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"The case of Sarah Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment is now in the hands of a three judge appeals court panel.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati heard arguments from both sides Thursday morning in the on-going legal dispute between the former Ben Gal cheerleader and the gossip website TheDirty.com.Watch this storyPosts about Jones in 2009 referenced her sexual activity. Jones filed suit against the site, asking for damages because of the posts, which she claimed were untrue.The website solicits anonymous gossip and rumors, then the website operator Nik Ritchie, selects from the submissions, posts them to the site and adds comments of his own.This process of selective publishing is key to the arguments made before the appeals court today. The comments about Jones at issue were not written by Ritchie, but selected for publication to the website, and Jones wants the site to be held responsible for the content.A federal judge ruled in favor of Jones last year and she was awarded $338,000 in damages.That ruling was appealed, and the attorney for TheDirty.com says if the lower court ruling is allowed to stand, it would have serious consequences for sites across the Internet.\u201CThe Internet will have a nuclear meltdown,\u201Dattorney David Gingrass said.He argued that Ritchie should not be held liable for the statements made by anonymous tipsters.\u201CWe\u2019re not arguing that the posts are true, we\u2019re not arguing that Sarah wasn\u2019t hurt \u2013 our argument is that she just sued the wrong people, she should have sued the author who wrote what she claimed was false, she shouldn\u2019t sue the website just for being a messenger,\u201D Gingrass said.The attorneys argued over the guidelines of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996. Chris Roach, who represented Sarah Jones said he believes she has a solid argument.\u201CLooking at the case law, and looking at the statute, I don\u2019t think it was Congress\u2019s intent to just say \u2013 there\u2019s no liability on the part of websites whatsoever,\u201D Roach said.Jones has been through a variety of legal cases, including an earlier lawsuit over these posts, and criminal charges related to a sexual relationship with a student at the school where she was a teacher.That earlier suit was tossed when it came to light Jones had sued the wrong legal entity.Her attorney said she is handling the appeals process in this case well.\u201CHaving the trial courtside with her, that helped a lot, that basically got her through \u2018til now and she\u2019s still willing to fight for it,\u201D Roach said.But the website has a lot of legal muscle behind it. No other court has ruled in a similar way in similar cases according to Gingrass, who has defended TheDirty.com and other sites numerous times.Gingrass said if the lower court ruling stands, \u201Cit will change the rules across the board for everybody.\u201DHe said that nine of the top 10 most popular websites in the country filed briefs on his behalf, arguing against the lower court\u2019s ruling.\u201CI\u2019m not surprised by that, because the same tide rises or sinks all ships, and if they rule in favor of Sarah, that will have a dramatic effect on free speech across the country,\u201D Gingrass said. He believes the court will rule in his favor.Getting that ruling could take some time. The appeals court may not issue a decision for weeks or even months. No matter which side wins, there is the possibility of a further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to help define the limits of defamation on the Internet for everyone.Thursday afternoon, Jones commented on the suit via Facebook.\"The facts are the facts and three judges in the sixth circuit will determine if the website should be held liable for their content,\" Jones said. \"My main goal when doing this was to stand up for myself and others who have fallen victim to internet defamation, and I was completely successful in doing so.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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