State of Maine Sues Blogger for $1.5M

A coastal Maine blogger who criticized the state’s tourism
office has been hit with a lawsuit seeking potentially more than $1 million
in damages for allegedly making false statements and posting on his website,
Maine Web Report, images from proposed tourism advertisements a New York
agency prepared for Maine officials.

The case raises the issue of how free speech protection will be applied
in the proliferating world of weblogs, or blogs, and underscores the growing
influence of bloggers on business and government.

”It’s a reflection of the extent to which businesses are
taking critiques from the blogosphere very seriously," said John
G. Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman
Center for Internet & Society
at Harvard Law School. ”Bloggers have gained enormous power."

Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC, an agency hired by the Maine Department
of Tourism, filed suit in US District Court in Maine last week, alleging
the blogger, Lance Dutson of Searsmont, Maine, outside Camden, violated
the agency’s copyright and defamed the agency in blog entries self-published
at www.mainewebreport.com.

from the Boston Globe

Maine Web Report

John Palfry blog

This
is the image, pulled from the Maine Department of Economic and
Community Development website, that Dutson re-published. It features
a phone sex number instead of the real number to call for Maine tourism
information.
No
wonder the
state is embarassed.