[WikiEN-l] Fwd: IDG press enquiry regarding the HD-DVD controversy

[geni]

On 5/4/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fred, why do you presume it could? In theory, maybe, but we're
> certainly not the richest target (Youtube/Google, anyone?), we're far
> from doing the least to stop it being posted gratuitously (Youtube
> again, not to mention Slashdot and hundreds of thousands of others
> -deliberately- publishing it), we're not revealing anything (it's
> already out there, it can no longer, in any reasonable way, be
> considered a trade secret),

This has nothing to do with trade secret law.

> we're publishing it for educational
> purposes (rather than just for grins or in an undisguised
> flip-em-the-finger attempt),

Strangely if you can figure out a way to make money out of the second
two your legal case might be stronger than one involving educational
use

>and we're a PR nightmare (You think suing
> dead grandmas and soldiers about to leave for Iraq for having some
> mp3's got some bad press? You ain't seen nothing yet...).

"The website that messed up the Seigenthaler article and declared
various living people dead  now lends a helping hand to movie
pirates..."

Interesting PR nightmare.


> Overall,
> even if they decided to go after -someone- (which would be petty and
> vindictive at this point anyway, and hopefully one could expect a
> judge to recognize that), we're pretty far down the list of "tempting
> targets". (We'd also make a pretty sympathetic defendant, and they
> don't like sympathetic defendants, especially when the case in
> question is something of a "test case").

We are big. You go for the big targets

> There's something wrong, Fred, when an educational resource is scared
> to publish (or even mention in discussion besides oblique references
> to "that key" or "the number") a -numeral-.

Um we delete numbers all the time. We delete child porn images from
time to time. Those are just numbers when you come down to it.

> But must we be pushed around so easily
> (and without anyone even having to do any pushing, just the hint they
> might!), when there is a good case for use of this numeral in some
> articles?

Yup. We stay legal. We create free stuff by bypassing copyright and
other IP law completely.

And if you insist on poltical activism:

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly"
(supposedly Abraham Lincoln).

-- 
geni