защита чести и достоинства в США
.. для публичных людей
http://red-ptero.livejournal.com/238894.html
Вот это натолкнуло меня на тему.
http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Mike_Godwin/net_public_figures_godwin.article
In a now-famous opinion by Justice William Brennan, the Court held that
libel law, as applied by the courts of Alabama, conflicted with the First
Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. What, then, should the
standards of libel law be? Justice Brennan first noted that "we consider
this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the
principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and
wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes
unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." He could
easily have been describing Usenet in 1994.
Brennan went on to write that "erroneous statement is inevitable in free
debate" (reporters and editors are only human, after all), and that
therefore libel law must accommodate a certain amount of falsehood "if the
freedoms of expression are to have the 'breathing space'" that they need
to survive. Since discussion of public officials and their work is central
to democratic debate, he reasoned, it follows that we should make special
allowances for debate about such officials. A public official can win a
libel lawsuit under the First Amendment, wrote Brennan, only if he or she
can prove "actual malice" on the part of the defendant, where proof of
"actual malice" is defined as proof that the statement was made with
"knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was
false or not." (In other words, the term "actual malice" is defined quite
differently from the older term "malice" mentioned above.)
This rule about public officials was later extended to public figures in
general--the Court recognized that sometimes news stories about highly
public individuals is central to democracy even when the individual
doesn't happen to be a public official. Ross Perot comes to mind as a
recent example of such a public figure.
But this extension of the ruling of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan led to
new problems--how can you tell whether someone's a public figure or not?
Is anyone who's been written about in the press a public figure simply
because some newspaper editor thought a story was newsworthy? If that were
so, there'd be no distinction between public figures and anyone else--the
minute your name appeared in print, you'd be a public figure, and you'd
have to prove "actual malice" (and not, say, mere negligence on the part
of the reporter) in order to win your case.
And in practical terms, proving "actual malice" can be difficult--the
courts are put in the position of inquiring into how much a reporter knew
or didn't know at the time of the story, and into the reporter's attitudes
at the time of the story. That's why libel lawsuits involving public
figures often turn on the evidence found in reporters' notebooks.
Проще говоря в США в отношении публичных лиц допустима публикация непроверенных фактов, и для выигрыша иска о клевете публичным людям приходится доказывать именно злой умысел журналиста, или опрометчивость в рассуждениях о том, является ли это фактом или нет.
В общем-то неплохой закон, гарантирующий, что у свободы слова будет "место для дыхания" ('breathing space').
http://red-ptero.livejournal.com/238894.html
Вот это натолкнуло меня на тему.
http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Mike_Godwin/net_public_figures_godwin.article
In a now-famous opinion by Justice William Brennan, the Court held that
libel law, as applied by the courts of Alabama, conflicted with the First
Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. What, then, should the
standards of libel law be? Justice Brennan first noted that "we consider
this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the
principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and
wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes
unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." He could
easily have been describing Usenet in 1994.
Brennan went on to write that "erroneous statement is inevitable in free
debate" (reporters and editors are only human, after all), and that
therefore libel law must accommodate a certain amount of falsehood "if the
freedoms of expression are to have the 'breathing space'" that they need
to survive. Since discussion of public officials and their work is central
to democratic debate, he reasoned, it follows that we should make special
allowances for debate about such officials. A public official can win a
libel lawsuit under the First Amendment, wrote Brennan, only if he or she
can prove "actual malice" on the part of the defendant, where proof of
"actual malice" is defined as proof that the statement was made with
"knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was
false or not." (In other words, the term "actual malice" is defined quite
differently from the older term "malice" mentioned above.)
This rule about public officials was later extended to public figures in
general--the Court recognized that sometimes news stories about highly
public individuals is central to democracy even when the individual
doesn't happen to be a public official. Ross Perot comes to mind as a
recent example of such a public figure.
But this extension of the ruling of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan led to
new problems--how can you tell whether someone's a public figure or not?
Is anyone who's been written about in the press a public figure simply
because some newspaper editor thought a story was newsworthy? If that were
so, there'd be no distinction between public figures and anyone else--the
minute your name appeared in print, you'd be a public figure, and you'd
have to prove "actual malice" (and not, say, mere negligence on the part
of the reporter) in order to win your case.
And in practical terms, proving "actual malice" can be difficult--the
courts are put in the position of inquiring into how much a reporter knew
or didn't know at the time of the story, and into the reporter's attitudes
at the time of the story. That's why libel lawsuits involving public
figures often turn on the evidence found in reporters' notebooks.
Проще говоря в США в отношении публичных лиц допустима публикация непроверенных фактов, и для выигрыша иска о клевете публичным людям приходится доказывать именно злой умысел журналиста, или опрометчивость в рассуждениях о том, является ли это фактом или нет.
В общем-то неплохой закон, гарантирующий, что у свободы слова будет "место для дыхания" ('breathing space').