Libel Lawsuits Involving Social Networkers, Bloggers on the Rise

It's not surprising that with the huge influx of people on Twitter and joining the world of blogging that libel lawsuits against people using these forms of expression are on the rise, according to the Media Law Resource Center. One recent example is a lawsuit filed against rock singer Courtney Love. According to court documents, Love carelessly aired her problem with a clothing designer on Twitter and her blog, calling him a thief, liar and drug dealer who has a record of prostitution. A comment I'm sure he's not exactly thrilled about or is helping his business in any way.

Another court case this year concluded with a woman from Ohio being awarded $129,794 after a blogger wrote about her house being haunted. Because the numbers of cases are growing and damages are high, some people such as the Media Bloggers Association are advising full-time bloggers who make a living from their blogs to take out insurance policies to protect them against libel, defamation and copyright infringement. According to this article, sometimes lesser decisions against small-time bloggers or Tweeters can be covered under homeowners' insurance policies, but each should check their individual policy to see what it covers. The Media Bloggers Association partnered up with an insurance company to sell liability coverage policies to bloggers, called BlogInsure. Bloggers have to take a test to prove their knowledge of the pertinent laws before they will be issued a policy. Robert Cox, President of the Media Bloggers Association promoted a free online course called Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers offered at www.newsu.org so that those who are at risk can learn their legal limits. I'm certainly not into blogging or social networking enough to have to worry about insurance policies, but I suppose making sure you're covered against huge monetary judgements is prudent if blogging is your livelihood. Or at least familiarize yourself completely with what constitutes libel. I think it's safe to say that after this course, at least none of us will have to worry.