DramaCrunch?
April 13, 2007
Over the past couple years I have been blogging I have received my share of threatening letters from lawyers. Those threats have caused me to think twice about the sort of posts I write. I read a post from Mike Arrington titled, "CEO of Rivals Involved in Securities Fraud; May Kill Yahoo Acquisition." Ouch, I thought, figuring that the CEO of Rivals and/or the board of Rivals.com would likely sue Mike and his company. Even if the allegation was true, the fact that he was breaking the news that could kill a $100MM pay day for the Rivals.com folks would assure a legal action. The best case scenario would be a costly and time consuming lawsuit and the worst would be a judgement.
Well about two and half hours later Shannon Terry’s lawyers fired off a letter to Mike threatening legal action. Mike posted the letter and said, "I just received the letter below by email, in reference to my previous post on Shannon Terry and Rivals.com. I’m not going to make a statement on this just yet - our lawyers are involved and have advised me to keep quiet for now. I’ll say this much, though. Rivals is no longer my favorite sports news site."
I think this is a good lesson for all bloggers (me included), think twice about the news you break. You may have the right to do it, but do you have the bank account necessary to exercise your right. (Mike does and I suspect it will work out well for him in the end ~ full disclosure: I like Mike)
