Behringer continues in its campaign to silence its critics by going after San Francisco-based instrument manufacturing company Dave Smith Instruments and 20 anonymous forum users for making "false, defamatory, and libelous" statements about Behringer products on a Gearslutz forum. The reasoning behind Dave Smith Instruments being targeted in this suit is because the company's engineer Tony Karavidas was an active participant in this "slanderous" forum discussion.
Seeking $250,000 in damages for libel per se, libel per quod and product disparagement, the suit was filed on June 9 in San Francisco County Superior Court. The court was quick to reject the suit, claiming that all of the company's claims against the accused are protected by the anti-SLAPP statute because "all of the claims are based on statements that were made in a public forum on an issue of public interest."
This case comes just a week after Behringer threatened the Chinese music tech blog Midifan with legal action for using words like "shameless" and "copycat" to describe their products.
[:]