Courtney Love has won a landmark case involving her Twitter use. Love's trial is the first 'Twibel' case in the US to reach trial.

The Hole singer was in court over allegations by her former lawyer of using Twitter to libel. The singer allegedly used Twitter to discredit her lawyer. She was then sued for libel in an act which has since been dubbed 'Twibel'.

Tweeting in 2010, Love allegedly implied her then lawyer Rhonda Holmes had taken a bribe so she and her representative would back out of a legal battle with Kurt Cobain's managers. The legal battle concerned Love's late husband, Nirvana frontman Cobain's estate, which his managers and Love were disputing. Love was married to Cobain from 1992 until his death two years later and she is the mother of his only child Frances Bean Cobain. According to reports in the New York Daily News, Love had hired Holmes in 2008 in order to see which parts of Cobain's estate were being milked by various individuals in charge of it. Following prolonged legal action, a large proportion of Cobain's estate is controlled by Frances. 

The jury returned after deliberating for three hours and ruled in favour of Love on Friday (24th January). The verdict stated the plaintiff did not prove Love knowingly made a false statement on the social networking site. Ultimately the case hinged on whether or not the jury thought Love believed what she was writing was true. Although Love had written the tweet, there was no proof that she believed the statement to be false. 

Love also took the stand on Wednesday (22nd January) and claimed to struggle with computers.  She claimed she was unaware at the time she posted the tweet to know how to directly message a person and had accidently sent an inappropriate message to her thousands of followers. 

Courtney Love
Courtney Love has won a landmark legal battle.

Courtney Love
The court case has been dubbed 'Twibel'.