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The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Mike Masnick over at Techdirt reports that the Huffington Post is running a multi-part story on V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, the man who invented email. The only problem is, he didn't. And the mainstream media were worried that their standard of journalistic excellence wouldn't be continued in the online world? The tech reporting seems to be of exactly the same quality to me.

I thought this story had ended a few years ago. Back in 2012, we wrote about how the Washington Post and some other big name media outlets were claiming that a guy named V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai had "invented email" in 1978. The problem was that it wasn't even close to true and relied on a number of total misconceptions about email, software and copyright law. Ayyadurai and some of his friends have continued to play up the claim that he "invented" email, but it simply was never true, and it's reaching a level that seems truly bizarre. Ayyadurai may have done some interesting things, but his continued false insistence that he invented email is reaching really questionable levels. And, now it's gone absolutely nutty, with the Huffington Post running a multi-part series (up to five separate articles so far — all done in the past 10 days) all playing up misleading claims saying that Ayyadurai invented email, even though even a basic understanding of the history shows he did not.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The guy who made himself famous for claiming he created EMAIL, Shiva Ayyadurai, has taken to suing various web sites, social media sites, and bloggers to shut down any contrary talk on the matter. On the surface the business model looks like it might be that of a classic copyright troll. However, given the targets and the backer, could it be the ultimate goal is simply to close down the coverage in general?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/lawyer-for-inventor-of-e-mail-sends-threat-letter-over-social-media-posts/

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/popular-tech-blog-sued-by-self-proclaimed-inventor-of-e-mail-hits-back/

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170111/11440836465/techdirts-first-amendment-fight-life.shtml

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The guy who claims he invented E-Mail is slowly rewriting history one lawsuit at a time. The wannabe politician, whom many would call a charlatan, using the money from the Gawker case has turned his sights on Techdirt in an effort to squelch historical facts about the origins of e-mail. While this SLAPP suit may look for now on the surface like it is aimed at a single site, Techdirt, regarding a single topic, e-mail, the long term goal might be to take all journalism down a notch or two.

The five-page story on Ars Technica is a deep dive into the history — RFCs, major programs, interviews, etc. They even had an interview with Shiva Ayyadurai. Here's an extract from the intro:

Ayyadurai did write a program called "EMAIL" for use by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now a part of Rutgers). He copyrighted the code in 1982. But Ayyadurai today makes the far more significant claim that he invented "the electronic mail system as we know it today," even though his code had little impact beyond the university. Mainstream tech history books don't even mention Ayyadurai—unless you count the several books Ayyadurai has written about himself.

On the ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet, electronic mail conventions were well-established by the mid-1970s. Dave Crocker, one of a group of ARPAnet pioneers despised by Ayyadurai, told Ars that he wasn't just using e-mail by 1974—he was positively addicted to it, a full three decades before the smartphone.

And another snippet, from their interview with Ayyadurai:

MrPlow writes:

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.

Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170906/13431338159/case-dismissed-judge-throws-out-shiva-ayyadurais-defamation-lawsuit-against-techdirt.shtml

Original Submission