Ad agency drops lawsuit against Maine blogger
There’s a new case study for how blogs work — particularly how the blogosphere support network can raise one blog’s visibility.
A man in Maine, at the far northeastern corner of the U.S., writes a blog called Maine Web Report. His name is Lance Dutson. The blog was not at all well-known before this series of events propelled it into the spotlight. On May 1, Dutson wrote:
Technorati is showing 256 blogs right now if you search “Lance Dutson”, that’s pretty hefty, since before last week that number was somewhere around 2. The blogosphere has erupted about this lawsuit.
Dutson wrote some critical blog posts about the Maine Office of Tourism. In response to those posts, an advertising agency (Warren Kremer Paino Advertising) filed a federal lawsuit against Dutson.
That’s when the network went into action. After Dutson’s own post about the lawsuit, one blog after another (Instapundit, BuzzMachine, Sean Coon, Shel Israel and many more) linked to him and publicized his situation. High-power attorneys took on his case. The Media Bloggers Association, of which Dutson is a member, came to his aid.
Now the ad agency has dropped the lawsuit. It’s finished, and the case will not go to court.
I don’t presume to speak for or against what Dutson wrote — I know nothing about Maine tourism or the ad agency in question. What this case clearly shows us, however, is that even a lone blogger with a small audience cannot be squashed like a bug and his point of view erased. Freedom of speech may still be protected in the United States, if this case is a bellwether.
A blogger’s right to speak against government actions, or the actions of a government agency or contractor, is protected under the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and free press. An expensive lawsuit could force a person to stop speaking out. If you want to shut someone’s mouth, just threaten his livelihood. That’s what a lawsuit does — an average American can’t afford trial lawyers’ fees.
In this case, Lance Dutson (and his right to speak, write, blog) was saved by the willingness of lawyers to pledge to support his case — without making Dutson pay. That happened because his case became well-known — a cause célèbre, publicized in the blogosphere.
So the next time you hear or read that blogs are dead, that blogs have no power, than one man’s voice does not matter … remember the Maine blogger.
Technorati tags: blogs | First Amendment | freedom of speech | lawsuits
Fascinating and I’m going to post about this.
Meanwhile, everyone ignores the 7 attempts the government and big business have made to shut down my blawg. Click on the American Tower example, and watch “Oreo” at KingCast.net.
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/04/naacp-trial-7-attempts-to-chill-first.html
You want First Amendment Law it doesn’t get more raw than the stuff I did:
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/05/freedom-forum-and-daily-kos-responses.html
You’re getting blogrolled. Nice site.
Peace.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/christopher1/c7ffbf8b.jpg
BTW nobody’s got a website/blawg like mine. And the government and big business clearly hate it. I was a reporter for a daily and a photojournalist for a weekly back in the late 80’s before Law School, where I helped write a successful Ohio Supreme Court case for Terry Gilbert, Esq. with the ACLU (State v. Lessin) being taught at some universities and prior to being an Assistant Attorney General, which was all prior to being a vigilant Civil Rights lawyer and getting dissed.
You gotta go to KingCast.net to make sense of it because there has been so much activity in my life it’s crazy.
May 12, 2006 at 5:25 am