Dawn O’Bryan-Lamb has established the Author Advocate Defense Fund to help the bloggers, web sites, and organizations being sued by literary agent Barbara Bauer:
“On September 20,
2007, Barbara Bauer filed suit in New Jersey against a list of
defendants, ranging from the Wikipedia Foundation, to message board
owners, to bloggers.
More information about the precipitating events can be found in the archives of Making Light. There is additional information about the case regarding Wikipedia at the Electronic Frontier Foundation site.
Another defendant is Science Fiction Writers of America for its Writer Beware “thumbs down agencies” or “Twenty Worst” list. Yet another is the former and current owner of Absolute Write which has a thread about the Plaintiff on their site.
Defending
oneself against a lawsuit is expensive, and many of the author
advocates being sued could use help to pay the many legal costs
involved, which are adding up over these past 9 months.
I’ve
set up a PayPal site where you can donate to help these writers with
their legal fees. Any amount is welcome. Any fees assessed by PayPal
will be covered, so your full donation goes to the legal defense fund.
All funds will be disbursed directly to the defendant’s attorneys in
equal shares.”
It’s a good cause. I urge you to make a donation.
UPDATE 7-4-08 : Score one for the good guys. Bauer’s lawsuit against Wikipedia has been thrown out by the court. The Ashbury Park Press reports:
Judge Jamie S. Perri dismissed complaints by Barbara Bauer and her
company, Barbara Bauer Literary Agency Inc., against Wikimedia
Foundation, the owner and operator of online encyclopedia Wikipedia.Bauer in court papers alleged that Wikimedia Foundation defamed her by
publishing numerous false statements, including one that said she was
“The Dumbest of the 20 Worst” literary agents and that she had “no
documented sales at all.”Perri cited the Communications
Decency Act, enacted by Congress in 1996 to promote free speech over
the Internet. The act immunizes a provider of interactive computer
services from liability for publishing content provided by another.
This judgment dealt only with Wikipedia, not the cases brought against the 19 other defendants.
I got Wikipedia to remove the article because I didn’t want the likes of Bauer to have that much recognition as a literary agent, which she isn’t in the known sense of the term. Teresa’s minions felt otherwise and brought this on by doing it in the first place. Not an appropriate venue for an encyclopedia.