I refer you to this now 7-year old California Supreme Court case titled Barrett vs. Rosenthal (2006) 40 Cal.App.4th 33. It reached the California Supreme Court SIX years after the lawsuit was first filed (and after countless attorneys' fees.) Cases going to the CA Supreme Court can cost at least $100,000 in attorney's fees.
Do I think that someone will sue over a pin transaction? Probably not. But if anyone were to start accusing people of selling scrappers without any proof, well, who knows what will happen. Obviously truth is a defense...but what truth are you talking about? Were you at the factory and saw the pins being thrown into the scrap pile and then the pin seller took them from the factory? Who is going to say who is an expert at identifying ALL the designs that Disney manufactures (for counterfeits)? And those nice emails that we get from various sellers offering to sell said scrappers - um, hearsay. Will Disney come forward and say those are scrappers? or fake pins?
But that _IS_ a case of libel from what I can tell... Calling someone's practice of medicine 'quackery' and trying to bar them from discussing alternative medical techniques is hardly the kind of thing we are talking about here. And deliberately re-posting the original message with a copy of the lawsuit threat is what prompted the legal action... Do you really think the mods here are going to do that if it ever came to that?
If someone is _knowingly_ selling illegal goods, they aren't going to take you to court for calling it out.
And, yes, if someone is selling scrappers and it goes to court, you can bet Disney will get involved.
And, most of the people I'm thinking of with regards to this kind of thing are the people that are selling pins in lots of 50, 100, etc from China... One seller accidentally selling a scrapped pin isn't going to be a problem anyway. If there's someone based in the US that's knowingly selling counterfeit/scrapper pins, again, they aren't going to draw attention to that by trying to take you to court.
I want to see a court case where someone was called out FOR COMMITTING A CRIME that then tried to sue the forum where that information was posted calling them out for slander. I'd love to know the out come of a case like (and I wouldn't be surprised if it's happened, so there's probably an example out there...)
But I still point out that this is something that's simply not going to happen... Have you been on the internet much? Have you seen the kind of crap people spew all over the internet? People throw the 'I'm going to sue you' card all over the place, but the end it almost never happens (and when it actually does, it's usually well deserved). There are hundreds of forums out there that get posts from all kinds of people and that are run by people with no money that do it for fun... And they are still there after many years.
Take it another way: I have no idea who, exactly, Psycho Pixie is talking about, but obviously it's someone that's known for selling fake pins. If I spent a bunch of money on pins from this person, and later found out they were fake and everyone here _knew_ they sold fake pins but couldn't warn anyone due to the forum policy, I bet I could find a lawyer that would take the forum owners to court for assisting in the protection of criminal activity.
Yes, it sounds completely stupid, but I bet I could pull it off if I wanted to. Sure, I would probably lose, but I could easily argue that the rule is designed specifically to protect the criminals, just as much as they say it's to protect the forum or the innocent personally accidentally selling a fake pin.
But even with the case example you mentioned above, if someone posts something to the forum, and the forum mods get a C&D or something from a lawyer saying to take it down, then just take it down and that'll be the end of it. Reposting it with the threat/takedown notice could just be asking for trouble. It's not worth the hassle, the remarks have been removed, no big deal. If you want it to be easy, just do what you being asked to do. (I do know people that don't have a problem with lawsuits threats that will just post copied of the C&D orders with the original post and laugh. Basically taunting them to try to sue because they know that would cause more problems for the other party in the end... But they usually have a lawyer in the family or something so it's not a huge financial risk for them... Fun to watch though.
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Knowing that forum operators can't be held responsible for what's posted on their sites, the first thing a lawyer would do is contact them to have the content removed. If they refuse, then maybe there's more grounds for legal action, but the site owners have to be notified first. It's just like the movie studios telling Usenet sites to remove pirated movies. They don't sue the usenet site as they have no control over the content posted, but they do have to abide by the takedown request (or then they get sued). And they take the stuff down almost immediately.