Word: libeling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Unfortunately, a recent libel case brought against Prodigy in the New York State Supreme Court resulted in a ruling that the on-line service was responsible for a comment posted by an anonymous user. Part of the rationale for the decision was that Prodigy does do some monitoring of its content and therefore, like a publisher, is liable. This decision leaves such companies in the awkward position of having to either leave their content entirely unabridged, or monitor it with a ridiculous degree of stringency. However, there was another, more heartening legal precedent set recently. Federal judge Leonie M. Brinkema...
This was the second article in c't on the program. The first, in October, called it "placebo software"--a catchy appellation that triggered a libel suit and a temporary restraining order. In response to the court challenge, c't's editor, Christian Persson, and one of its writers, Ingo Storm, engaged the services of a software engineer, and together they went through the program line by line to try to plumb its inner workings. Their findings: the one patch of SoftRAM 95 code remotely resembling a compression algorithm never gets used by the program. Moreover, the two subprograms actually...
...legal action against us by a tobacco-industry giant." Wallace, Morley Safer and other CBS newsmen continued to voice their concerns in print and TV interviews, raising alarms that CBS's corporate bosses might be getting weak-kneed in the face of aggressive (and potentially expensive) threats of libel. It was CBS journalists on their most impressive high horse. "The public knows about this story because Mike and I made a calculated decision to tell them," executive producer Don Hewitt told Time in a phone interview early last week. "In most companies, it would be put on a dusty back...
...unusual arrangements with the tobacco-industry source--later revealed to be former Brown & Williamson executive Jeffrey S. Wigand. He was reportedly paid a $12,000 "consultant fee" for work he had done on a previous 60 Minutes segment; was promised that the network would indemnify him against any possible libel suit resulting from the story; and given a pledge that the interview would air only with his permission. When his lawyer asked for a promise that Wigand would be indemnified not only against potential libel suits but also against any lawsuit that might ensue from his breaking of a confidentiality...
...issue, it seems, was not libel. CBS lawyers feared the network might be vulnerable to a suit on the grounds of "tortious interference"--inducing one party to break a legal contract with another. Attorneys are divided over whether the network could successfully have been sued on such grounds. By paying money to Wigand and agreeing to indemnify him against a lawsuit, some contended, CBS had put itself at serious risk. Attorneys who have been involved in litigation against the tobacco industry, however, insisted that the network was needlessly timid. "I think it's appalling they would fold over such...