What Constitutes Internet Slander

**dragons5** · 09-27-2005, 06:48 AM

My name is Joe "Dragon S5" Youngblood. I am decently well known among the on-line gaming community. About a month and a half ago we had a gamer begin abusing our services.

We promptly banned this person who claimed to be a hacker, changed thier IP and came back. we spent weeks gaining the needed information on him to send to SBC (His ISP), and I have even went as far as to contact his mom and her live-in boyfriend to stop this (they claim he lives down the streeet, but SBC confirms the IP's he uses originate at that address) Finally his moms boyfriend seemed to make headway when he recieved notice that we were asking SBC to open an investigation into the abuse of their TOS and AUP.

Apparently this stopped the kid from abusing our services almost immediately until two days ago when he posted this on the internet: http://media.putfile.com/dragons5

He came back to our servers to distribute the above link. In this poor excuse for a rap song the kid claims to be me and begins making vulgar statements about who I am and what I do, one of those is "...I rape young small men"

I have contacted the site host who told me in an email "The file does not violate our TOS, while it may be slander that is not in violation of our TOS. Ask the file creator to request deletion"

What can I do? Is the host site liable? can I threaten legal action on the parents of this malicious teen? It has not been listened too very much, but I am afraid of this damaging my online reputation as I am set to launch a streaming radio station on Oct. 14th ( www.radiorevolt.com )

Thanks for the help and the great site,
Joe "Dragon S5" Youngblood
www.teamnoclan.com

**Mr. Knowitall** · 09-27-2005, 02:48 PM

Where does the teen live? Is he under the age of 18?

**dragons5** · 09-27-2005, 07:26 PM

New Britain Conneticut and yes he claims to be 16, but I would guess closer to 14. A female teenager who visits our servers, and uses them nicely, claims to be his sister and that he is a year older than her. That was confirmed by one Mr. Dave Codens, the person who owns the internet service the male uses. The girl lives two streets away with her grandparents. Dave claims they are brother and sister but that the male is 12 and the female is 13 and that neither of them live with him. The female has a webcam and turned it on via a brief MSN video+voice conference with me and some of my admins to prove she is turning 15 soon. She ever showed us her yearbook from her 8th grade year. so we know she tells us the truth.

I know that was too much info. sry.

**Mr. Knowitall** · 09-28-2005, 09:43 AM

Connecticut law provides,

Quoting Sec. 52-572. Parental liability for torts of minors.

(a) The parent or parents or guardian, other than a temporary guardian appointed pursuant to section 45a-622, of any unemancipated minor or minors, which minor or minors wilfully or maliciously cause damage to any property or injury to any person, or, having taken a motor vehicle without the permission of the owner thereof, cause damage to the motor vehicle, shall be jointly and severally liable with the minor or minors for the damage or injury to an amount not exceeding five thousand dollars, if the minor or minors would have been liable for the damage or injury if they had been adults.

(b) This section shall not be construed to relieve the minor or minors from personal liability for the damage or injury.

(c) The liability provided for in this section shall be in addition to and not in lieu of any other liability which may exist at law.

(d) As used in this section, "damage" shall include depriving the owner of his property or motor vehicle or of the use, possession or enjoyment thereof.

Granted, the total damages which can follow from this statute are limited, but they are more than most parents would want to pay. (And there may be other claims, such as negligent supervision, available which could increase their liability.) You may wish to consider having a Connecticut lawyer send the parents a letter advising them of their potential liability if they do not ensure that their son's conduct ends.