So, in a rare legal win (given the vast majority of cases are going Till/Rammstein's way), Shelby Lynn won a case against Till Lindemann, in which Lindemann sought an injunction against her for accusing him of drugging her and stuff, and the courts sided with Shelby.
I have very mixed thoughts on this. Let it be known that I am NO fan of Shelby Lynn. To be blunt, I think she's a lying piece of crap who is at this point knowingly lying and exploiting her status as an alleged victim (even though by her own admission nothing had happened to her), for personal gain in the context of fame (or infamy, as far as us Rammstein fans go).
On the other hand, as an American, i DO NOT like a lot of Germany's approaches to speech. The idea that Till Lindemann, as much as I otherwise agree with his side of the story, can lawyer up and go around just suing the everloving crap out of anyone who accuses him of something or in some cases reports on it is very unsettling to me. In America, we have the first amendment, we have freedom of speech and freedom of press, and while yellow journalism is a thing (and a scourge, let's be honest), and I would definitely say the media is irresponsible at times, I struggle to come up with meaningful solutions to this that do not compromise freedom of speech.
Imagine if i wrote something on this blog badmouthing someone and then I get sued or something. It's ridiculous. While defamation is a thing, our laws are as such where you have to prove malice before silencing someone. And while I would argue Lynn has gone so far off the deep end I would argue that at this point, she is potentially acting with malice, the court seemingly disagrees. This is a rare loss for Lindemann. Outside of a couple other minor injunctions he's lost, Till has won the vast majority of cases against him, with many news outlets being forced to issue retractions for their quite frankly irresponsible reporting.
With that said, I did want to go into this issue a bit.
Hamburg Regional Court does not see Shelby Lynn's statements as an expression of suspicion, but a mere expression of opinion that does not violate Till Lindemann's personal rights.
After Shelby Lynn recently publicly stated that she personally had nothing to accuse our client Till Lindemann of, the Hamburg Regional Court has now also decided in a decision of August 15, 2023 (Az. 324 O 256/23) that her statements are not expressions of suspicion, but mere reviews.
Eh, given she started out calling Till a "pedophile piece of ####" and claimed to be spiked by Rammstein, eh....she was definitely throwing bombs in the early days.
HOWEVER, I have to admit, it seems like after a week she got some cease and desist she shared a little bit off on her twitter without explaining what was in it, and she suddenly changed her words to "spiked AT Rammstein".
I feel like this might be the important thing. She basically did seem to distance herself from her original allegations, explicitly mentioning that Till did not touch her, and changing the language to avoid directly incriminating Till (despite clearly insinuating he drugged her), and it seems like this was just enough to avoid the legal censors.
Still, the legal bar for "suspicion" vs "review" is unclear here, and I'm not a german legal expert. But if I had to guess, what's why she managed to avoid it.
On the one hand, Im frustrated by this. Because I've been following this one since day 1. Remember, I was actually IN r/rammstein the first night she made her original allegations. I even told her to go to the police if she was serious.
And she....delayed.
And since then, her story fell apart. First she had bruises, and she claimed to be drugged and put under the stage for the purpose of having sex against her will. But then it turned out the bruises were nothing and likely from leaning up against a bar next to the stage. And there's no evidence she was drugged, she was likely just drunk, and till didn't touch her.
I admit, I can KINDA sympathize with lynn in theory that first night. Imagine you you drunk out of your mind, possibly going through medicine withdrawals (she was allegedly on lexapro which interacts badly with alcohol and potentially skipped doses), and you come down from whatever happened, you remember blacking out, and you're like OMG I MUST'VE BEEN SPIKED. And then given the row zero thing apparently happened (maybe, we do have one video but it could have been staged by lindemann himself rather than be a legit thing that happens every concert that every day fans participate in), it would imply that if she was spiked, the purpose was to get her to have sex.
But when no evidence of spiking arose, and till respected her no, she came off looking like an idiot. And then she seemingly admitted till didnt touch her and changed her bios to "spiked AT rammstein" rather than "by rammstein" and the issue shifted to these weird feminist grievance politics about how till shouldnt be having sex with fans, and that there's systems of coercion and imbalances of power and the patriarchy and blah blah blah.
And me, being the rammstein superfan that I was, already KNEW of row zero because it has been controversial in the community for years, and was like "yeah? so what? so till likes to boink fans, if it's all consenting and no one was drugged what's the problem?"
As such, once Lynn's original accusations fell apart, I stopped caring, started defending till being the libertarian that I am, and disliked this whole dog and pony show against him.
As far as this goes, I know this is unpopular with many of my fellow rammstein fans, but I kind of have to say that if she distanced herself from her original accusations, and she started just criticizing row zero as a concept rather than accusing till of any specific crime, well...that's protected speech. Feminist idiots have every right to their own opinion and their ability to express it, and if they think what till is doing is immoral, that's their prerogative. They even have a right to protest against him. Not that i agree with the protests, but they have a right to do it.
As such, I can kind of see, in theory, how she could have avoided getting her pants sued off here.I don't like the language here between "review" and "suspicion", as it seems kinda thin, but as someone who is not a legal expert, well, I'm going to have to defer to the court there on that subject.
background:
After attending a Rammstein concert in Vilnius on May 22, 2023, Shelby Lynn explained via the social networks Twitter and Instagram and in an interview with the BBC that drugs had been mixed in her drink. This statement was used on social networks and in the media to raise serious allegations against our client. For example, SPIEGEL raised the suspicion (now prohibited by the court) that our client drugged women at Rammstein concerts with knockout drops, drugs or alcohol in order to be able to perform sexual acts on the women.
Notice how legalistic this is. The courts probably examined all of her statements and concluded that lynn probably didn't raise accusations against till specifically, but it was other parties that did so based on the info lynn provided. So, other parties are liable for accusations, but not the original accuser themselves, because they were vague enough to avoid penalty. And Lynn herself did, again, clarify after being C&Ded herself that till did not touch her, and that she didn't know who administered the drops (although it was heavily implied to be lindemann himself, or someone who works for him).
We had applied for Till Lindemann to prohibit Shelby Lynn from claiming that drugs were mixed into her drink at the Rammstein concert in Vilnius. In the proceedings, she defended herself with the argument that she had not personally accused our client with her statements distributed via Twitter and Instagram. She was partially misquoted by the BBC. The fact that third parties would conclude that Lindemann was involved was not her fault, especially since she had expressly stated that she did not know when and how drugs were administered to her.
Again, notice how PRECISE and LEGAL this wording is.
We had applied for Till Lindemann to prohibit Shelby Lynn from claiming that drugs were mixed into her drink at the Rammstein concert in Vilnius
Because she didn't accuse till directly, it appears to be a "review" rather than a suspicion. And third parties like media outlets ran with it.
Keep in mind these law firms spend hours just combing through this stuff. They probably have ALL of the stuff that was said, and they probably concluded, legally, that yeah her statements were not precise enough to be an accusation. Even though to any person speaking vernacular english (because shelby is irish and does speak english so her original statements were in english, not german), it was clear she was insinuating stuff. But the law doesnt care about that. They care about precision. Stuff that might leave speculation for others often gets passed the letter of the law here. Because again, law is very overly precise here. And it has to be. Dont get me wrong.
The Hamburg Regional Court took up this argument and rejected the application for an injunction on the grounds that Shelby Lynn had not expressed any suspicion against our client, but had merely drawn an evaluative conclusion on the basis of a connecting fact she alleged (unusual signs of failure with moderate alcohol consumption), which our client did not infringe his personal rights.
As far as her actual statements, this may be correct. Especially given the obvious legal limbo she was doing online going on about how till didnt touch her and "I was spiked AT rammstein, not BY rammstein."
Even if our client's application for injunction was rejected, the reasons for the resolution speak in our client's favour. To the extent that it states that Shelby Lynn did not raise the suspicion that our client had put drugs in her drink, it is clear that all the subsequent reporting, which raised precisely this suspicion, is unfounded. The Hamburg Regional Court's decision is also likely to have an impact on the preliminary investigations currently pending at the Berlin public prosecutor's office, which were initiated by uninvolved third parties with reference to Shelby Lynn's allegations.
And it seems like they're willing to take the legal L here if it makes their case stronger on other fronts. Rather than go after Lynn herself (as much as some of us would have liked to have seen that), they admit that the fact that Lynn didn't make any direct accusations puts the blame on the media outlets who used her statements and did.
Now....again, I know a lot of Rammstein fans are kinda pissed on this one. And I even argued with some today. Some managed to agree with me after i explained my logic, while others did not.
I look at it like this.
I've been saying for months now to let the courts handle it. And apparently they did. And while till largely seems innocent of any actual wrongdoing, if we're going to accuse shelby of defamation or whatever, she is entitled to the same presumption of innocence if we want to introduce legal consequences against her. This is perfectly fair. If we did not do things this way, we would be accusing anyone who makes any accusations against others at all of potentially defaming them if they cant prove their case.That would be ridiculous.
While defamation exists, there are safeguards against it to protect free speech. I know in America for example, you would have to prove that they knowingly made false statements. And I dont think you could prove that here insofar as her original accusations went. One can make a case that lynn truly believed she was spiked, and that given the difficulty of the situation at the time, didn't quite know better. Whether you buy that is up to you (I know there's been lots of questions of lynn's motives), but regardless, as long as there remains reasonable doubt, I aint comfortable with shutting her up or suing her either.
Because if Lindemann can just go around shutting down anyone who makes accusations against him just because they can't 100% prove them, well, that is kind of scary from a free speech front. And I personally don't like germany's sue happy legal culture here. I see them going after lynn and all of these outlets, and i kind of see that as a flagrant violation of free speech.
And personally, if the court is going to err and be wrong, I'd rather it do so on the side of freedom. I would take a case in which someone who probably deserves to be sued into oblivion gets off than one where someone who doesn't is successfully sued. Just as the legal system works to protect lindemann's presumption of innocence, well, I think people like lynn are afforded the same privileges.
If anything it would seem hypocritical and against my values if I said otherwise.
So as much as I would've liked to have seen lynn sued into oblivion for this, I have to accept the court ruling here.
And I know I've been accused of being a little "ivory tower" over this, but hey, law IS an ivory tower sometimes. Just look at the american debate we have where half the judges are these "strict constitutionalists" where they believe in the letter and only the letter of the law, and that things should be interpreted as they would be in 1789 regardless of the consequences to larger society. I mean, that's a valid legal school of thought here in the US. And while a lot of us who are more left leaning think that's stupid and idiotic, well, legally, again, ivory tower rulings are legit sometimes.
As I see it, based on the facts presented, Lynn's statements didn't violate the letter of the law. That does not mean that I agree with them, that I don't think that she was full of crap, or that she was insinuating guilt here. I'm NOT a fan of lynn. And I use my free speech rights regularly to criticize her online. If anything, I dislike how forums censor us when we wanna make fun of her idiotic "it doesn't foam" video.
The fact is, I like freedom, I like speech. And while I personally would have liked to have seen the courts look at the obvious weight of her "evaluations" in terms of what they insinuate about certain people, well, given the precision of law, she got off. And I can see why she did, and respect the logic behind the decision, even if I don't agree with it. If anything, I'm glad Germany seems to have SOME respect for free speech here.And yeah, that's my opinion.
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