Let me get this straight
In Australia, if you suffer from mental illness and believe a series of ridiculous, unprovable theories that may as well be fairy tales, but someone else disagrees with you ONLINE, then you can ruin the FORUM OWNER'S life and/or business on a whim? So you can simply open a baseless, obviously malicious lawsuit then sit back and watch as the unfortunate victim of your pernicious legal action deals with the hurdles enforced and protected by statute?

That is truly absurd. It reduces the concept of 'burden of proof' to nothing and makes Australia's legal system look like a school playground, where the bully can make anyone's life a misery if he so wishes.

Can't you just ignore these clowns until it reaches court, then let the judge throw it out? No sane judge would rule in favour of this moron, especially after his subsequent deliberate trademark poaching. It's a dictionary definition example of harassment. Did your legal team find out what case law precedents have been set already, assuming this isn't the first mockery of this particular law?
( chart cat has an itch, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 12:42, 1 reply)

Sadly,
it's not just Australia - their laws (including defamation and libel) are based in English law.

It's prevelent here in the UK, and happens a LOT!

The only difference is that to even defend a case here would cost around 40-50k with very little chance of getting your costs awarded if it were even thrown out.

If you have a lot of money and want to destroy someone with less, it's very easy to do this way.
(dchurch bah, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 13:55, closed)

Yes, and it's very easy to destroy someone
This is because in UK law the burden of proof in defamation cases is on the defendant - the defendant has to prove they didn't defame, rather than the other way around.

The Simon Singh V the Chiropractic Association is a recent famous (ongoing) example of this.
( rofl harris, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 14:15, closed)

What if the case is clearly ridiculous
as this one is? What would happen if you just ignored the legal threats and let them take you to court, wasting their own time and money? I suppose there's a risk you might lose, but honestly, what judge would rule in favour of these idiots?
( chart cat has an itch, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 14:46, closed)

"what judge would rule..."
Well, depends on how good their legal representation was, and in this case - on the Judge's understanding of the Internet.
( rofl harris, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 15:35, closed)

That's
the problem. The law is outdated and favours the rich - possible the reason libel laws was passed in the first place.

I had a similar thing. When they realised that my company could possibly afford to defend the action, they reissued and sued me personally - again, despite me not having said anything.

Also, if what has been said is the truth...this is no defence against defamation. If the truth could damage the person, then they still have grounding for a defamation case.
(dchurch bah, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 16:21, closed)