Jezebel 
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New York, 9:19 AM
Mon Nov 23
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/25/08
11/25/08
11/25/08
If she didn't read or know about the terms of use, she couldn't have formed the intent to violate them required for conspiracy. I think this woman is beyond evil, but this case is pretty flimsy and has the potential to set some bad prescidents.
This just applies to the conspiracy charge. I don't know about the unauthorized access to a computer charges.
11/25/08
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11/25/08
Heck, when I was his age, you couldn't do anything wrong without your mother finding out about it before you knew it. Mothers used to have a grapevine and any transgression was already processed and your punishment waiting when you got home.
11/25/08
If she was your best friend, Sarah, then why did this happen? Best friend implies that no matter what may be said between you, you share an inseparable bond.
11/25/08
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11/25/08
Hard cases make bad law.
11/25/08
On the other hand, bad law, hard case, or not, let her be convicted. let this get appealed. let this stay news. Because I want the laws fixed. I want the law to work. I don't want the Internet to become a cheap, easy, and gratuitous weapon for people's petty grievances or misguided actions.
11/25/08
As I've said before, ignorance is not a defense. I can only hope the judge and jury see that.
11/25/08
In the Internet Age, when you can communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time, it comes down to one mother failing to go over to another mother's house and talking about something. Simple, face-to-face, real time communication is slowly dying, and this is the first gravestone.
11/25/08
11/25/08
This is without a doubt one of the most idiotic statements I have ever seen. There's a box at the bottom that says by clicking this box, you acknowledge you've read the terms and agree to them. Did she not see that either? As for the daughter, I hope the jury realizes this girl is going to say whatever it takes to help her mother. Saying Megan called her an "ugly lesbian" shouldn't influence them one way or the other. The girl isn't here to defend herself. It's easy to say someone called you a name if they aren't here to dispute it.
11/25/08
That said, this is not a minor or technical breach of the agreement. (It strikes me as obvious that MySpace does not want to be used as a social bullying tool.)
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11/25/08
For chrissakes, if she agreed to it, by law she's expected to be conversant in it.
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11/25/08
It's clear that they're trying to punish her in any way possible, but I am just not convinced that what she did fits this charge.
Then again, I'm not in the courtroom hearing all of the evidence, so who knows.
11/25/08
Well, Dean Steward--I know you're doing your best here, it's not your fault your argument is amazingly stupid--imagine for a second that you're driving down the street, and there's a stop sign.
11/25/08
Sadly, at least a few members of the jury will probably think this argument makes sense because shit, they don't read that stuff either.
11/25/08
Not to justify what she did or anything, but I think that's where the lawyer is going.
11/25/08
Also, the statement "how can you violate something you haven't read" remains stupid--it's just maybe not exactly what he means.
11/25/08
If the stop sign blows away in a hurricane and you drive by afterward, can you be held accountable for running the stop sign?
And again, this is not to say that I agree in any way with what this woman did. But I do think its a sound argument especially if, as someone said in another comment, we are talking about the spirit and not the letter of the law.
11/25/08
11/25/08
Moreover, the analogy with the stop sign was meant to indicate that it's very easily possible to violate something that you haven't read--his argument is not that you can't violate terms you haven't read, only that you shouldn't be held accountable for violating the terms of service of your computer because, despite the fact that you could have checked on these Terms of Service easily and at any time, you never bothered to.
Also moreover, a person would have to be pretty retarded to believe, even without examining the terms of service, that purposefully causing psychological distress to another person is considered an acceptable use of the Myspace system--so, even if we can't reasonable have expected Lori Drew to know the Terms of Service (which we can), we could reasonable expect her to know not to do this.
Dean Steward is grasping at straws; he is trying to use simple, forceful language (i.e., "that's it! Case over!") to prevent even a remotely nuanced examination of the issue, which would reveal that his argument is basically stupid.
11/25/08
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11/25/08
This makes no sense to me as an argument. Isn't the burden of responsibility on the user for these kinds of terms of agreement? She didn't read it, no one reads it and thus she is removed from blame?
Also, where in the world is a 16 year old best friends with a 13 yo? Yes, I know it can happen, but it is rare. Those are two completely different social spheres.
11/25/08
11/25/08
But, Jez, I don't think we should be putting up pictures of the daughter, IMHO. Assuming that's her, there.
11/25/08
"If the stop sign blows away in a hurricane and you drive by afterward, can you be held accountable for running the stop sign?"
Yes. At least, here in Galveston you can (we are still recovering from Hurricane Ike, a fact which is decidedly NOT in any national news coverage).
I dunno, I think using the program implies agreement with the terms of use, even if she didn't physically check the box -- she instructed her assistant to check the box. But I'm no lawyer.