If you haven't seen The Oatmeal today, please do yourself a favor and read today's post. A ridiculous Internet lawyer sent a threatening letter to Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, who responded with brilliant mockery. Inman has previously written about a so-called humor website that has repeatedly posted his work to drive up ad revenue, and that website hired lawyer Charles Carreon to silence him.
I was wondering if Inman should make more preparations to be dragged into court, but blogger Ken from Popehat, a successful lawyer, cheered him on. Perhaps this is all Inman needs to do in response.
When people misuse the court system to try to thwart free speech, public mockery is needed.
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Showing posts with label lawsuits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lawsuits. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Bloggers vs. bomber
I'll take any opportunity to put a boot in when a bully tries to thwart free speech and meets an organized resistance. Brett Kimberlin is the brute in question today, and this post is a mere trickle of a mass blogging wave about his violent past and loathsome treatment of critics.
Here's the skinny, Kimberlin is a political activist who is also a convicted domestic terrorist. Kimberlin was convicted for leaving explosive devices in Indiana in 1978. One of his victims was horribly maimed and as a result, took his own life. He did a lot more, but that's his biggest crime.
Kimberlin was paroled in 1994, went back to prison for refusing to pay a settlement to a victim's family, and was released again in 2001 and has since had success as a political activist. Besides being involved with the extremist VelvetRevolution website, he organizes the Justice Through Music Program out of Washington D.C.
Kimberlin was born into a wealthy family and has used those resources and his time in prison to develop a Max Cady style approach to using the legal system to harm his victims.When blogger Aaron Worthing wrote factual posts about Kimberlin's past, he was targeted with a lawsuit, among other things. Kimberlin has also filed legal actions against other people who merely wrote about the initial lawsuit.
It's called the Streisand Effect when a thug censor tries to keep something under wraps, but the attempt to censor ends up drawing more attention to the case. Ironically, the Barbara Streisand Foundation is a donor to Kimberlin's Justice Through Music Project, along with the Tides Foundation and the Heinz Family Foundation, which is managed by the spouse of U.S. Senator John Kerry.
I am not participating in this mass blogging event because Kimberlin's political activism runs contrary to my own (and boy does it). I am proud to join any fight to thwart a powerful opponent of free speech.
I am not presenting this information as my opinion, but as factual events. To be clear, I hope to join a group of people in overwhelming Kimberlin with too many targets to pursue. I hope that spreading this information will harm Kimberlin's reputation, make it difficult for him to find funding and cause him emotional harm.
Bring it on.
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Here's the skinny, Kimberlin is a political activist who is also a convicted domestic terrorist. Kimberlin was convicted for leaving explosive devices in Indiana in 1978. One of his victims was horribly maimed and as a result, took his own life. He did a lot more, but that's his biggest crime.
Kimberlin was paroled in 1994, went back to prison for refusing to pay a settlement to a victim's family, and was released again in 2001 and has since had success as a political activist. Besides being involved with the extremist VelvetRevolution website, he organizes the Justice Through Music Program out of Washington D.C.
Kimberlin was born into a wealthy family and has used those resources and his time in prison to develop a Max Cady style approach to using the legal system to harm his victims.When blogger Aaron Worthing wrote factual posts about Kimberlin's past, he was targeted with a lawsuit, among other things. Kimberlin has also filed legal actions against other people who merely wrote about the initial lawsuit.
It's called the Streisand Effect when a thug censor tries to keep something under wraps, but the attempt to censor ends up drawing more attention to the case. Ironically, the Barbara Streisand Foundation is a donor to Kimberlin's Justice Through Music Project, along with the Tides Foundation and the Heinz Family Foundation, which is managed by the spouse of U.S. Senator John Kerry.
I am not participating in this mass blogging event because Kimberlin's political activism runs contrary to my own (and boy does it). I am proud to join any fight to thwart a powerful opponent of free speech.
I am not presenting this information as my opinion, but as factual events. To be clear, I hope to join a group of people in overwhelming Kimberlin with too many targets to pursue. I hope that spreading this information will harm Kimberlin's reputation, make it difficult for him to find funding and cause him emotional harm.
Bring it on.
Read more...
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Get Equipped with Gridlock
Capcom ran into the tragedy of the anticommons recently, when it cited the loss of permission to use voice acting clips and intellectual property as the main reason it won't be releasing Mega Man Legends as a retro download on the Playstation 3.The tragedy of the anticommons is the idea that fragmented property rights prevent products and services from being sold, making everyone worse off. This is a textbook example.
But there's more at fault here then the burden of gathering permission slips from a whole population of tiny properties. There is the large transaction cost of all legal work and the chilling effect of bad lawsuits. Capcom's Vice President Christian Svensson said the fear of litigation is a major factor in the decision.
So who's really to blame here? Is it copyright laws and the property rights that are restricting Capcom from releasing their own game again on a new platform, or is the cumbersome, expensive legal system?
I'm willing to blame the slow wheels of justice here. If the transaction costs were lower, that is, if getting the rights to those little patches of intellectual property was a smooth and simple procedure, then Capcom would have no trouble navigating those waters. The solution to bad side effects from copyright laws is not to throw out copyright. It is to revise the way we deal with copyright.
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Friday, February 19, 2010
Cyber bullies push with lawyers
An acquaintance of mine is being threatened by a bully over the Internet, and I'm glad to see there are a lot of people coming to his defense.
Recently, college student Michael Hawkins had his Wordpress blog shut down. It took him a few days, but he found out it was because he had written that naturopath Christopher Maloney is not a real doctor.
He got an email from alternative medicine huckster Andreas Moritz boasting that he shut down the website, and will sue if Hawkins or any of his friends write any more blog entries about Maloney or himself. His reasoning is that although Hawkins said Maloney isn't a doctor, Maine does indeed define a naturopath as a doctor. Therefor, it's libel.
Whoa there, Andy. Let's slow down for a minute.
Tomatoes are legally defined as a vegetable, but every trivia buff over the age of 11 knows that tomatoes are scientifically classified as a fruit. If I was at dinner party and some squinty-eyed bore told me that, no, a tomato is a vegetable, because the 1893 Supreme Court ruling of Nix. v. Hedden said so, my stiff upper lip would be replaced with a condescending smirk.
Just like it doesn't matter that Illinois legislators passed a resolution classifying Pluto as a planet, the state of Maine's legal definition of what is a doctor has no relevance in a scientific discussion about whether a New England witch doctor is the same thing as an M.D.
Fortunatly for Hawkins, Moritz's bullying is attracting a lot of publicity to the incident. Popular science bloggers PZ Myers and Orac have joined in on the debacle, and Hawkins said he's gotten emails from some pretty big scientific figures, including Richard Dawkins.
If Hawkins plays this right, he can get himself a lot of positive attention while simultaneously telling the public that Moritiz and Maloney are ignorant oafs that shouldn't be trusted. He'll be able to reach a much bigger audience than if Moritiz had never opened this can of worms.
In light of all of this, I want to take the time to say that Andreas Moritz is more than just a bully. He is a danger to the desperate people he comes into contact with. Maybe he really believes in what he does, or maybe he's just another con man. I really don't know. What I do know is that he takes money from people and only gives them false hope in return. These poor people are put in further danger because his involvement can cause them to delay seeking real treatment. He is, without a doubt, a quack.
Read more...
Recently, college student Michael Hawkins had his Wordpress blog shut down. It took him a few days, but he found out it was because he had written that naturopath Christopher Maloney is not a real doctor.
He got an email from alternative medicine huckster Andreas Moritz boasting that he shut down the website, and will sue if Hawkins or any of his friends write any more blog entries about Maloney or himself. His reasoning is that although Hawkins said Maloney isn't a doctor, Maine does indeed define a naturopath as a doctor. Therefor, it's libel.
Whoa there, Andy. Let's slow down for a minute.
Tomatoes are legally defined as a vegetable, but every trivia buff over the age of 11 knows that tomatoes are scientifically classified as a fruit. If I was at dinner party and some squinty-eyed bore told me that, no, a tomato is a vegetable, because the 1893 Supreme Court ruling of Nix. v. Hedden said so, my stiff upper lip would be replaced with a condescending smirk.
Just like it doesn't matter that Illinois legislators passed a resolution classifying Pluto as a planet, the state of Maine's legal definition of what is a doctor has no relevance in a scientific discussion about whether a New England witch doctor is the same thing as an M.D.
Fortunatly for Hawkins, Moritz's bullying is attracting a lot of publicity to the incident. Popular science bloggers PZ Myers and Orac have joined in on the debacle, and Hawkins said he's gotten emails from some pretty big scientific figures, including Richard Dawkins.
If Hawkins plays this right, he can get himself a lot of positive attention while simultaneously telling the public that Moritiz and Maloney are ignorant oafs that shouldn't be trusted. He'll be able to reach a much bigger audience than if Moritiz had never opened this can of worms.
In light of all of this, I want to take the time to say that Andreas Moritz is more than just a bully. He is a danger to the desperate people he comes into contact with. Maybe he really believes in what he does, or maybe he's just another con man. I really don't know. What I do know is that he takes money from people and only gives them false hope in return. These poor people are put in further danger because his involvement can cause them to delay seeking real treatment. He is, without a doubt, a quack.
Read more...
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