologies for a more active involvement. "We're on the verge of something," as he put it during a daylong conference on new media matters in San Antonio in August. "I'm trying to clear away the underbrush so people can do it."This was to be a breakthrough year for citizen journalism. It is the subject of deep-think conference after deep-think conference. Traditional media have roused from their slumber and are indulging in the most sincere form of flattery, getting urgent about bringing blogs or citizen-written sites into their mix.

But as candid reporter Gillmor notes, the future hasn't arrived just yet. Especially for a straight news report, blogs and citizen journalism are showing limitations. What seems on a faster development track is adaptation of the new forms into MSM online operations together with some artful combinations of civilian and professional input.Let's start with a positive. Armed with cell phones or other digi-cams, citizens can be counted on to enrich coverage of events like last winter's tsunami, the London subway bombings and Hurricane Katrina, with still photos and streaming video.

To my eyes, ABC's "World News Tonight" wove roughly equal volumes of their own and civilian film into a seamless report the evening of the subway attacks. For this kind of story, video civilian-reporters appear here to stay.

In news with words, achievements are more sporadic. Blog reports can also provide an unmediated, granular ground-level view on huge stories like Katrina or the Iraq war. It is not as if mainstream media has dropped the ball on either of these, but the blogs are a useful supplement, for instance, filling out the perspective of soldiers on the ground.Traditional media have roused from their slumber and are indulging in the most sincere form of flattery, getting urgent about bringing blogs or citizen-written sites into their mix.

Consistently breaking significant stories is tougher. Sure, there was Rathergate. But what reporting coups have you scored lately, blogosphere? Judge Richard Posner in his bombastic essay on old and new media in The New York Times Book Review did make at least one solid point. The Bush/National Guard story played perfectly to one of the blog world's strengths -- bringing people with an arcane area of expertise (old typewriters, in this instance) onto the case quickly.As a news medium, blogs and citizen journalism have some soft spots widely noted and others perhaps less obvious.

Content that is factual, reported, verified, placed in context and therefore credible is a sometime thing. As Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism (not necessarily a booster himself) has noted, enthusiasts have an answer for that: after-the-fact discussion and criticism is an alternate form of checking what gets asserted in blogs. Also, the cream rises -- the best and most insightful practitioners get the good reputations and big audiences.It is hardly original to observe the deep affinity of the blogging form with let-me-vent opinion riffs and back-and-forth, so's-your-old-man exchanges.

Of course, these often veer to outright incivility. That creates a host's dilemma -- let the rude and profane post along with everyone else, or go to the expense and trouble of policing comments, courting the wrath of those whose microphone is shut off. A few favorite bloggers (Romenesko and Wonkette, for two) are disciplined about always keeping entries tight and letting the links provide amplification.

However, many blog essayists with worthwhile things to say choose to say those things at inordinate length. But then, blogging is a form of expression exempt from the crusty city editor who tosses back your copy and says, "How about cutting this sucker to 12 inches?" My colleagues Bill Mitchell and Bob Steele took a shot earlier this year at a discussion paper on ethics for bloggers.

But before one reaches intriguing questions such as whether the content of links ought to be verified just as facts are in a traditional story, there is the threshold issue of what fraction of the blogging community wants to hold itself to standards comparable to the best practices of MSM. New media giants Google and Yahoo! take a conservative tack on the value of blogs as compared to traditional news. Google News links only to professionally edited sources.

Yahoo! recently announced improvements to make locating blogs of interest easier, but continues to fence them from real, professional content.The broad acceptance of anonymity in Web formats baffles me. What's so nifty about that?

Especially if it is license to shoot from cover in criticism, a practice nearly any newspaper code on anonymous sources would discourage or prohibit.While I'm not nearly as involved as Gillmor, I'm getting pessimistic, too, about harnessing the sprawl of blogs and citizen journalism into something comprehensive -- a homely virtue of a newspaper front page or, in real time, Web sites like those published by CNN or The New York Times....There is the threshold issue of what fraction of the blogging community wants to hold itself to standards comparable to the best practices of MSM.

The astonishing Wikipedia functions well on breaking news. One morning's entry on Terry Schaivo this summer included an overnight ruling too late for that day's papers. Its coverage of John Roberts' nomination and confirmation was cumulative rather than episodic. The start-up Wikinews still has conspicuous holes, however.

In the first week in August, the site had entries on Rafael Palmeiro's steroid suspension and John Bolton's appointment as United Nations ambassador, but was silent on the day-to-day effort to patch Challenger in outer space.RSS (really simple syndication) promises to provide the reader an individualized report -- a story list, actually -- with whatever mix of traditional and non-traditional sources you choose.

That may become a widely adopted technology before long -- but this has not turned into the year of the RSS, as an earlier piece of mine suggested might happen.

A recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that only 9 percent of online users knew what RSS was, let alone had set up an RSS reader. (Recent Nielsen research has countered that as many as 83 percent of RSS users of My Yahoo! or other banded products don't know it by that name.)

Some of the pioneer online efforts at community journalism sites suffer a different problem. At the same San Antonio conference, when the topic of super-local sites came up, display pages from NorthwestVoice.com of Bakersfield, Calif., and MyMissourian.com were projected on a screen. Lead stories included "Another Pet Missing, Perhaps Stolen," plus "New 'Harry Potter' is Magnificent," and pictures from a local family's summer vacation.

Even as unperfected news forms, blogs and citizen journalism are exerting great influence.At a later meeting, publishers of the two sites were candid about what Clyde Bentley of MyMissourian.com called the banal quality of many submissions. But both sites, by policy, accept anything contributors think worth posting, since participation is a big part of the point. Mary Lou Fulton, of the Bakersfield site, said a content mix of "everyday concerns and everyday victories" has succeeded in drawing an audience, too.Even as unperfected news forms, blogs and citizen journalism are exerting great influence.

2005 has become a year in which many newspaper Web sites have faced the music that shovel-ware from the morning paper is not sufficient and have picked up the pace in originating other kinds of content. There are small movements forward in adopting the informal, conversational tone of much Web writing.

The Chicago Tribune began blogging afternoon baseball games -- in a sassy style that makes a visit a quick work break. This spring, The New York Times' site ran an audio feature, several minutes of its baseball writer just chatting about what ailed the Yankees (against a slide show of still photos). More recently, the Times' Elisabeth Bumiller provided an instant audio analysis of the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court.

On a more serious topic, the Times' Nicholas Kristof carries his crusade against the sexual enslavement of third-world girls into extra depth online that a twice-a-week newspaper column would not accommodate.

The Dallas Morning News editorial page department now has its writers blogging outward and reader discussion blogged in -- a logical attempt in editorial page editor Keven Ann Willey’s view to get more opinion and more free-flowing opinion than traditional formats allow. Citizen journalism and blogs remain something big, even if that something isn't a news medium.My hometown St. Petersburg Times (owned by Poynter), has a hit on its hands with an online discussion hosted by the Pinellas County superintendent of schools, Clayton Wilcox.

A recent request for comment on the district's attendance plan drew 381 posts. The Times is now experimenting with other topics, basically serious, in a site titled
www.itsyourtimes.com.After the London subway attack, the paper version of the Times carried a compelling account by a local young woman living abroad who had been trapped underground -- as told to a veteran reporter.

Get me rewrite. That might have happened anyhow, but Times editors had piloted the format several months earlier with a teenager's account of watching a crime out of an upstairs window.We're only just beginning on such citizen-professional collaborations, which, in my view, have enormous potential both ways -- enriched content and perspective for MSM venues and a little shaping and refining that can kick what's raw in blogs and citizen journalism up a notch in news value and focus.Citizen journalism and blogs remain something big, even if that something isn't a news medium. At a minimum, they compete for time and attention, and influence an expectation by readers to be talked with conversationally rather than talked at, a development that would be imprudent for MSM to ignore.

Blog buzz has become a supplementary stream of content that younger users, especially, are comfortable mingling with professional journalism. And, of course, content-light offerings like Craigslist and Google drain advertising and threaten the traditional media business model that pays for costly news-gathering.

True statements can be defamatory by implication

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:11:00 +0000

True statements can be defamatory by implication

The state high court ruled last week that plaintiffs can sue for defamation by implication under Iowa law, even if the statements are true.

March 12, 2007 · Private- and public-figure plaintiffs in Iowa can now sue for "defamation by implication" even if all if the statements in question are true, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The court said that if a true fact is not properly or thoroughly explained, it can become defamatory if, read a certain way, it carries false implications.

In the opinion, the court was careful to emphasize that its ruling applied to public officials and public figures – groups that have traditionally enjoyed less protection under libel law.
However, the court also stressed that the case at hand might not constitute defamation by implication.

In 2002, the Ames Tribune refused to print a column by freelance sports columnist Todd Stevens. Shortly afterward, Stevens resigned and the newspaper ran his farewell column alongside an op-ed by sports editor Susan Harman that said Stevens rarely attended the events that were featured in his column. She also wrote that the newspaper had refused to publish the contested column because it "contained numerous factual errors and unsubstantiated claims."
Stevens sued Harman, Tribune editor Erik Brooks, and the newspaper's parent company, Iowa Newspapers Inc., for defamation.

Stevens alleged that although it was true that he rarely attended the events he covered, Harman's statement was defamatory because she failed to mention that Stevens' "personal attendance was not required by professional standards."

A trial court initially granted summary judgment for Harman, Brooks and the newspaper. But on appeal, both the intermediate court and the Supreme Court held that although Harman's statements about Brooks "were all basically true," they possibly became libelous "when the statements are given the spin that Stevens attributes to them."

Consequently, the court "expressly adopt[ed] the principle of defamation by implication."
The court insisted, however, that the defamation alleged by Stevens did not necessarily constitute defamation by implication.

The case was sent back to the lower court for consideration under the defamation by implication standard.

(Stevens v. Iowa Newspapers, Inc., Media Counsel: Michael C. Cox, Koley Jessen, Omaha, Nebraska) -- ES

Lible, Slander, Whats the Difference, Posted By Robert Paisola ReputationMD.COM

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:45:00 +0000

Concerning a reaction against an online copyright violation, we discuss the expressions Libel! Slander! Defamation! Libel is an action for causing hurt or damage to someones reputation. Just like assault is an action for physical harm or damage. There are two forms of the Libelous action If the action is in writing, it is called "defamation": If the action is spoken, then it is "slander". But it is all "libel". The truth is not always a defence in a libel action. The court can find against you even if you tell the truth if the damage can be proved and you the libeler cannot mount an adequate defence. This does vary a lot from country to country. The USA has laws that allow you to say quite a lot before a court would find against you. You would have a number of defenses against a libel (Defamation, we will treat your email as the written word) in this case. (BTW the moderator would end up in court with you for "publishing" your "defamation"). The first would be "truth" good in the USA, not so good in Canada. "Qualified priviledge" (a) Performance of a duty (to your fellow list members) (b) Protection of an interest (statments made in self defence)(c) Common Interest (your fellow list members needed to be warned) (d) Public Interest (Very good in the USA not so good elswhere).(e) News "There is no stopping the publication of accurate news"-*Flemming the Law of Torts.544 para 4) (Whew goes the moderator) All in all, an action probably would not succeed, it might only waste time and money. The man's retort to your complaint would go very much against him. If I were on the jury, you would have my vote. Do not get carried away. What ever you say or write must not be any "improper motive" it must not be "malicious". The issue has been exposed. You have an action in copyright. You have said what needed to be said. You must now take that action or drop the issue (or at least the company and individual names.(unless you are responding or there is a further or continuing theft). Sorry for the length, but it seems an issue with a lot of interest. A counter action for breach of copyright should seal the matter. If you win, the man is a thief! This time the court says he is a thief. He cannot sue the court for defamation (or slander for that matter).

State Representative Vicki Truitt Introduces Blogger Libel Bill

noreply@blogger.com (RobertPaisola.com) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:32:00 +0000

State Representative Vicki Truitt Introduces Blogger Libel Bill

AUSTIN — State Representative Vicki Truitt has introduced a bill for the next legislature that would subject bloggers to the same libel laws as major media outlets.

Michael Davis at Dallas Progress has more details, along with a roundup of blogger reaction.

Text of the bill
80R555 CAE-D

By: Truitt H.B. No. 129

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT relating to defamatory statements posted on Internet websites.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Chapter 73, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is amended by adding Section 73.0045 to read as follows:

Sec. 73.0045. LIABILITY OF AUTHOR OF WEBSITE POSTING. (a)
The author of a defamatory statement expressed on an Internet website is subject to a libel suit in the same manner as if the author had published the defamatory statement in any other written or graphic form.

(b) A party that prevails in a libel suit against the author of a defamatory statement on an Internet website is entitled to an order by the court requiring the author to:
(1) remove the posting from the Internet website; or
(2) request the Internet website to remove the defamatory statement.

SECTION 2. This Act applies only to a libel suit commenced on or after the effective date of this Act. A libel suit that commenced before the effective date of this Act is governed by the law applicable to the libel suit immediately before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose.

SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2007.

__________

For more information on Removal of Lible on the Internet see www.ReputationMD.com