Steven Tyler is suing bloggers who virtually impersonated him and girlfriend Erin Brady. The vandal bloggers, whose names are still unknown, even by Tyler,impersonated the Aerosmith rocker writing "intimate details" about his life. Tyler believes it’s the same group of bloggers that impersonated him back in 2007.
The blogs were registered at blogger.com. Tyler’s thread had 31 entries for 2008. The lawsuit, filed at Los Angeles' Superior Court yesterday (September 24th, 2008), accuses the bloggers of public disclosure of private facts, making false statements and misappropriation of likeness. But the details Tyler was most pissed about were the impersonated statements relating to his mother" who "passed away this past July. The other blog impersonating Brady had seven entries.
Per Tyler’s request Google removed the pages from the Web. A message on the blogs currently reads "This blog is under review due to possible blogger terms of service violations."
My Trusted MOGs
People should respect peoples personal space and not go to extremes to humiliate and degrade other people esp. passed loved ones!!! And never impersonate someone and try and pass it off as real!! I think there are laws which govern this area of behavior! I sympathies go out to Steven Tyler and wish him and his family the best. Love and Peace,DenRA
My Trusted MOGs
Well done for Steven Tyler taking action (or having action taken on his behalf) on this type of online pollution, but what I do wonder is: if these unnamed bloggers knew such intimate personal details of his life, how close are they in real-life terms to him?
Apologies if that concern of mine sounds perhaps a bit insensitive to Mr Tyler, I don't mean to, but, well, you know, all too often brown stuff hitting the fan turns out to have been thrown by those people concerned themselves or people (too) close to them...
Still, that said, I am all for freedom of expression but I am happy to see signs that stars are finally slowly coming to the realization that cleaning up online pollution like impersonators is not a bad initiative.
Most online impersonators are completely harmless, but a few can be pretty damaging to both those who are impersonated and their admirers; that is something yet to be fully acknowledged by all involved, many don't want to take action for fear of being publicly criticized for 'censorship', but action is needed.
A few years ago I managed to get an online profile removed by a social networking site; the profile was one of many impersonators of a particular celebrity, only this particular one was used by a man trying to groom underage female fans; the social networking site was fully cooperative, but what shocked me was that no one who was in any way professionally or personally involved with the celebrity being impersonated seemed willing or able to even share the concerns raised.
I hope Steven Tyler sets an example for stars who do care enough about their own reputation, and their fans' wellbeing.