Legal experts said bloggers are increasingly the targets of such litigation, which are testing the bounds of free speech.
Lyndal Harrington, who is accused of helping to spread falsehoods that Smith's mother Virgie Arthur married her stepbrother and abused Smith as a child, spent four nights in jail after she failed to comply with a court order to turn over her computer.
The 53-year-old grandmother claimed her computer was stolen during a burglary less than a week after it was subpoenaed.
A police officer testified that he believed the theft was staged and judge Tony Lindsay ordered Harrington to produce the computer by July 2 or she will again face incarceration.
Harrington says she is shocked that she is being sued for comments posted on someone else's blog to pass the time.
"I just voiced my opinion," said Lyndal Harrington of her posts about Smith and Arthur on the website Rose Speaks.
Like many bloggers, Harrington doesn't consider herself a publisher and did not realise she could be held liable for her posts.
"I got into this because my business had fallen apart in this economy and it was something to do," she said.
"I developed a lot of friendships with women who are retired or ill at home."
Three other bloggers are named in the suit along with Smith's former companion, Howard K. Stern, and Larry Birkhead, the father of her daughter, Dannielynn.
Ms Arthur alleges that the defendants conspired to defame her so she wouldn't get custody of Dannielynn, who could inherit up to $US88m ($109.59m).
"Lyndall Harrington is a liar who faked a burglary," said Neil McCabe who represents Ms Arthur.
"She's part of a conspiracy to defame my client and she's done her own defaming of my client."
Lawsuits against bloggers in the US have been doubling every year since 2004 with $US15m ($18.68m) in judgments so far against them, according to Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association.herald sun 1 Jun 2009
Full Story: here
A VERY important case, as it sets a PRECEDENCE.
News and Information, Print and Media, prior to the reach of the internet to the masses was kept in STRICT control of a few families worldwide.
Now, anyone can be an author, publish uncensored / politically uncomfortable information to the 'net.
In recent years, with the advent of web logging, there has been a plethora of information 'out there'.
This 'politics' is to revert the information flow back to the industrialists, with a slow closure of the internet, for whatever 'excuse' seen fit for the day, be it 'child porn', 'terrorism', etc, etc.
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