Posted on 01/13/2017 9:53:16 AM PST by Lorianne
As you may have heard, last week we were sued for $15 million by Shiva Ayyadurai, who claims to have invented email. We have written, at great length, about his claims and our opinion — backed up by detailed and thorough evidence — that email existed long before Ayyadurai created any software. We believe the legal claims in the lawsuit are meritless, and we intend to fight them and to win.
There is a larger point here. Defamation claims like this can force independent media companies to capitulate and shut down due to mounting legal costs. Ayyadurai's attorney, Charles Harder, has already shown that this model can lead to exactly that result. His efforts helped put a much larger and much more well-resourced company than Techdirt completely out of business.
So, in our view, this is not a fight about who invented email. This is a fight about whether or not our legal system will silence independent publications for publishing opinions that public figures do not like.
And here's the thing: this fight could very well be the end of Techdirt, even if we are completely on the right side of the law.
Whether or not you agree with us on our opinions about various things, I hope that you can recognize the importance of what's at stake here. Our First Amendment is designed to enable a free and open press — a press that can investigate and dig, a press that can challenge and expose. And if prominent individuals can make use of a crippling legal process to silence that effort, or even to create chilling effects among others, we become a weaker nation and a weaker people because of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at techdirt.com ...
Did he write the code for them, that they are now trying to steal.
In 1975 I wrote a university-wide email program on a DECSystem 10. In Macro-10 Assembler!
Where's my royalties?
Where is Al Gore when we need him?
Someone claiming to “invent” email is like also claiming to invent language.
Even if he did, eventually someone else will independently invent their own. Knowledge does not reside in only one individual.
He is suing Techdirt for slander and defamation of character because of Techdirt’s mocking his claims that he invented email.
DEC?
You must be ancient....LOL
Yes, it is similar to Mark Steyn being sued expressing his opinion about climate change and its proponents.
It really is a 1A issue.
It’s very serious if we can be sued for expressing an opinion. But that is exactly what is happening.
And Gore invented the Internet. All screwy.
All the more rationale for getting royalties on email.
We need tort reform.
The FDA uses government money - our money - to persecute supplement companies. The MSM won’t report it, but Federal courts have often reprimanded the FDA for bad suits. The companies are damaged by the time and cost; that is the purpose.
You and the guy who created @
Yes, I’ve been doing some reading since I post that comment and I feel for the guy. I think that he has a valid claim to be made. And I see the Smithsonian recognizes him for his contribution, as do a lot of other sites. Mocking him, is unnecessary and over-the-top. It is bullying. I wish you well in this lawsuit.
This is from his own website, but it includes a lot of documentation from the U.S. Copyright Office.
..careful what you say...I used to program the pdp8 in octal..paper tape feed...later DBL and DEC assembler.
Ed
In the 90’s I owned an electronics reclamation business and came upon 7 DEC machines that were fully populated.
Sold em for $8,000 a piece and they were 7 years old at the time.
Found a company that could move them direct to customers who still needed them.
Same with TeleVideo. I would run into companies that had never used terminals, keyboards and cables.
I would keep them on a shelf in the original packaging and get calls from people looking for parts.
My favorite was getting calls for cables and I would sell them for $75, which would cause some pretty terse words thrown at me.
I would respond “Hey, I’m cheap compared to my competitors who charge $150-$300”
They would begrudgingly pay the freight.
Like they had a choice....
It was run on a big computer at NJIT, and we connected to it via dumb terminals and dial-up.
BBS networks are even older than that.
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