Court Rejects Lawsuit Claiming Site Falsely Attributed Allegedly Anti-Muslim Statements to Plaintiff
From Goddard v. Interserver.Net, decided yesterday by Judge Evelyn Padin (D.N.J.):
Plaintiff is a California-based technology professional …. Plaintiff is also Jewish. The crux of Plaintiff’s Complaint is that Defendants, through the website spotlighthate.com, “host, maintain, and refuse to remove [information] that falsely portrays Plaintiff as an anti-Muslim bigot and falsely attributes numerous inflammatory statements to him that he never made.” In addition to attributing numerous statements concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Plaintiff, the website labels Plaintiff an “Anti-Muslim Bigot” and “Islamophobe,” which has damaged his reputation; Plaintiff alleges he “has never made any of these statements, harbors no such views, and strongly condemns any form of bigotry, hatred, or discrimination.” Spotlighthate.com also uses a photograph of Plaintiff without his authorization….
Plaintiff sent a detailed “DMCA takedown notice and defamation complaint” to Defendants in which he requested the immediate removal of the defamatory content and unauthorized use of his photograph. A similar request Plaintiff made to X.com was granted. However, Defendants have not removed the defamatory content or responded to Plaintiff’s outreach.
The court rejected plaintiff’s claims. It began with the copyright infringement claim, and held that plaintiff hadn’t adequately alleged a registered copyright, which is required for a copyright lawsuit to be filed. (Unregistered works are protected from infringement, but they need to be registered before the lawsuit is filed, even if they weren’t registered when the alleged infringement happened.) It then went on:
[C.] Right of Publicity/Misappropriation of Likeness …
To establish a claim for misappropriation of likeness under New Jersey common law, a plaintiff “must establish four elements: ‘(1) the defendant appropriated the plaintiff’s likeness, (2) without the plaintiff’s consent, (3) for the defendant’s use or benefit, and (4) damage.'”
Under New Jerse
Article from Reason.com
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