Freedom of Speech, My Asterisk*

I received an interesting post email yesterday morning from Law Blog that I think is worthy of some discussion. A disgruntled basketball fan started a blog called FireGeorgeKarl.com because he’s unhappy with the Denver Nuggets record of 35-24, which is not that bad, I mean at least they’re not the Knicks.

Apparently this blog got the attention of George Karl’s attorney, Bret Adams, and here is his email response to the blog’s author:

Is your life really this boring and meaningless that you would spend the hours necessary to create such a website? As Coach Karl’s counsel I am putting you on notice that I will sue you into bankruptcy should you cross the boundaries of permissible speech.

Law Blog then ‘reached out to Adams’ and this is the response they received, in part:

While George Karl may be a public figure within the sports community, there are limits to what is fair comment under New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). Many cases quote from the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 59 that a statement is defamatory if it tends to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or deter third persons from associating or dealing with him …free speech has its limits….and there are boundaries and consequences.

I work in a legal environment and I read about cases of people being sued because of public defamation, and winning. I think freedom of speech is good up until someone gets tired of listening to you and what people may not realize is that there are limitations.

How do you feel about freedom of speech and blogging? Does the First Amendment really protect your free speech? What about comments from readers on your blog? Has someone ripped apart your reputation because they didn’t agree with your post? Has someone bashed you on another blog? How would you handle it?

The author of FireGeorgeKarl said that his blog is not a personal attack on Karl, but more so about his dissatisfaction with his coaching and it doesn’t appear that Karl is going to file charges. It does however bring up a lot of questions about the future of blogging. Lawyers, you gotta love ‘em!

* Law of the Blog

Nets Win in OT!

Talk about waiting to exhale. One thing I do love about October is that basketball season starts and I get to manage my fantasy basketball teams. One year I managed 16 or 18 teams and decided that I was crazy and could not do that any more, so I limit myself to four teams.

Tonight was the NJ Nets home opener against the Chicago Bulls and I am somehow convinced that my watching or not watching the game has an affect on the outcome, whether the Nets win or lose. Even though the game went into OT, I could just feel that they would win. Sometimes the Nets play to win and some times they play to keep from losing. Tonight they played to win!

As for the players, Wallace combed his hair, as he does for most road games, he still looks like a werewolf. Collins decided not to comb his hair. His hair looked like it was blow dried and then the power went out and he said, oh well. He needs to be benched. Jefferson, and his confident cocky self, (I do love that about him) had 29 points, a double double for him, Kidd had 13 assists, Wright had a career high of 21 points. I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. Any Nets fans out there?

Final score: Nets 112 - Bulls 103