Lance Armstrong - Readers want their money back

[ApK]

I'm convinced that Lance Armstrong never walked on the moon. It's too far to bike, even when doped.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by afv011

It looks like we had the technology to put a man on the moon, but not to fake it.

link to Youtube

Thank you, that is interesting. And yes, I agree, that only because beeing able to make it to the moon does not imply that faking it was as easy possible. Especially back then. So I will still stick with: undecided. But I thank you very much for this video.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

What Jozawun said is basically right; there may be a cause of action against Armstrong under the California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act. Basically, if you make certain kinds of false statements in order to sell goods, and people buy the goods in reliance on the false statement, you've violated the act and can be sued.

Is there any precedent for applying this to an autobiography? If you could apply the law in that way, then you should be able to apply it to any non-fiction book. After all, people are buying the book for the content, so if you can sue because the content is false, you could sue for any non-fiction book that had false contents - and there would be a lot of them.

[Yolina]

From the BBC article I linked to in a previous post:

In 2006, author James Frey was sued by readers and his publisher after admitting he had "embellished" his addiction recovery memoir A Million Little Pieces.

Frey and Random House agreed a payout of $2.35m (£1.49m). The publisher agreed to pay court fees, donate to charity and refund readers who purchased the book before news broke that it contained inaccuracies.

However, according to investigative journalism website The Smoking Gun, only 1,345 of the four million people who bought the memoir actually got round to asking for their money back ahead of the deadline.

A similar lawsuit filed in 2011 against author Greg Mortenson - which accused him of fabricating much of his book Three Cups of Tea, about a mission to build schools across Central Asia - was dismissed by a Montana judge.

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Is there any precedent for applying this to an autobiography? If you could apply the law in that way, then you should be able to apply it to any non-fiction book. After all, people are buying the book for the content, so if you can sue because the content is false, you could sue for any non-fiction book that had false contents - and there would be a lot of them.

Not an autobiography, but Irving and Howard Hughes is one where a purchaser (the publisher) sued.
Other non-fiction books are in the same position as autobiographies, as they ought to be. Inducing people to buy them by making fraudulent claims about their contents would be actionable.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

So I will still stick with: undecided.

Does the fact that the Apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon surface, which you can use to measure the Earth-Moon distance by firing a laser to it and measuring the time it takes to come back, alter your doubts in any way?

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by afv011

Does the fact that the Apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon surface, which you can use to measure the Earth-Moon distance by firing a laser to it and measuring the time it takes to come back, alter your doubts in any way?

I'm prepared to bet that the answer is no.

[Goshzilla]

This is so much irony in trying to sue Lance for false advertising. Lance or his publisher would have to make statements that do not match the contents of the book in order to be charged with false advertising.

For example if the publisher said "This is a story about a guy named Lance Armstrong who never used EPO in his life won the Tour de France" that would not be an example of false advertising.

If on the other hand the publisher claimed "100% of the contents is true, we fact checked everything before it went to print" and that in the book Lance makes outright denials of ever using EPO, then and only then could it be considered false advertising.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by afv011

Does the fact that the Apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon surface, which you can use to measure the Earth-Moon distance by firing a laser to it and measuring the time it takes to come back, alter your doubts in any way?

Nope, not at all. I believe there is 3 mirrors, not just one. Was the first moon landing not supposed to have happened on the far side of the moon - the side that faces away from the earth? If so, how they make it to the visible part. The mirrors might have shown up in later missions. And only because something put the mirrors up there does not mean that somebody (as in human) put them up there. Also if my memory serves right, normal civilians did not have access to equipment to verify the existance of the mirrors.

I believe the timing for the very first landing was politically critical, and after it was "archieved", NASA could have taken their time to properly prepare for it in the repeats. I probably should not have said "undecided", as I am not looking to decide either way. To cover up a fake, by repeating it non-faked afterwards is pretty convincing - both ways. One camp will say: HA, told you so, it was faked, so they had to redo it for real this time. The other camp will say: HA, if this one wasn't faked, why should they have bothered to fake it the very first time?

To clarify: I am not saying EVERY moon landing was a fake, but that there is a chance that the first one was a fake just to stick it to Russia.

[Kumabjorn]

I hate myself for getting involved in this, promised myself I should stay away. Just can't do it.

For arguments sake, let's assume Apollo 11 was staged. Never happened. Don't you think the Soviet Union would have the technical means to reveal such a hoax? Do you realize what the US status would be on the international stage today had such a hoax been proven? Da, somewhere between Venezuela and Mali.

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by Goshzilla

This is so much irony in trying to sue Lance for false advertising. Lance or his publisher would have to make statements that do not match the contents of the book in order to be charged with false advertising.

For example if the publisher said "This is a story about a guy named Lance Armstrong who never used EPO in his life won the Tour de France" that would not be an example of false advertising.

If on the other hand the publisher claimed "100% of the contents is true, we fact checked everything before it went to print" and that in the book Lance makes outright denials of ever using EPO, then and only then could it be considered false advertising.

A flat denial of drug use is not necessary to found a claim of fraudulent misrepresentation. As I explained previously, a statement may be technically true but may tell only half the story. If a statement of fact excludes information which would significantly alter the interpretation of this fact, then a misrepresentation may have occurred.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by afv011

Does the fact that the Apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon surface, which you can use to measure the Earth-Moon distance by firing a laser to it and measuring the time it takes to come back, alter your doubts in any way?

There is no mirror. It's a silver dollar that was thrown up there by George Washington.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I hate myself for getting involved in this, promised myself I should stay away. Just can't do it.

For arguments sake, let's assume Apollo 11 was staged. Never happened. Don't you think the Soviet Union would have the technical means to reveal such a hoax? Do you realize what the US status would be on the international stage today had such a hoax been proven? Da, somewhere between Venezuela and Mali.

Can't you have both? I'm assuming that the astronauts had some time to rehearse what they were going to do. Get the timing right and coordinate their actions. Why not record and transmit that and not have to worry about how they look in from of the cameras while on the mission?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Jozawun

A flat denial of drug use is not necessary to found a claim of fraudulent misrepresentation. As I explained previously, a statement may be technically true but may tell only half the story. If a statement of fact excludes information which would significantly alter the interpretation of this fact, then a misrepresentation may have occurred.

Then you could sue every politician who has ever opened their mouth.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by afv011

Does the fact that the Apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon surface, which you can use to measure the Earth-Moon distance by firing a laser to it and measuring the time it takes to come back, alter your doubts in any way?

Something, indeed, which I have personally done! It's not a mirror, by the way, but a prism, called a "laser corner reflector". They were left by all six of the landing missions.