How does he arrive at the damages figure?
Can he really claim that he has lost that much work due to some Twitter postings, or is he making it up and hoping he can con the jury?
Actor James Woods is suing a Twitter troll for wrongly branding him a "cocaine addict." Woods, who says he is not a drug addict, wants $10m in damages. The Hollywood star's legal eagles have this week filed suit in the Los Angeles Superior Court against the whoever is behind the Twitter account "Abe List" over a July 15 tweet …
This is ludicrous. I certainly hope Mr. Woods gets a rude wake-up call regarding the realities of the intertubes. There should be a revocable license granted before one can be a Person Of Public Interest which should include an extensive course on How To Disregard Every Dumb Thing Some Schmuck Might Think (And Write) About Me.... Epic fail, Mr. Woods. *slow clap*
"You do realize that something called libel still exists, even in the days of the internet, and it's illegal, right? Whether this will constitute that is up to the courts."
You do realise that if you don't have an entire team of lawyers working for you, it won't mean crap.
Ask all those who have been bullied to death (literally, via suicide, ironcially on Twitter too), does libel exist?
Bull fucking shit.
John, if this goes to trial and Mr. Woods wins, this WILL strike a blow in the name of those who have been hounded on the internet. Sure, you can call me names, but if you allege publicly that I engage in a certain deleterious action (in this case, taking drugs) you had better have proof or I have grounds to sue. Do I think he will collect? probably not. Do I think he is justified? Yes. Being in the public eye means you had better have a thick skin, but it doesn't mean you can be libeled at will.
Why are you demanding that humans stop being human after too many people know them?
Just because the Internet is swilling with the most caustic psycho-assasinating pigs known to man, it doesn't mean that's good. It's pretty obviously bad.
A man is going to be judged for attacking another man. That's actually perfectly normal out here in civilisation. Not sure what you're complaining about.
What? Being a Republican doesn't mean that he has to condone human rights violations or meddling with other sovereign states (El Salvador), or that he's pro-Trump. If you want a party where everyone thinks the same and votes the same look no further than the dictatorships.
Please stop being misleading about Lincoln's political party. American parties have general swapped and re-used the words 'Democrat'. 'Republican', 'Federalist' etc over the course of their two-plus centuries. The Republican party of Licoln's time was a fresh start-up and was a radical/liberal party opposed to slavery and so on. Over time, the Democrats and this new Republican party slowly swapped political places, the Democrats heating up the liberal angle and the Republicans, being in power for a long time and getting too settled in, becoming more and more conservative. To say Lincoln = Republican, as if that were the party of today, is juvenile and ignorant, and I sure wish people would stop it.
@ Florida1920
As I understand it, James Woods is a professional actor, therefore he gets paid to act. It's acting ! You cannot identify the actor with the character otherwise you would have to call any one who played the role of Oscar Wilde a homosexual, or Bruce Willis a cold blooded killer for his role in 'Last Man Standing'.
And who says you can say anything you want on the internet ? Certainly the British courts don't and an American based forum where I am a moderator doesn't.
Chris Cosgrove
I never realised James Woods was a real person - I always assumed he was a scapegoat character dreamed up by the scriptwriters of "The Simpsons"
It now appears he is doing his best to emulate the character, Which begs the question: Why did he never sue the producers of "The Simpsons" for denigrating him?
"I'm guessing he never sued the Simpsons on the advice of his lawyers, I think he'd find it hard to overcome the defense that the Simpsons is clearly satire."
Oh, and that Simpsons is a fictional show, and that the Simpsons are not real? So when James Woods meets that Simpsons, that is not the real James Woods? And the James Wood, the real person, is actually playing James Woods, the Simpsons character?
The disassociation disorder apparent in many Register readers is frightening. James Wood (the real one), would likely to murdered on any street in the UK, because they saw him play an alien in a movie that evening, so therefore he must be an alien. It would be self defense.
American libel law's a bit different.
If someone is a public figure (which I assume a famousish actor would be) then you've got to prove malice as well as untruth. Not quite, not exactly, but that's roughly it.
If Y is not a public figure then "Y is a coke addict" is libel as a simple statement (assuming, of course, that they're not a coke addict).
If Y is a famous figure, public person, then "Y is a coke addict" is not prima facie libel, there has to be that addition of the malice for it to be so.
I hope that Woods is reasonably successful. The $10m is to scare these jerks. That the internet made it easier for the pond-scum who used to write libellous notes to newspapers as letters to the Editor, or who batch-mailed nasty letters to whole neighbourhoods, to get their nasty giggles to a much more vast audience does not mean that we should simply shrug and say "just ignore it." If the internet is our main street and community, let's keep the creeps from pissing up the walls and throwing dogshit at people.
Interesting the way this article and the legal complaint itself is written. The devil is in the detail. James Woods doesn't like being accused of being a coke addict, and was careful to say he's not and never has been a coke addict.
Why would he say it that way? Anybody normal would just say they don' t do drugs at all. He's apparently been careful to not actually make that claim, just that he's not an addict (which itself has a very woolly definition).
....Which all makes me wonder if the unnamed Twitter trolls may actually have more of a justifiable point than just random name-calling.. which might also explain why Woods is getting so hot under the collar about what superficially appears to be just another internet troll... its actually uncomfortably close to (although not according to his definition of "addict") the real truth.
"Ask all those who have been bullied to death (literally, via suicide, ironcially on Twitter too), does libel exist?"
Yes it sure does! Not my problem that people don't know their legal options. One person where I work was commenting how some debt collector kept calling even after she told them they had the wrong number -- I was like "That's great news, that's $4,000 per call once you told them this!" She had no idea there were laws regulating the conduct of debt collectors. Same thing with libel. Of course, if someone is being taunted online for stuff that is true, it's not libel.
Anyway... with that dispatched of.
First, $10,000,000 sounds like ridiculous damages. Of course, this is California, who knows who's responsible -- if it turns out the responsible party has $100,000,000 then trying to sue them for like $1,000 would have been a joke and not affected their behavior in the least. Generally, they could have the option to find the "John Does" are not wealthy and lower the damages they seek, but not to find out "John Does" ARE wealthy and raise damages later on.
Second, how can this both be libel and an invasion of privacy? Theoretically (I'm not claiming which is true!!!) If it's libel, it's made up and doesn't indicate anyone looking into his private life in any way whatsoever. If it's invasion of privacy, then presumably the information is true so it is not libel.
As other commenters have observed, libel laws do indeed still exist, and those who would pretend otherwise, or try to make excuses for the illegal online actions of others, need to be severely bitch-slapped until they recover whatever common sense and logic that presumably once resided within their craniums.
I want to see James Woods prevail in this lawsuit, I want that libelous troll 'named and shamed', bankrupted, perhaps even serve some serious jail time for their actions. This isn't any damn "First Amendment" issue, and it's way past time for serious legal retribution to be doled out.