For showing a deceased person under a negative light, can you get sued for defamation by relatives of the person deceased? Let's say you make a movie and you show a deceased person under a negative light, can you get sued successfully by his relatives, and does the success of a lawsuit get diminished if the movie is a parody rather than a film biography?
Many countries of Continental law recognize “desecration”, “deningration” or defamation of the deceased or similar civil or criminal wrongs, the special form of defamation of the deceased and it is ordinary that those who had been relatives to the subject are entitled to press charges. (e.g. Germany (See: §189 “denigration of a deceased person”), Slovakia (See: MAC TV v. Slovakia before the European Court of Justice leaving ambiguity about the extent of legality of defamation-of-the-dead laws under Community law), Greece (See: Penal Code, Article 365, “disparaging the memory of the deceased” etc.) Additionally, the prosecutors may press charges by the operation of law or as a duty of their office if certain conditions are met. One example in detail is the Penal Code of Hungary: Defamation § 226 (1) Whoever states, reports or uses an expression directly referring to a fact capable of defaming the honour of another person, shall be punished for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. (2) The penalty shall be imprisonment for up to two years if the defamatory statement a) with malicious motive or purpose, (b) in public, or (c) by causing substantial damage to the merits is committed. Making a false sound or visual recording likely to defame § 226/A (1) Whoever, with the intent to defame the honour of another or others, makes a false, falsified or untrue sound or image recording, if no other offence is committed, shall be punished for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. Disclosure to the public of a false sound or image recording likely to defame § 226/B (1) Whoever, with the intention of defaming the honour of another or others, makes available a false, falsified or untrue sound or image recording, shall be punished by a misdemeanour with imprisonment of up to two years. (2) The penalty for a felony shall be imprisonment for up to three years if the offence is (a) in public, or (b) by causing substantial damage to the interests of is committed. Dishonoring § 227 (1) A person who, against another person other than those specified in § 226 a) in connection with the performance of the victim's duties in the exercise of his or her employment, public office or activity in the public interest, or b) in public uses an expression capable of defaming the honour or commits any other such act, shall be punishable for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. (2) A person who commits defamation by an act of deed shall be punishable under subsection (1). Desecration (“Kegyeletsértés”) § 228 Whoever desecrates a dead person or his memory in the manner specified in §§ 226 or 227 shall be punished for a misdemeanor with the punishment specified therein. In the case of Hungary, one, including especially a surviving relative, may also step up as a substitutive civil prosecutor and file a motion with the court for criminal charges to be filed in case the public prosecutor fails or refuses to press charges. This is true despite freedom-of-speech rights. In the U.S., some states allow for libel and/or slander claims to go forward and be brought against one who engage in such or similar conduct (e.g. Rhode Island, Texas etc.) Many Asian countries also recognize both the civil and criminal forms of such acts (e.g. the Philippines, Thailand etc.)
In your example, nobody said anything false. The list does include movies from 2003. The movie studio admits this. The person says it too. The person doesn't say the studio tried to hide it. Nothing is wrong with what the person has said in your example.
Here's the thing: if the plaintiff/appellant/claimant are the same legal entity as the defendant/respondent, it's plain to see that one of them must lose. For instance, consider a case where two trains operated by the same corporation collide. Assuming that the drivers both performed their duties, the company is vicariously liable &ndash; such a case is frivolous and is likely to be thrown out for that reason. It's just a waste of time and money. Or your second example: If the woman was driving the city vehicle and crashed it in the course of her duties, it is the city that will be the defendant in the proceedings, not the woman. So essentially: while it's difficult to prove that something has never happened, these are good reasons to expect it would not happen.
The question of whether a person was acting on their own behalf or that of a company would generally be a question of fact, so if such a case came to court it would be for both sides to present evidence and argue for their interpretation of it. In most cases the context makes it clear. You mention having a company email domain and associated email signature; that is certainly good practice and would go a long way towards creating a presumption that you were acting for a company. Also signing yourself with your job title or role (e.g. "Joe Bloggs, Chief Bottlewasher") makes it clear that you are speaking in your role as an employee. The content of the communication also matters; if you use your company email address to order goods from a supplier that the company has used before then the recipient can reasonably assume that you are ordering on behalf of the company and a court is likely to agree. OTOH if you use the company address to send libellous emails then the recipient would have a much higher bar to claim that this was the company view rather than a personal one.
Can I sue? (Shall I sue? Is up to you) Yes, anyone can sue anybody but that doesn't mean it will be successful. The likely candidate for making a claim seems to be under the tort of Emotional Distress, however, note that... Since the definition of offensive conduct is subjective by its very nature, the courts have set high standards to make out a claim for intentional infliction of emotional harm. To be successful, the plaintiff must show that the defendant intentionally or recklessly engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct which caused severe emotional distress to another person. Source ...but according to the OP and comments, this criteria does not appear to be have been met.
As I understand it, you can pretty much sue anybody for anything. The question, of course, is would you win the suit? All the lawyers here can correct me, but I believe in order to win, you would have to Show standing, that is, they're your comments and not someone else's Show that it's a deliberate act, and not just someone accidentally clicked the wrong checkbox. Show that it was an act by the agency and not by Facebook, for example. Show that you've been singled out for your viewpoint (they allow some people's comments) Show that there is no other reason to delete your comments (they're obscene, or advocate for an illegal act, for example). I'm probably missing something else. The real question is, even if you could demonstrate all these things, would it be worth it? You may spend $1,000's and you might not recover your legal fees. The case might take years.
You might be able to use a site like the Internet Archive to preserve the TOC even after the site is shut down. The real liability trap here is if the site does not have the authority to give you this license. If a user uploads a photo that they do not own, and you use it, you are infringing the copyright of the original owner. Innocent infringement is not a defense to liability (although it may reduce damages in some cases.)
Can a statement of one's beliefs constitute defamation if those beliefs can't be proven true? You might think that it is impossible to prove what's going on in your mind. But this is done all the time. Thoughts can be inferred from words and actions. For example, theft requires an intent to permanently deprive someone of property. If someone hides merchandise under their shirt and proceeds to the exit, there's generally not a reasonable doubt about whether they intended in their mind to steal it. Defamation laws vary by state. However, the First Amendment sets a baseline that all states must follow. Defamation requires a false fact. Pure opinion is not defamation. However, it is possible to defame via a statement which is an opinion, if that opinion implies undisclosed facts which are false. If you say that you "believe" the companies are deceptive, this clearly implies you know something that makes you believe that. You can get around this by disclosing the entire factual basis for your opinion. If you say that the New York Giants are deceptive because their stadium is actually located in New Jersey, that's not defamation, because people can judge for themselves whether that's actually deceptive. But if the team was actually located in New York, you could be liable. Would we still have some potential burden of proof The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but it's only preponderance of the evidence in most cases, meaning the jury just needs to find it 50.001% likely that you are liable. But if the plaintiff in a defamation case is considered a "public figure" the standard of proof is raised, and they must prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that you acted with "actual malice" (which more or less means that you didn't actually believe what you were saying.) According to this paper it's an open question as to whether a corporation can be a public figure (although I don't know if their analysis is still valid since it's from 2001); the answer might depend on which circuit you are in, and even if you know how your circuit has decided the matter, the Supreme Court might rule the other way. And if your case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, you're going to be paying a lot of legal fees over the course of many years. You should also know that even if it's not defamation, you might not be off the hook. There's something called "tortious interference of business". If you're going to literally have people stand in front of businesses to try to drive their customers away from them and to you, I would highly suggest you get a lawyer from your area to determine whether and how you can legally do this.