{"id":2842,"date":"2006-04-28T21:18:52","date_gmt":"2006-04-29T01:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2006\/04\/28\/state-of-maine-sues-blogger-for-15m\/"},"modified":"2006-04-28T21:18:52","modified_gmt":"2006-04-29T01:18:52","slug":"state-of-maine-sues-blogger-for-15m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2006\/04\/28\/state-of-maine-sues-blogger-for-15m\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Maine Sues Blogger for $1.5M"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

A coastal Maine blogger who criticized the state’s tourism
\n office has been hit with a lawsuit seeking potentially more than $1 million
\n in damages for allegedly making false statements and posting on his website,
\n Maine Web Report<\/a>, images from proposed tourism advertisements a New York
\n agency prepared for Maine officials.<\/p>\n

The case raises the issue of how free speech protection will be applied
\n in the proliferating world of weblogs, or blogs, and underscores the growing
\n influence of bloggers on business and government.<\/p>\n

”It’s a reflection of the extent to which businesses are
\n taking critiques from the blogosphere very seriously," said John
\n G. Palfrey<\/a>, executive director of the Berkman
\n Center<\/a> for Internet & Society
\n at Harvard Law School. ”Bloggers have gained enormous power."<\/p>\n

Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC, an agency hired by the Maine Department
\n of Tourism, filed suit in US District Court in Maine last week, alleging
\n the blogger, Lance Dutson of Searsmont, Maine, outside Camden, violated
\n the agency’s copyright and defamed the agency in blog entries self-published
\n at www.mainewebreport.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

from the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n

Maine Web Report<\/a><\/p>\n

John Palfry blog<\/a><\/p>\n

This
\n is the image, pulled from the Maine Department of Economic and
\n Community Development website, that Dutson re-published. It features
\n a phone sex number instead of the real number to call for Maine tourism
\n information.
\n No
\n wonder the
\n state is embarassed.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A coastal Maine blogger who criticized the state’s tourism office has been hit with a lawsuit seeking potentially more than $1 million in damages for allegedly making false statements and posting on his website, Maine Web Report, images from proposed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}