Glenn Beck may not have murdered and raped a young girl in 1990, but he sure is trying to murder the website that discusses evidence of it. Lawyers representing Beck have filed a domain name dispute, claiming that the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com violates his trademark.
And according to the website in question, they also contacted the website hosting service, the datacenter, and the domain name registrar. Apparently the registrar took down the domain name briefly.
There is an important issue here (somewhere). You can use a trademark in order to protest against the owner of that trademark, but what is the boundary between protest and libel? This, of course, is part of the larger question of the boundary between free speech and defamation. The website is clearly a protest, and contains a clear notice to that effect, but is the domain name itself defamatory?
And the whole thing is ironic because Beck himself depends on the law giving him a huge amount of leeway in what he says on the air. If Beck wins this lawsuit, could he be opening himself up to similar lawsuits from people that he has clearly defamed?
UPDATE: If you are interested in following the legal wrangling on this, here is an excellent web page.
9 Comments
This stuff is insane! Glenn Beck a RAP ARTIST?????? I don’t think so. Maybe an olygarh but not a rap artist. Anybody with any sense knows Glenn didn’t rape and murder a girl, he actually didn’t do that to 7 girls in Ohio, Iowa, Kansas,Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama. If you take the first letter of each state (in this order only)you get an anagram that gives proof of what he did in 1921. OIKTOGA! Damn, how could the authorities miss this?
My new website: glennbecktherapartist.com
like hampster dance but with a fat white guy
A libel suit wouldn’t likely go anywhere. Beck is a public figure (who have a much more difficult time winning any type of defamation lawsuit) and there is no actual damage.
If it wasn’t such a waste of resources, I’d like to see it go to court anyway just to have him cross-examined on his “journalistic” method and credentials.
Satire and defamation of character are two different thing. I hope he sues and wins
I hope he sues because he would clearly lose. In more ways than one: not just the lawsuit, but because he depends on being able to get away with defaming people all the time.
Yes, there is a difference between satire and defamation of character. Case in point: This website is clearly satire. What Beck does crosses over into defamation.
After I heard about all the Glenn Beck stuff, I decided to do a little digging in local papers and stuff. There’s a police report from Durham floating around ( I think it’s a fake) but it led me to look into the newspaper archives. I’m not saying Glenn Beck had anything to do with it, necessarily, but it’s an odd coincidence.
Police find dismembered body in Durham Reservoir
Published: Tuesday, March 20, 1990
DURHAM, N.H. (AP) – Following an exhaustive search by divers and chain dragging of Durham Reservoir, police have found the remains of an unidentified young woman who officials say appears to be in her late teens to early twenties.
The search was prompted after a local man walking his dog near the reservoir saw a suspicious object floating in the water, causing him to call the police. The object proved to be a human arm.
“Without a doubt, this is the most grisly murder I’ve seen in years,” said Police Chief Paul Gown. “Whoever did this has some serious problems.”
While the police refused to speculate about the cause of death before an autopsy is conducted, Gowen did note that there were clear signs of sexual assault. The remains were found in black plastic trash bags at the bottom of the lake, weighted with rocks.
“We encourage anyone who knows anything about this case to come forward so we can bring this innocent young girl peace in the hereafter,” Gowen said. “Our first priority is identifying this poor girl and bringing her family some closure.”
Police officials say they are reviewing missing persons reports from the past year in hopes of identifying the body.
The Police Department encourages anyone with information regarding the case to call at (919) 560-4427.
You people who write this stupid garbage are idiots just like the people who passed the “healthcare” bill. You will never have freedom bcuz you are too busy taking it for granted. You might want to reconsider your retardedness.
Substitute Barak Obama or Jon Stewart for Glenn Beck in the title and see how long it stays online. Liberal hypocrites!
Darkstar, you make up a fictional situation, accuse liberals of your fictional transgression, and then call them hypocrites? Seriously?
And if you actually read my posting, you would have noticed that I was not slamming Glenn Beck, that this is an interesting case, and I was not taking sides against Beck.
Besides, that domain name was taken down. So if a similar domain with Jon Stewart or Barack (not Barak) Obama’s name in it was created and then also taken down, where would the hypocrisy be?
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