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Apparently golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is suing the owner of an IP address over defamatory comments made from the address via Wikipedia. Strangely, the IP address is owned by Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami education consulting firm, which means that one of the employees of the firm edited the Zoeller entry through a work IP connection. The entry allegedly stated that Zoeller went public with his alcoholism and prescription drug addiction, but that when he made those statements Zoeller was “in the process of polishing off a fifth of Jack (Daniels) after popping a handful of Vicodin.” The statement allegedly also stated that Zoeler “detailed the violent nature of his disease, recalling how he’d viciously beat his wife Dianne and their four children while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.”

The complaint is available over at The Smoking Gun and makes defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against the owner of the IP address. Wikipedia itself was not named in the complaint. The AP coverage of the story cited at Zoeller’s official site (www.fuz.com), quotes Zoeller’s attorney stating “courts have clearly said you have to go after the source of the information” which seems to be supporting the choice to sue the source of the edit, not Wikipedia itself. I have posted before on the DMCA and protections provided to Wikipedia-like entities in copyright infringement cases. It looks like the Communications Decency Act protects Wikipedia type entities from defamation suits, however I am not aware of any suits that have successfully targeted those that post defamatory remarks. If this suit is successful, it has potential to substantially change the Wikipedia landscape.