Distress Caused by Copying MySpace Article

[kindsvater]

Every once in a while a Warrior posts a question about copying articles, and whether it matters if full attribution to the author is given. Here is an interesting twist from California - not involving copyright - where the copying and giving attribution generated a lawsuit.

The opinion is here: http://lawzilla.com/blog/

In short, a college student posted an article on her MySpace page about how much she hated her small hometown. A few days later she took it down.

However, the local high school principal copied the article and had it published in the local paper - with the name of the girl who wrote it.

Due to the publicity the girl's family received death threats and they lost their family business. They then sued.

The California Court of Appeals ruled there was no invasion of privacy as the article was originally publicly posted on MySpace.

But, the court ruled the case could proceed on an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim because a jury might rule that the principal's actions were extreme and outrageous.

Even if the principal wins at trial, he loses, because if a claim is allowed to go to a jury that means tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses.

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In other words, when you copy an article you think is interesting, there can be all sorts of unexpected results, and liability you never expected outside of copyright law.

[Paul Hancox]

Well, the principal could have took the radical step of...

... getting her permission first.

I'm no lawyer, but I bet the court case wouldn't have got very far if he'd asked permission in the first place.

[CashTactics]

That's crazy that it went that far with the principle. You would think that there would be some problem due to not asking the girls permission. Interesting though. Thanks for posting that.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by CashTactics

That's crazy that it went that far with the principle. You would think that there would be some problem due to not asking the girls permission. Interesting though. Thanks for posting that.

You'd think the editor of the paper would have sought permission too. I mean, there are newspapers that whine about sites linking to them, and here a newspaper goes and publishes content without permission of its author.

But, the lawsuit wasn't over copyright. I think the point of the OP was that there could be issues beyond copyright that bear consideration when publishing others' works without consent.

[Devon Brown]

What's a principal doing on a student's myspace page?