Two weeks ago, blogger Lance Dutson was served with a multi-million dollar lawsuit by the PR firm running Maine’s tourism campaign. Yesterday, after a concentrated pushback from the Media Bloggers Association (disclosure: I’m a member), other bloggers and a few committed lawyers, the firm dropped the suit just as a prominent Maine legislator called for suspending the firm’s contract with the state and investigating its use of Maine tax dollars.

The New York-based firm, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, had accused Dutson of defamation, libel, and copyright infringement for posting a WKP-designed Maine tourism ad featuring a phone number connecting callers with a phone sex operation rather than the more traditional tourism hotline.

Although the phone sex line fits in with WKP’s corporate catch phrases, which include “be distinctive,” “find an unexpected angle” and “a fresh approach,” and although the firm’s web site promo on the Maine account acknowledges that the campaign was aimed at surprising potential visitors to the state, it seems likely the phone sex number was a mistake. Rather than acknowledging the embarrassment and moving on, though, Warren Kremer Paino decided to tee off on Dutson for pointing it out.

Dutson’s legal team included Greg Herbert of heavyweight law and lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig, the Media Bloggers Association general counsel and first amendment attorney Ronald Coleman, and Maine attorney Jon Stanley. WKP was represented by the Maine law firm Preti Flaherty, whose attorneys must have been surprised to find correspondence bearing the Greenberg Traurig letterhead (take a look at the list of offices on the left sidebar of their home page).

While many readers of this site will remember Greenberg Traurig for their former association with fallen lobbyist and crook Jack Abramoff, they were unequivocally on the side of the angels in this case.

Media Bloggers Association president Robert Cox issued an understandably triumphant press release upon learning that the lawsuit had been dismissed. Appropriately, the release is headed, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY NY AD AGENCY IN MAINE BLOGGER CASE;” in it, Cox says the near-instant, fierce and effective reaction from bloggers will serve as a cautionary tale for future potential bigfoots. He’s probably right, to an extent, but stupidity is a rapidly-mutating virus and it’s difficult to innoculate people and businesses against it.

I have to say that I joined the Media Bloggers Association with no real sense of its potential. Now, I find it comforting in the extreme to know there’s an organization with that level of organizational chops ready to defend its members and other bloggers.

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