Love again...

It seems that this case, or any real court case concerning libel is usually very hard to prove in the court of law. Unfortunately for Courtney Love, it seems that her online ranting went a bit too far to allow her to “cover her tracks” afterwards. After she was sued for character defamation through postings on various public forums by Dawn Simorangkir (whom her attacks were geared towards), she tried to save herself under the anti-SLAPP statute in California, which protects against “free speech”.
The article indicates that there were two things necessary for Love to be granted her motion to strike; her comments must have been made in a public forum, and concerning the public interest. Clearly, Love knew that posting on MySpace, Twitter and Etsy, as she did, would cause her comments to be very exposed to the public, as these are extremely popular social tools. In my opinion, once something is written on the internet, it can not be taken back, and Love is clearly just trying to reach for some kind of “life saver” so she does not get sued. Her actions were not thought out, and she should have to suffer for some consequences, despite her fame and money.

Since this article, the courts denied her motion to strike, and said that her words did not protect public interest. This is probably because she said nothing constructively critical about Simorangkir’s products, but rather just personal attacks on her, her products and her past life. There, however, has been no settlement resulting from this case yet, but my guess will be that they will be in favor of Simorangkir.