Google has been forced in court to release the identity of a blogger who has allegedly defamed 39 year old former model Liskula Cohen.

The former Australian Vogue cover girl won a landmark court battle this week to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who made defamatory remarks about her in their blog, ‘Skankiest in NYC’.

Referred to as a “skank” and an “old hag” on the blog, Cohen sued search engine giant Google in January in the hope of forcing the company to reveal the identity of the blogger using Google’s Blogger service. While it was shut down in March, the blog was almost entirely devoted to making slanderous comments about Cohen. It contained just five entries, all of which were published on August 21 last year.

“I would have to say the first-place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen,” the anonymous blogger wrote. “How old is this skank? 40 something? She’s a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank.”

Cohen believed the posts to be defamatory, but was forced to take action against Google in order to unmask the blogger’s identity before she could take further legal action.

Before Judge Madden’s ruling a Google spokeswoman said, “We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order”.

On Monday Judge Madden ruled that Cohen was entitled to sue the blogger for defamation and in an unprecedented move he ordered Google to provide the blogger’s name. Judge Madden also rejected the claims by the blogger’s lawyer Anne Salisbury that the comments were mere opinion and that only factual assertions could be considered libellous.

Cohen’s lawyer Steven Wagner hoped the decision would send a message that the internet was “not a free-for-all”.

“The law protects freedom of speech, including anonymous speech, but it doesn’t protect defamation, and people should not think that they can defame others on the Internet or on blogs by hiding behind a screen name.”

The yet-to-be-named blogger’s lawyer warned the ruling could open the floodgates for anyone who has been the subject of a nasty comment online to take legal action.

The Associated Press (AP) appears to have solved its legal conflict with ‘copyright-infringing’ bloggers today. The AP took disputed the issue of what constitutes ‘fair use’ content, specifically in regards to bloggers using quotes, excepts and titles from AP-owned articles, even if source citing is given.

Some weeks ago, The AP demanded that a US news and opinion site take down several stories because they too closely resembled stories owned by The AP. Today this issue was settled with the party in question out of court, and The AP stated that the outcome was “not a clear win for anyone, but also not a loss for anyone either”.

However, the issue of citation (and the demand from The AP stating that any content from its articles would require payment for publication) blew up worldwide in regards to blogging. The question was posed: at what point does reference become plagiarism? Many prominent bloggers from throughout the world defended their stance that summarising of content, when references to the source are provided, is a common and important way to spread news throughout the World Wide Web.

Where do you think the line is drawn in regards to posting on your New Zealand blog? Do you use direct content from other sources, summarised content, or are all of your words completely original thoughts and reports?

Image from Flickr.