Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

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For a blogger, even one with a law degree, a letter with legal threats makes you sweat, particularly the first one. I received my first perceived legal threat from an author over a satirical blog piece I did. The email demanded an apology and retraction, the first steps to a defamation suit. I took the complaint seriously and reviewed all my statements, the original blog post, and contacted a lawyer friend for her opinion. I then responded, forcefully, rebutting the claims and citing the law, and requesting the person to refrain from future contact unless through legal representation.

Since that time, I’ve had numerous legal threats lobbed Dear Authors way and I’ve taken them all seriously which is the way everyone should take a legal threat. Bloggers, however, are not without their resources. For example, there is the anti-SLAPP statutes being enacted around the country. A couple of weeks ago, a federal district judge in Northern California has provided bloggers one more shield.

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know that Victoria Laurie, an author, took the time …

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Do you remember the movie “Election,” with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick? In the first scene Mr. McAllister asks his high school class about the difference between ethics and morals. Ironically, of course, the one student who eagerly attempts to answer the question is also the one who proceeds to make mincemeat of both ethics and morals during the course of the movie, her ambition a veritable engine for her imagination and willingness to do almost anything to secure her class presidency. Tracy Flick sees the future open before her, dependent on winning that race, completely indignant when someone dares run against her, amazingly unself-conscious about the levels to which she’ll ‘stoop to conquer.’

In fact, Tracy continues to see herself as a good person, earnestly praying before bedtime for her “Dear Lord Jesus” to “go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.” In this Tracy exemplifies the difference between morals and ethics: morals relate to one’s personal value system, while ethics relate …

Dear Editor:

I read today on your author, Victoria Laurie’s, website that you have been in discussions with her about a voice mail message that you have received from a blogger called NovelReads about a statement Ms. Laurie made on her website. I felt that Ms. Laurie’s accusations of this reader being a “psycho” and a “cyber stalker” should not go unchallenged. The timeline of events occurs as follows:

1. In July Ms. Laurie takes exception to a review left at Amazon by a reviewer with the handle Butterscotch.

2. In July Ms. Laurie blogs about this reviewer and says these things in a blog post has since been deleted by can be read here via Google Cache). The blog post, in case you do not care to read it, includes the following comments:

And you should never pick a fight with an author….well….because, honey, we know how to get even. ;)

and

And so, come September…my little “fan” and some of her close friends and family will likely read about a character with a very similar name, (i.e. nearly identical but not enough to get me sued) depicted in one of the most comical and fabulously …

Dear Ms. Laurie:

I understand that you have had a lawyer send out a cease and desist and takedown letter to a romance blogger based on two things. First, you argue that the comments that the blogger excerpted from your own website (which you subsequently deleted but Google preserved for all time) are somehow unacceptable infringement.

In this posting you excerpt from a website that is copyright protected, thus violating federal copyright law. There is and has been an existing disclaimer on Ms. Laurie’s website, (www.victorialaurie.com), which states that; “No part of this website may be directly copied or duplicated and all of the content herein is copyright protected.” These quotes you have posted to your blog should be immediately removed or Ms. Laurie will be forced to take appropriate action.

I’m sure your lawyer explained to you the concept of “fair use” and you simply choose to ignore such advice and told the lawyer to go ahead and make the accusation of infringement. Fair use, as your lawyer must know since she references federal copyright law, allows for copyrighted content to be used without permission according to Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright …

MPD Enforcer 2.0 is a blog about the Memphis Police Department and run by an anonymous blogger. The blog has been critical of the MPD, citing examples of sexual harassment and prisoners’ rights violations. The MPD would like to shut down the blog and has filed a lawsuit and subpoenaed the information from AOL.

Those seeking the identity of bloggers have largely been unsuccessful in the courts and Ars Technica posits that this suit will likely meet with the same fate as the others.

For those who say that this isn’t fair, please note that there are no charges of defamation or copyright or any illegal acts that are taking place on the blog. The only alleged wrongdoing is that the blogger is anonymous. And before anyone cries, “but I have the right to face my accuser”, that only applies to you if you are charged with a crime. It’s part of the Sixth Amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, …

The FEC issued two rulings last week that exempt Bloggers from FEC restrictions identifying bloggers as media-like and thus entitled to similar First Amendment protections.

Complaints in front of the Federal Election Commission accused bloggers of being shills for political campaigns and thus should be subject to the federal election rules. The Daily Kos was one of the targets of these complaints. The FEC determined that blog posts are not contributions to the candidate unless the blog is “owned by a political party, committee, or candidate”. What bloggers are doing can be likened to the endorsement of a candidate such as is done by newspapers and other media sources.

Via ArsTechnica.

There is a bill being proffered in both branches of Congress which would provide shields for bloggers who have anonymous sources.
“The intent is that bloggers who are regularly involved in newsgathering and reporting, within the scope of that definition, would be entitled to the privilege,” Rep. Rick Boucher, one of the House bill’s primary sponsors, said in a Friday telephone interview with CNET News.com.
Via ZdNet.