1, Somethingawful is responsible for all content on their servers. Anyone argueing otherwise doesn't understand the law in regards to the internet. Somethingawful *is responsible* for the content, their only recourse is to justify the content against Ubisoft's complaint.

2, There is a difference between a political figure (and related sature, which falls explicitly under the 1st ammendment and the right to free speech) and damaging expressions toward a private citizen. There are a limits to free speech--if you don't understand that free speech means you can say anything you want, anytime, anyplace, then I don't know what to tell you other than your understanding of it is incorrect.

3, Those who argue that there is no defamation of character will find that US Courts have found that far last damaging/insulting words, pictures, and media are deemed defamation.

4, US courts have began actively prosecuting people who harrass private citizens over the internet; e.g. recently a woman was put on trial with a possible long prison term for harrassing a former boyfriend by posting pictures of his wife on an internet porn site with personal ads.

A lot of the arguements in this thread, specifically relating to Somethingawful having a right to host the media (even if not posted by them) -- even if it is found damaging -- is completely ignorant of the law. *If* the media is found to be defaming, then Somethingawful will be responsible for hosting said content.

Uhhh males who fawn over internet personalities, celebrities, etc are by definition superficial and shallow. It is no different from the womanizer who wants to get into any woman's panties he can--say anything, do anything--only to drop her like a rock after he gets a taste of the goods.

It really is a classic male patterns. Pretty woman gets too much attention because of her looks, and when she impeeds progressive movements the reaction is to turn on her and say she asked for it, is a slut, etc.

Let's sue them!

And come on Acert.. I can't believe you actually see that as libelous. It's a STRETCH and I hope the courts agree. This is satire, this is free speech, even if it's fucking stupid. And private citizen or not (of what Country, I'm not sure), she is a public figure.Which is totally different than what happened here. She obviously defamed that person, there's no gray area in that case at all. She used the internet to make her look like a whore, in a way that made it look REAL.

Aint that the truth.

How many times. SomethingAwful did not host the content in question. It was linked to on their forum. It's not the same as linking to scans because in that case it's a clear case of copyright infringement and yes the site are bound to remove it.

Laws on slander, libel, defamation etc are very different in every country and very difficult to come to a definitive interpretation with regards to any particular instance thereof. I don't see any lawyers in here. Let's stop playing "be the expert" and insert some common sense.

If an entire comic series was based around this concept their mightbe a point to Ubisoft's actions but does anyone really believe this one-off stupid immature tasteless attempt at parody actually does Mr Raymond or her career any significant harm?

I don't think for a minute she's pleased about it but the effect has been magnified 100 times by Ubisoft clumsily bundling in with both feet. They could "win" some kind of case against whoever in this circumstance and it would do precisely ZERO in their efforts to stop this cartoon being widely circulated. In fact it quite clearly has the opposite effect already.

I would also like to point out that just because some people don't agree with Ubisoft's actions here doesn't mean;-

a) they think this is amusing, clever, funny etc
b) are womanizers who think women can't have a place in game development
c) have issues in our lives and need to address them.

There's far too much fucking polarization going on in this thread.

Well, some of the statements that go along with our position on this issue Jollipop are childish--but they're not specifically coming from you, or myself. What concerns me is the fact that people think they know the tort law so well as to judge this instantly as libelous, when I think it's pretty obvious that the arguments against that position are very, very easy to make. That makes this a potentially weak case, and rightfully so, because those laws don't exist to protect peoples feelings, but rather to protect people from real, potentially life changing damage to their image.

I think it's a ridiculous exaggeration to assume that this is what has happened here. I think it's ridiculous to brush off the issue of satire and free speech like it has no merit here as well. This isn't even close to some of the other examples of serious defamation posted here in this thread, and any good defense lawyer would be able to argue as much.