A common theme here is that we’re no longer subject to the old model where there are few publishers and many consumers. Now anyone can be a publisher, and in an era where anyone can be a publisher, many things that were based on a system with only a few publishers don’t make sense.

Now we see it again. In an era where anyone can be a publisher, anyone can now also take on the risks associated with that role. This kind of lawsuit, whether it makes sense for the plaintiff or not, is one of those risks.

In this specific case, you might be able to come up with an obvious legislative or legal change that will solve the issue in the future. In the general case, this presents a difficult problem to solve. Being a publisher can expose you to risks that can’t simply be legislated away. For example, you could publish something that hurts your reputation, or make someone angry enough to break the law.

Under the old system, the few publishers typically had enough resources to defend against many of the smaller finacial risks, or take out insurance to help absorb some larger ones. With the new system, this isn’t always the case. A single serious lawsuit could bankrupt anyone before they have a chance to have it dismissed. Additionally, many new ‘publishers’ are ill-equipped to even fully evaluate what the risks are.

Actually this is missing a big piece of this story. One of the local radio stations reported his story as fact and I think that’s what the big fuss is about.

This was no satire. This was plain misinformation, defamatory and damaging, at that.

I can’t see how such behavior can be condoned, by any yardstick. Stupidity alone can’t be a reason to seek pardon. Sometimes it needs to be punished. In this case, most certainly so.

And this joker has even gone one step ahead by assuming another man’s identity. I simply cannot see why this should be treated lightly and not be brought up before a court of law.

IMHO, this was not an overreaction at all. People ought to realize that they cannot get away with anything simply because the Net offers the advantage of anonymity.

man you guys. It’s one thing for something to be satire. It’s another thing entirely to make up a fake story and append a real newspaper and real reporter’s name to it. Imagine for a minute I decided to create a hoax where I claimed I was Mike, the guy who runs Techdirt. Then I went around to a bunch of kiddie porn sites asking for stuff. That would be wrong. It would be defamation.

The Daily Oklahoman sports writer almost certainly has a pro-OK slant to his stories. To write a pro-Nebraska story using his name sullies his reputation. If people thought this was real, there would almost certainly be some who demand he be fired from the paper.

Creating a hoax site/story is one thing. Making it look like a real-live writer wrote it is another.

Coming from the North to attend OU, I was amazed at the perhaps zealous nature of OU fans. Everything in Oklahoma is centered around sports, whether from OU, OSU, or TU. So it is not difficult at all to see the newspaper, which is so heavily tied to OU, be in a tissy.

On another note, that newspaper is one of the absolute worst. The errors and blatant bias in the reporting make it worth nothing more than doggy doo doo paper; except the paper is so thin it is barely useful for that either.

Maybe if the Gaylord family gives more money, OU will name the football team to the OU Gay Lords.

tankyoo