from the the-first-amendment-means-something dept.
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
As you likely know, for most of the past nine months, we've been dealing with a defamation lawsuit from Shiva Ayyadurai, who claims to have invented email. This is a claim that we have disputed at great length and in great detail, showing how email existed long before Ayyadurai wrote his program. We pointed to the well documented public history of email, and how basically all of the components that Ayyadurai now claims credit for preceded his own work. We discussed how his arguments were, at best, misleading, such as arguing that the copyright on his program proved that he was the "inventor of email" -- since patents and copyrights are very different, and just because Microsoft has a copyright on "Windows" it does not mean it "invented" the concept of a windowed graphical user interface (because it did not). As I have said, a case like this is extremely draining -- especially on an emotional level -- and can create massive chilling effects on free speech.
A few hours ago, the judge ruled and we prevailed. The case has been dismissed and the judge rejected Ayyadurai's request to file an amended complaint. We are certainly pleased with the decision and his analysis, which notes over and over again that everything that we stated was clearly protected speech, and the defamation (and other claims) had no merit. This is, clearly, a big win for the First Amendment and free speech -- especially the right to call out and criticize a public figure such as Shiva Ayyadurai, who is now running for the US Senate in Massachusetts. We're further happy to see the judge affirm that CDA Section 230 protects us from being sued over comments made on the blog, which cannot be attributed to us under the law. We talk a lot about the importance of CDA 230, in part because it protects sites like our own from these kinds of lawsuits. This is just one more reason we're so concerned about the latest attempt in Congress to undermine CDA 230. While those supporting the bill may claim that it only targets sites like Backpage, such changes to CDA 230 could have a much bigger impact on smaller sites like our own.
Related Stories
Mike Masnick at Techdirt lays out, once again, the evidence rebutting Shiva Ayyadurai's claim to have invented e-mail. Shiva Ayyadurai just settled with Techdirt over his repudiated claims. No money was exchanged in the settlement but Techdirt did agree to publish Ayyadurai's claims side by side with the actual facts for comparison. Ayyadurai rose to international attention a few years ago after he claimed the mantle for himself and went around accusing detractors of racism underwritten by large corporations. Now that the issue is officially settled, Mike Masnick has written another summary.
[...] And with that, we'll (hopefully) leave this saga aside. If Ayyadurai would like to respond to this, or to supply evidence to contradict the points and evidence raised above, he is, as always, welcome to provide it. He could have done so any time since 2012 when we first wrote about him and his claims, rather than taking us to court for two and a half years. I still believe that Ayyadurai should, in fact, be praised for what he accomplished as a teenager -- building a working email system as he apparently did, at the time he did, is no small feat. Our only issue with his claims is the decision to argue that his impressive creation was actually "the invention of email." It was not.
It may take a while for Techdirt to get back on its feet both regarding finances and workflow. The trouble from that particular charlatan cost not only a lot of time but also a fair amount of money. Mike Masnick ended up accepting support from the Koch brothers in order to keep going with writing and reporting, allowing the site to keep going but at the cost of tainting its reputation somewhat. With luck the site can become independent again.
Earlier on SN:
Case Dismissed: Judge Throws Out Shiva Ayyadurai's Defamation Lawsuit Against Techdirt(2017)
The Guy who Claims to have Invented E-Mail is at it Again (2017)
The Guy who Claims he Created EMAIL is at it; Again (2017)
[...]
Huffington Post Shows the Importance Of Fact Checking (2014)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:25PM (4 children)
Truth, we Dіck Nіggers.
You know we never fuck no old pussy.
You know we fuck a whole lotta young pussy.
Dіck Nіggers gonna slap yo lying ass іn yo lyіng bіtch mouth wіth dіs nіgger dіck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:02PM (3 children)
Spam-mod for an AC doesn't make much sense as there is no Karma to reduce.
Is there a pattern in ISP, IP block, country, or otherwise in these Spam-Random-Nonsense posts that a nice temporary block could address?
Just curious. I would log in and mod them "Make Their Computer Explode And Release The Magic Smoke" if I could.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @06:14PM (2 children)
IP addresses do have karma. But of course that, as well as other IP-based measures such as the blocking you propose, is trivial to get around using proxies, tor, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:46PM (1 child)
If IP addresses have karma, does that mean that spam-modding them has an effect? Sounds suspicious to me, but I'm no expert.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 08 2017, @02:38AM
Yes. One Spam mod and they have to change addresses to post again. Assuming their karma started at 0.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:29PM (10 children)
According to Ars Technica [arstechnica.com], his lawyer says he's going to appeal.
Because Shiva Ayyadurai is such a believer in free speech. What about TechDirt's free speech? Especially when everything TD said is true.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:07PM (3 children)
The above is all true; in fact, it's the reason for the court decision against the abusive litigant and all-around-lying-scum Ayyadurai.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday September 07 2017, @06:26PM (2 children)
No, actually, I think you will find that false speech is also protected.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 07 2017, @06:41PM
Your point is well taken.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 08 2017, @12:49PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:23PM (4 children)
Dud loves free speech so much he wants to make your email client illegal!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:40PM (3 children)
I don't think he wants to make anyone email client illegal. (Although I hear he is, in actual fact, running for office.)
I think he merely wants there to be enough free speech for everyone to know that he, and only he, invented email. But not so much free speech that anyone could refute his claim to having invented email. That seems like a fair place to draw the line before we overstep and have too much free speech on our hands. Or too much liberty.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:56PM (2 children)
I thought he was looking for licensing fees when this whole thing started a few years ago. Maybe I'm miss-remembering...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:00PM
I could also be mis-remembering.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:36PM
No, he is looking for damages.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:23PM
Oh look, yet another person who claims to be pro-free speech, yet the first time somebody says something they don't like, they're trying to quash it.
Bunch of fucking hypocrites.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by MrGuy on Thursday September 07 2017, @04:14PM (2 children)
While I understand the desire not to quote too much of TFA in TFS, I agree with Techdirt that the analysis on SLAPP was disappointing.
SLAPP is short for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation," and is a mechanism that at least some states have to discourage well-heeled individuals/organizations to chill free speech by imposing the lengthy and costly burden of defending at trial against smaller participants. i.e. "take back what you said or I'll tie you up in lawsuits for months, and it will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars!" Anti-SLAPP legislation allows for relatively quick dismissals of lawsuits that are brought knowing lacking in merits for the primary purpose of imposing costs on defendants, and provides a mechanism for the defendant to recover all their legal costs if the case lacks merit (in the US system, each party typically pays its own legal costs, which is part of the reason why SLAPP lawsuits are a major threat to speech in the US).
One issue with Anti-SLAPP legislation is that each state that has an Anti-SLAPP law (not all states do) has a different one, and the protections offered and standards of proof required to invoke it differ. There is no federal Anti-SLAPP status yet. This is problematic because, in this day and age of the internet, "where" speech takes place is diffuse - because anyone can access something, it's in theory said "everywhere," so the "right" legal standard to apply to the speech is problematic.
In a case like this, where the speaker is in California and the target of the speech is in Massachusetts, the court chose to favor the target's home state (Massachusetts), which has a considerably weaker Anti-SLAPP law. The judge determined the Massachusetts law ought to apply. The reason this is problematic is that it weakens Anti-SLAPP protections - while the speaker might be in a state with strong Anti-SLAPP laws, the protection of those laws are weakened if an offended party can bring suit in a state where the laws are less strong. Effectively, there can be an "end run" around the law the speaker might reasonably think applied to their speech. (This, among many others, is a reason why I and others think we desperately need a federal Anti-SLAPP law).
Here's what TechDirt said about it. You can also read the decision for the judge's analysis.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:43PM
It is disgusting that TechDirt could not recover damages.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 08 2017, @02:46AM
There's no constitutional basis for a federal anti-SLAPP law.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
I'm not that user, but I found the comment informative and figured to share it here.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:23PM
I'd like to point out that the "terrible article" and all that seems to be targeted at the ArsTechnica, not at the Techdirt article from the TFS. The Techdirt article doesn't contain any of that "terrible" content.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Arik on Thursday September 07 2017, @04:43PM (2 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:41PM (1 child)
North Dakota? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday September 07 2017, @08:57PM
And I'm only being partly facetious. Of course I'm not going try and make everyone believe me or sue anyone that contradicts me, but I may well have 'invented the FPS;' in whatever sense anyone might really be said to have invented a whole genre of games. I wrote a game in early 1981 that was basically a FPS. Of course it was primitive and limited and really a proof of concept that I abandoned. I'm not even sure if there's a readable backup tape to prove the story, but that's not the point.
Even if it's true, even if I had the backup to prove it, and even if no one else made anything similar before (and I'm not sure on that and haven't really checked because it doesn't matter) - none of that actually gives me any legitimate claim to a dime of IDs money, or anyone elses.
Writing the first program of a genre, however defined, does not give you some sort of 'intellectual property' rights over the genre going forward. It just doesn't work that way.
Probably a better programmer than I wrote a much better proof of concept with the same features I used well before 1981 - that's just a guess but it's a reasonable one. In the case of email, of course, we have numerous examples to prove the point, precisely because this guy has actually caused people enough trouble with his claims that they've gone to the trouble of debunking and documenting them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 07 2017, @06:36PM
It should have been dismissed with extreme prejudice.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..