IP: Virginia Court's Decision in Online 'John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech Advocates

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

CYBER LAW JOURNAL

Virginia Court's Decision in Online 'John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech 
Advocates

By CARL KAPLAN
Cyber Law Journal

In what was apparently the first Internet defamation case to involve both 
an anonymous plaintiff and anonymous defendants, the Supreme Court of 
Virginia refused to grant an unidentified company access to America 
Online's confidential subscriber information unless the firm agreed to 
reveal its identity.

The plaintiff in the case, named in court documents only as "Anonymous 
Publicly Traded Company," dropped its efforts to subpoena AOL after 
agreeing on Wednesday to the dismissal of a related case in Indiana. 
Douglas M. Palais, the lawyer for the plaintiff company, declined to 
explain why his client had dropped its case.

While the litigation is no longer pending, the ruling handed down in 
Virginia could set a precedent for similar lawsuits across the country. In 
its decision, the Virginia court said that an anonymous plaintiff could be 
given subpoena power only if it would suffer exceptional harm, such as a 
social stigma or extraordinary economic retaliation, as a result of 
revealing its identity.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/16/technology/16CYBERLAW.html



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