“Previously referred to as the defence of fair comment, the defence of honest opinion requires you to prove that the material communicated was an expression of honest opinion rather than a statement of fact, on a matter of public interest and was based on proper material. To take advantage of this defence you have to be able to prove three things:

a. the communication must, on the face of it, be comment – that is: an opinion, criticism, deduction, judgment, remark, observation, or conclusion;
b. the facts upon which the opinion is based must be stated unless they are widely known. This is required so that the readers/viewers/listeners are able to form their own views on the facts. These facts have to be known to you when you make the communication. It is very important that the comment is clearly distinguishable from the facts upon which it is based; and
c. the communication has to be on a matter of public interest.

The opinion can be extreme, as long as it is honestly held by the communicator. This means that you have to be very careful in responding to an initial complaint. If you say that you ‘didn’t mean it’ this could subsequently make it very difficult to raise the defence of honest opinion.

The defence of honest opinion is obviously very relevant for reviewers and critics, but it can also be useful for satirists, comedians and other artists whose work incorporates an element of social commentary.”

What kind of idiotic world is this where some threatens you with legal action for saying their coffee is bad

@ Expresso

If you make bad coffee, it is perfectly legal for someone to say that!!

Good luck with your defamation suit.!!

I have been threatened with exactly the same kind of idotic legal threats and the company never contacted me again after I put up articles all over the internet detailing their legal threats towards me and how they had no basis in any law - of Australia anyway.

Any blogger worth his salt knows the law and my guess is, this blogger knows his salt, as he has blogged quite a bit about the concept of defamation against companies.

My only hope is that this mindless, spineless, brainless attempt at intimidation blows up in your face.

bit drastic don’t you think? it’s a blog for crying out loud!

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