DCS Sending Legal Notice To Reviewer (Golden Sound) Over an Old Review of Their Bartok DAC

As an attorney in practice for over 38 years, I offer the following:

1. The First Amendment applies only to government prohibition or regulation of speech. It is inapplicable to disputes between private parties.

2. Defamation claims typically have short statutes of limitation depending on the State (i.e., 1 to 2 years from the date of the defamation). So, depending on when the alleged defamatory statement was made, dCS might be time-barred from asserting such a claim.

3. If dCS is determined to be a corporate "public figure," then the alleged defamatory statement must have been made with "actual malice" for there to be a recovery (monetary or otherwise), which is a fairly high bar to overcome.

All of the guys who are discussing the First amendment need to know that neither dCS is an American company nor Golden Sound is an American Resident, so First Amendment is not applicable in the first place. Hence I was talking about a framework which would be laid down for manufacturers and reviewers. I tried to explain this to cleed by givig an example of Hong Kong but he is not able to understand that which is ok.

Regards,
Audio_phool

audio_phool

... neither dCS is an American company nor Golden Sound is an American Resident, so First Amendment is not applicable in the first place.

Quite so. I didn’t know where Golden Sound was based. I didn’t bother to watch the 30-minute video. I thought the issue involved headphones.com, which appears U.S. based.

I tried to explain this to cleed by givig an example of Hong Kong but he is not able to understand

My response to your Hong Kong example was pretty clear:

Hong Kong is a whole different kettle of fish. Good luck to you though if you want to work towards passing any special protections in HK.

It's always unfortunate when these types of situations take place.  They tend to detract from what is an otherwise wonderful hobby.

This particular situation regarding a reviewer of the dCS Bartock dac , Cameron, is not unique.  High End audio companies that have the financial resources to pay for ads in the audio magazines that review their products have always maintained an advantage over those companies that do not have such resources. 

Case in point.  Several years ago (before the advent of the Internet and Internet commerce) I had a conversation with  the owner of  a small audio company that manufactured dac's.   At the time I had asked him why it took so long for him to get a review of his product in a well known Hi-Fi magazine like The Absolute Sound.  

His reply was simple.  He said that it was nearly impossible for him to get an audio product reviewed unless he paid to advertise in an audio magazine.  And that given that his company had a  very limited advertising budget, he found it difficult to compete  with larger and better  known audio companies like Mark Levinson and Krell; whose advertising budgets greatly exceeded his own. 

  The Headphone Company's stance in regard to the dCS situation is a refreshing change.  Especially since The Headphone Company has been selling dCS products, and has now decided to part ways with them over this particular situation with the audio reviewer, Cameron.

In a day and age where almost every audio review is positive, it is nice to see reviewers like Cameron, who give a truthful appraisal of a component, describing both its positive and negative attributes.  And it is equally encouraging to see a Hi-End Audio dealer like The Headphone Company coming to the defense  of an audio reviewer, who is just trying to do his job. 

It’s really a convoluted I said you said.  Having read the dCS response I would note:

1) they admit that they sent intimidating emails

2) the make many references to demands made by their legal counsel, and deadlines set to meet those demands.  They seem to duck the issue of what they would do if those demands are not meet.  Their disclaimer at the beginning that they didn’t use the word litigation is disingenuous.  Having a Lawyer issuing demands with deadlines attached is clearly threatening. 
3) dCS seems greatly perturbed that the reviewer did not have a dCS rep set up his system.  I would argue that this is more representative of what a real world user would be doing 

4) imo the correct policy for dCS to pursue would have been to issue a statement correcting what they perceived as factual errors in the review and left it at that