Quote Originally Posted by raymor View Post
In fact, that limit is defined by the rights of the other person. The blogger has the right to say what they will. NATS has a right to do business without malicious interference by someone lying about them, falsely accusing them of making death threats. The right of one person to earn a living probably takes precedence over the right of another to attack them with lies, I would say.
And while the laws of slander, libel, and defamation do, in fact, provide a means of redress for someone who makes false accusations, our legislators have set the standards for proving libel and slander and defamation pretty high, most likely recognizing the chilling effect such laws could have on speech. And that's basically my point. These laws aren't written to prevent someone's feelings from being hurt, they are written to address actual damage to a reputation, and further protect speech by ensuring that unintentional speech isn't punishable.

In this case as I understand it, under the law, unless TMM can prove that the original poster knew what she was saying was false, and intended to harm TMM, then defamation and libel has not occurred. Of course, the problem is, nothing in our current system prevents TMM from dragging her through the courts and bankrupting her, all the while knowing that their case doesn't meet the legal standard, and they will therefore lose. But even if they do lose, the blogger has lost a fortune in legal fees, not to mention the stress of dealing with the situation. And so, even if TMM loses, she still loses also.

I do understand that TMM doesn't want people going around saying nasty things about them. That's obvious given their history of threats of legal action and other actions to silence people. The difference here is that the act of saying nasty things that happen to be true is protected at a very high standard, and the people at TMM are not stupid, and have to know this.

The part I don't get is how anyone with a brain can possibly think that pursuing this course of action can possibly enhance or benefit one's reputation. At best, such a course of action will discourage others from speaking publicly about your product in a negative way, but I would think that the damage to one's reputation that results from going around suing (or threatening to sue) anyone in sight would be far, far worse than the honest expression of opinion or disclosure of fact about your product.