My first lawsuit threat!

Yesterday was a very proud day for me. After launching www.PennsylvaniaMediaGuide.com, as is my customary practice I e-mailed the news organizations I link to and asked them to check their link to make sure the link and location listed are correct. The only responses I'd gotten so far (after thousands of links) were either "thanks for including us" or "please change/add this...".

But not from the Lewistown, Pennsylvania Sentinel.

From them, I got this:

Mr. Knopp,

The Sentinel does not want to participate in your site or to be featured on or linked to your site in any way. We require that you immediately remove the link to our site from www.PennsylvaniaMediaGuide.com and that you cease and desist any further action regarding our site, writers or online content. Failure to honor our request will result in further action from our corporate counsel.

In addition, please notify me, in writing, when the link has been removed.

Sincerely,
Heather Goodwin Henline
Managing Editor
The Sentinel, Lewistown

Of course, previous litigation has provided clear legal precedent allowing any public website to link to any other public website as a First Amendment free speech right. The only limitations are that you can't slander someone and you can't link to a security-protected internal page.

No doubt this editor is aware of that and was just attempting a pre-emptive strike thinking I would re-publish their copyrighted work (which of course I won't be doing). However, I shared the editor's message with some of the Pennsylvania bloggers and the reaction has been mostly outrage mixed with amusement at the absurdity of it.

Here's one of my favorite blog posts on the subject: lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com