Popular tech blog sued by self-proclaimed “inventor of e-mail” hits back

"This fight could be the end of Techdirt, even if we are completely right."

Read the whole story

 

[Joe F]

daemonios[/url]":zih73z42]The man is a fool. You can tell by his use of copyright as proof that he invented anything. Hint: you don't copyright inventions, you copyright expressions of ideas. Moreover, in most countries registration isn't even necessary, you need only prove that you created the work. Copyright registration simply makes said proof easier.

Maybe he means to say he has the copyright to the word "email", but isolated words don't constitute "works" that can be protected by copyright. If he actually means a system for sending and receiving messages, that would constitute an invention, and could be protected through a patent. But I see no signs of patents being involved, and in addition patents only cover their specific claims, so a similar system that worked in a different way might not be in breach of any patent.

So, is the claim simply that he was the first person to use the word email? Well, whoop dee doo...

[EDIT]Ok so I apparently read the article to mean he'd claimed copyright for the term email, rather than a computer program. In any case, copyright protection of a specific software program doesn't mean invention of anything.

A term can't be copyrighted. It can be a trademark. You see the little (r) for Registered Trademark all over the place, for Windows, Android, Linux, etc. (as an aside, the history of the Linux trademark is rather interesting...)

As far as copyright registration is concerned, up until the late 1970s/early 1980s, it needed to be registered to be a valid copyright in the US.

 

[Joe F]

lewax00[/url]":3kgfc5sx]Copyright is automatic.

In the 1970s, it wasn't. You actually had to register your product to have copyright protection.

 

[Old Poor Richard]

I just can't figure out how these lawsuits are successful and how they destroy the companies.

I've got a theory, a business model and wonder what's wrong with it.

A corporation owns the logos, trademarks, web IP address. Call it Gawker Prime.

A second corporation, call it Gawker One, licenses the logos and web address from Gawker Prime. It hires all the people. It leases office space, office furniture, PCs, phones, even the coffee pot. For a paper publication it farms out the print runs. It operates on a line of credit from a bank. Each month as revenue comes in Gawker One pays salaries, pays rent, pays down the credit line and then pays out everything left as a dividend to stockholder(s).

Now some asshat comes by and sues Gawker One. Gawker One says OH NOES! Fires everybody and files bankruptcy. Gawker Prime terminates the trademark licenses per contract terms, maybe even sues Gawker One as an aggrieved party. Asshat figures out that Gawker One, the company that libeled him, literally doesn't have any assets at all.

For a couple days, Gawker prime posts on the homepage "Gawker having technical difficulties, check back soon" while new Gawker Two is incorporated, leases office space, furniture etc, hires the staff laid off from Gawker One, licenses the trademarks, magnanimously gives shares of Gawker Two to the pitiable stockholders of the former Gawker One. Back in business, while asshat holds the empty bag.

I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

 

[10thDoctor]

dlux[/url]":3l7y3dbr]The wheel - perhaps you've heard of it?

That was me, before my ggggggggg-great grandparents were even born.

Nicely done.

Reminds me of when I invented fire, when I was only -781,000 years old.

 

[Faanchou]

Coriolanus[/url]":2cb5ktv1]He filed an application for the trademark of "Inventor of Email" in 2015, but failed to respond to the office action refusing registration. And because he failed to respond to that office action, his application lapsed and went abandoned.

Maybe he never got the email about the refusal, because it was sent on SMTP instead of EMAIL?

 

[Nilt]

bizzyness[/url]":2e4250w2]I read techdirt and this case is so silly. Maybe it's time to use that whitelisting feature on my adblocker.

I did so the first time I read of the lawsuit. Very few places get through my filter nowadays because of the risk of malware sneaking in, but Techdirt has been added to that list.

adespoton[/url]":2e4250w2]So...

Shiva claims to have *implemented* the first office-style email system in 1978, at the behest of someone who worked at the company who told him how it should work (the human interface). That interface bears a striking resemblance to an RFC that came out of ARPA in 1976.

Does anyone know if the people who drafted the RFC or the people who contracted Shiva to write the software are still alive? Is what happened documented anywhere? Did the person who provided Shiva with the software requirements in 78 read the RFC?

Of course, this is all tangential to the lawsuit, which is a libel lawsuit, stating that Masnick intended to cause harm to Shiva by publishing information which he knew not to be true.

Actually, it isn't tangential at all. The facts of the matter are clear. Invention, under the law, is recognized as the act of coming up with the concept. Implementing that concept is separate and, considering software is not patentable, it is also legally not an invention. Thus, assuming for the moment that the invention was not previously done by someone else and ignoring that there is clearly prior art on "electronic mail" in the form of RFCs, it is whoever assigned this asshat the task of writing the software who invented email.

So even if we accept his assertion that none of the precursors qualified, by his own admission he is nothing more than an engineer who implemented someone else's idea!

 

[Sumwun]

Back in 1981 IBM's Data Processing Division released a product called PROFS (stands for Professional Office System). It allowed users full email capabilities, personal calendars, meeting scheduling and event reminders. Perhaps other stuff, but that's all I used.

That release certainly predates the 1982 copyright registration. Also, IBM obviously had the system in development for some time (probably years) prior to the 1981 release, and IBM then (as now) patented and copyrighted everything they could.

I wonder if a search of IBM's copyright and patent applications from the late 1970s and early 1980s would provide substantial evidence that this guy didn't invent email. And if he didn't invent it, there's no libel case.

 

[Death_wish01]

phoenix_rizzen[/url]":jfa7n1v8]You should update the story to note his trademark has lapsed.

From http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f= ... re5go9.2.1

Word Mark THE INVENTOR OF EMAIL
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Providing a website featuring information in the field of email. FIRST USE: 20120614. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20120614
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 86816855
Filing Date November 11, 2015
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) Shiva Ayyadurai INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 69 Snake Hill Road Belmont MASSACHUSETTS 02478
Attorney of Record C. Forbes Sargent III
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "EMAIL" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date August 19, 2016

Someone needs to trademark it and sue his ass.

 

[Pixy Misa Mk II]

Old Poor Richard[/url]":qg162vpi]I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

The problem is that the judge would take one look at this and promptly award double the requested damages. Judges don't like smart-asses.

 

[10thDoctor]

Death_wish01[/url]":guncs621]

phoenix_rizzen[/url]":guncs621]You should update the story to note his trademark has lapsed.

From http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f= ... re5go9.2.1

Word Mark THE INVENTOR OF EMAIL
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Providing a website featuring information in the field of email. FIRST USE: 20120614. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20120614
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 86816855
Filing Date November 11, 2015
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) Shiva Ayyadurai INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 69 Snake Hill Road Belmont MASSACHUSETTS 02478
Attorney of Record C. Forbes Sargent III
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "EMAIL" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date August 19, 2016

Someone needs to trademark it and sue his ass.

What's required to trademark something like this? Would it actually be possible to trademark this, and sue him, or would that not work?

 

[Death_wish01]

10thDoctor[/url]":32ns460x]

Death_wish01[/url]":32ns460x]

phoenix_rizzen[/url]":32ns460x]You should update the story to note his trademark has lapsed.

From http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f= ... re5go9.2.1

Word Mark THE INVENTOR OF EMAIL
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Providing a website featuring information in the field of email. FIRST USE: 20120614. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20120614
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 86816855
Filing Date November 11, 2015
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) Shiva Ayyadurai INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 69 Snake Hill Road Belmont MASSACHUSETTS 02478
Attorney of Record C. Forbes Sargent III
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "EMAIL" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date August 19, 2016

Someone needs to trademark it and sue his ass.

What's required to trademark something like this? Would it actually be possible to trademark this, and sue him, or would that not work?

file the trademark to the trademark office. pay the filing fees. get a good lawyer, and hope you didn't ruin your life.

its easy.

 

[Outrider/Ronin]

Old Poor Richard[/url]":1silz4f5]I just can't figure out how these lawsuits are successful and how they destroy the companies.

I've got a theory, a business model and wonder what's wrong with it.

A corporation owns the logos, trademarks, web IP address. Call it Gawker Prime.

A second corporation, call it Gawker One, licenses the logos and web address from Gawker Prime. It hires all the people. It leases office space, office furniture, PCs, phones, even the coffee pot. For a paper publication it farms out the print runs. It operates on a line of credit from a bank. Each month as revenue comes in Gawker One pays salaries, pays rent, pays down the credit line and then pays out everything left as a dividend to stockholder(s).

Now some asshat comes by and sues Gawker One. Gawker One says OH NOES! Fires everybody and files bankruptcy. Gawker Prime terminates the trademark licenses per contract terms, maybe even sues Gawker One as an aggrieved party. Asshat figures out that Gawker One, the company that libeled him, literally doesn't have any assets at all.

For a couple days, Gawker prime posts on the homepage "Gawker having technical difficulties, check back soon" while new Gawker Two is incorporated, leases office space, furniture etc, hires the staff laid off from Gawker One, licenses the trademarks, magnanimously gives shares of Gawker Two to the pitiable stockholders of the former Gawker One. Back in business, while asshat holds the empty bag.

I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

It's problematic because the plaintiff can claim that Gawker Prime is an alter-ego of Gawker One. If they prevail, the two Gawker entities would be treated as a single entity and the plaintiff could then go after that assets of Gawker Prime.

 

[Nilt]

Outrider/Ronin[/url]":3dlc01zj]

Old Poor Richard[/url]":3dlc01zj]I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

It's problematic because the plaintiff can claim that Gawker Prime is an alter-ego of Gawker One. If they prevail, the two Gawker entities would be treated as a single entity and the plaintiff could then go after that assets of Gawker Prime.

To go deeper, this is because the holding company would be nothing more than a hollow shell without any other purpose. The real estate developers, Old Poor Richard, have a real business: that of producing and selling real estate properties. They are a true holding company. At any given time they likely have half a dozen other corporate entities that the wholly own. In your example, however, there would be no tangible business aside from the attempt to shield against liability.

A better way to do something like that would be to ensure that the business is encumbered by sufficient liabilities at any given time that, should they be sued, there would be no assets to actually seize. If the holding company owned those debts it would have to be a true arms length transaction or that would also allow piercing the corporate veil. Judges, as someone else pointed out, are not stupid and there are a number of ways to justify piercing the veil you propose.

 

[Dputiger]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":240mkzjz]Lol, I'm not making a statement about this particular case, but if you find yourself siding with the cancer that was Gawker, you might need to, you know, do some self-examination. Just back away slowly and pretend you don't know them.

Edit: I see people around here still like their fake news. Keep on eating up your HuffPo/WaPo/CNN/MSNBC bull$#!+ like it's candy lol...the world is a demonstratively better place for Gawker's passing.

Hoo boy. Where to start?

1). Gawker wrote a lot of coverage I wouldn't have written and I didn't agree with some of the coverage they wrote on topics that I *would* have covered. But Gawker wasn't the National Enquirer, with posts about Bat Boy, or alien squid that landed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were strongly opinionated and sometimes went too far in the pursuit of a story. They sometimes got things wrong. This is not the same thing as writing deliberately false reports for political purposes.

2). What killed Gawker was not "fake news," in any reasonable understanding of the term. What got Gawker killed was a decision to publish a video that a jury decided should have been treated as belonging to a private person and not within the public interest. Again, this is not to defend any specific Gawker story or treatment of a topic.

3). Despite the right's attempt to redefine "fake news," as "News I disagree with," the term 'fake' has a meaning. It means a news story that is based upon factually or objectively untrue assertions and it's meant to carry the connotation that the story was written in such fashion deliberately, to lie to the reader.

"Fake news," is not and should not be treated as a synonym for "Biased news," or even "Inaccurate news." And the fact that you sweep Gawker, HuffPo, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC into the same heap and attempt to disqualify them all says far more about your bad faith and attempt to warp the conversation than it does about those publications.

You may win arguments with such rhetoric elsewhere. You will not win them here.

 

[mr_dee]

taswyn[/url]":1s2niggz]

It's not even the first instance of "electronic mail" or even "email" to show up in the copyright system: and that's only counting the digital archives, which only date back as far as 1978 (and some late 1977s that squeezed in).

According to Google, "Email" has been in use since 1800!

(Which is presumably just OCR noise.)

 

[Vnend]

Coriolanus[/url]":3iz8a3uc]

ChrisSD[/url]":3iz8a3uc]

Coriolanus[/url]":3iz8a3uc]

killerhurtalot[/url]":3iz8a3uc]And we all know how reliable and well funded our copyright/patent/trade mark system is right?

I hope this guy gets knocked down a peg and hit with a countersuit for damages and reclaiming lawyer fees for Techdirt.

This isn't about copyrights, patents or trademarks. This is about libel. While Ayyadurai has a copyright on a specific implementation of email from the late 1970s and the code that comes along with it, and a registered trademark of "The Inventor of Email," this is purely about libel. He isn't asserting any of them except as collateral evidence to support his claim that he invented email.

If EFF gets in on the fight against Ayyadurai, I'll donate money to them.

NItpick: Technically his copyrighted program comes from the early eighties, although it may have been initially created in '78 or '79.

Copyright exists at the moment of creation, so if it was created in 1978, then he technically owns it at that time. However, he only owns that very specific implementation of it and not the concept in general.

The article says that his claims date from when he was working in NJ. The USA did not join the Berne Convention on copyright until March 1, 1989. Whatever he copyrighted, it didn't happen (in the US) until he filed for it (the early 80's).

 

[Nostromo21]

Mithras Angel[/url]":2ezbqt75]

charlie don't surf[/url]":2ezbqt75]No, I invented email.

No, I'm Sparticus!

No probs, because I'M Spartacus! ;-p

 

[mellojello]

daemonios[/url]":dqa6d8vf]The man is a fool. You can tell by his use of copyright as proof that he invented anything. Hint: you don't copyright inventions, you copyright expressions of ideas. Moreover, in most countries registration isn't even necessary, you need only prove that you created the work. Copyright registration simply makes said proof easier.

Maybe he means to say he has the copyright to the word "email", but isolated words don't constitute "works" that can be protected by copyright. If he actually means a system for sending and receiving messages, that would constitute an invention, and could be protected through a patent. But I see no signs of patents being involved, and in addition patents only cover their specific claims, so a similar system that worked in a different way might not be in breach of any patent.

So, is the claim simply that he was the first person to use the word email? Well, whoop dee doo...

[EDIT]Ok so I apparently read the article to mean he'd claimed copyright for the term email, rather than a computer program. In any case, copyright protection of a specific software program doesn't mean invention of anything.

At the time USPTO was not reviewing computer applications, so he had to go the copyright route. Regardless, the guy appears to be a slimeball stuck on reliving his teenage years much like many a stereotypical sports jock bully.

 

[truthyboy15]

ayyadurai is a money hungry freakazoid.

 

[eyesoars]

Joe F[/url]":npuhm9n7]

daemonios[/url]":npuhm9n7]The man is a fool. You can tell by his use of copyright as proof that he invented anything. Hint: you don't copyright inventions, you copyright expressions of ideas. Moreover, in most countries registration isn't even necessary, you need only prove that you created the work. Copyright registration simply makes said proof easier.

Maybe he means to say he has the copyright to the word "email", but isolated words don't constitute "works" that can be protected by copyright. If he actually means a system for sending and receiving messages, that would constitute an invention, and could be protected through a patent. But I see no signs of patents being involved, and in addition patents only cover their specific claims, so a similar system that worked in a different way might not be in breach of any patent.

So, is the claim simply that he was the first person to use the word email? Well, whoop dee doo...

[EDIT]Ok so I apparently read the article to mean he'd claimed copyright for the term email, rather than a computer program. In any case, copyright protection of a specific software program doesn't mean invention of anything.

A term can't be copyrighted. It can be a trademark. You see the little (r) for Registered Trademark all over the place, for Windows, Android, Linux, etc. (as an aside, the history of the Linux trademark is rather interesting...)

As far as copyright registration is concerned, up until the late 1970s/early 1980s, it needed to be registered to be a valid copyright in the US.

I don't think this is right. You needed a registered copyright in order to obtain monetary damages for infringement. The copyright declaration in the work was enough to establish the copyright.

 

[hellonearthis]

Ayyadurai did create a program that was branded as EMAIL but email had previously been created by ARPANET.

So the argument is over the word EMAIL and email and one represents and application and the other represents a for of electronic communication.

NOTE that Ayyadurai copyright/patented the term EMAIL all caps.

 

[issor]

jnk1000[/url]":36x2yijs]

arkiel[/url]":36x2yijs]Anyone that needs a blow-by-blow of the evolution of Shiva's claim and timeline should check out this:

http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai

I don't know the author, and haven't verified any of the citations, so proceed with caution.

Basically, looks like that self-important race-baiting shitheel decided he could change his story multiple times and define 'email' insanely specifically. In this era of combating fake news, motherfucker is basically evil.

The item that I found most amusing... or infuriating is spelled out in the introductory paragraph of the linked article. Ayyadurai's creation couldn't send messages outside the university. It was nothing more than an interoffice messaging system.

Haha.. Ayyadurai invented the memo.

Or rather, the e-mo.

It seems to me that you'd have to claim some ownership over SMTP to lay claim to any sort of ownership over modern e-mail. Just because you use a particular name doesn't mean that something else that goes by that name is also yours. Is there any proof that any developers anywhere built upon this guy's work to get to modern email? Any link at all, aside from a name? Messaging systems are cheap, kids code them as exercises s in school.

 

[geekydee]

Nilt[/url]":xh3r9ekg]

Outrider/Ronin[/url]":xh3r9ekg]

Old Poor Richard[/url]":xh3r9ekg]I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

It's problematic because the plaintiff can claim that Gawker Prime is an alter-ego of Gawker One. If they prevail, the two Gawker entities would be treated as a single entity and the plaintiff could then go after that assets of Gawker Prime.

To go deeper, this is because the holding company would be nothing more than a hollow shell without any other purpose. The real estate developers, Old Poor Richard, have a real business: that of producing and selling real estate properties. They are a true holding company. At any given time they likely have half a dozen other corporate entities that the wholly own. In your example, however, there would be no tangible business aside from the attempt to shield against liability.

A better way to do something like that would be to ensure that the business is encumbered by sufficient liabilities at any given time that, should they be sued, there would be no assets to actually seize. If the holding company owned those debts it would have to be a true arms length transaction or that would also allow piercing the corporate veil. Judges, as someone else pointed out, are not stupid and there are a number of ways to justify piercing the veil you propose.

Um, isn't that what capital and holding companies do now? Swoop in, leverage companies into massive debt then let them go bankrupt, a la TWA, Toys-R-Us, Hostess, and currently what might be going on with Sears/KMart, then pay themselves their large "management fee"? Just wondering what the difference is here

 

[issor]

hellonearthis[/url]":1lkqbd7k]Ayyadurai did create a program that was branded as EMAIL but email had previously been created by ARPANET.

So the argument is over the word EMAIL and email and one represents and application and the other represents a for of electronic communication.

NOTE that Ayyadurai copyright/patented the term EMAIL all caps.

Right. This seems a bit like telling people you invented the whopper when you were a kid, where the "WHOPPER" was some sort of peanut butter and ice cream sandwich. You're not technically lying if that's what you called it. You may even have a copyright on a recipe. And he'll, it's even a sandwich. But it misleads everyone to say you invented the whopper, and to litigate to enforce your position, because people are either going to assume you mean the malt balls or the hamburger.

The fictional WHOPPER has about as much in common with the BK Whopper as EMAIL does with what we know as email. Both whoppers are sandwiches and both email systems do messaging, but the relation ends there.

 

[Nop666]

charlie don't surf[/url]":2se917un]No, I invented email.

No, I invented email, & so did my wife!

 

[Nop666]

Old Poor Richard[/url]":1cs445c3]I just can't figure out how these lawsuits are successful and how they destroy the companies.

I've got a theory, a business model and wonder what's wrong with it.
[[[Phoenix businesses]]]
Back in business, while asshat holds the empty bag.

I can't figure out what's wrong with this model. Don't real estate developers do this all the time--every new property has a special corporation that is manager and developer only for this one property?

It works perfectly; the new POTUS is a master of that particular business model.

 

[thatanonymouscoward]

issor[/url]":3mzigp0y]

hellonearthis[/url]":3mzigp0y]Ayyadurai did create a program that was branded as EMAIL but email had previously been created by ARPANET.

So the argument is over the word EMAIL and email and one represents and application and the other represents a for of electronic communication.

NOTE that Ayyadurai copyright/patented the term EMAIL all caps.

Right. This seems a bit like telling people you invented the whopper when you were a kid, where the "WHOPPER" was some sort of peanut butter and ice cream sandwich. You're not technically lying if that's what you called it. You may even have a copyright on a recipe. But it misleads everyone to say you invented the whopper, and to litigate to enforce your position, because people are either going to assume you mean the malt balls or the hamburger.

He copyrighted a computer program he called EMAIL, not the term.
He copyrighted it years after its alleged creation.
He now screams he is the father of e-mail & if you disagree you are a racist in the pocket of the massive corporations who wish to blot out his accomplishments in creating e-mail.

issor[/url]":3mzigp0y]

jnk1000[/url]":3mzigp0y]

arkiel[/url]":3mzigp0y]Anyone that needs a blow-by-blow of the evolution of Shiva's claim and timeline should check out this:

http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai

I don't know the author, and haven't verified any of the citations, so proceed with caution.

Basically, looks like that self-important race-baiting shitheel decided he could change his story multiple times and define 'email' insanely specifically. In this era of combating fake news, motherfucker is basically evil.

The item that I found most amusing... or infuriating is spelled out in the introductory paragraph of the linked article. Ayyadurai's creation couldn't send messages outside the university. It was nothing more than an interoffice messaging system.

Haha.. Ayyadurai invented the memo.

Or rather, the e-mo.

It seems to me that you'd have to claim some ownership over SMTP to lay claim to any sort of ownership over modern e-mail. Just because you use a particular name doesn't mean that something else that goes by that name is also yours. Is there any proof that any developers anywhere built upon this guy's work to get to modern email? Any link at all, aside from a name? Messaging systems are cheap, kids code them as excersizes in school.

He likes to discount the RFC's, but then there are cute 'coincidences' like the RFC having the exact same designations as he used...

http://meincmagazine.com/tech-policy/2017 ... t-32588713

He wrote an awesome program at 14.... and now he warns about GMOs on InfoWars and promotes his own food plans. Tamil Spices reverse diabetes!


I post at TechDirt a lot.
I don't think the headlines are 'clickbait' in the "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!", tradition. Headlines are supposed to get peoples attention afterall.
There are some people who dislike TechDirt because they can be very unflattering to some sacred cows.
I watched an ISP owner on Twitter telling Popehat that he was wrong that this was a 1st amendment issue & Mike deserved it because he had been mean to ISPs.
I looked him up... TechDirt mentioned him in an article like 2 years ago talking about the title regulations the feds wanted to apply to ISPs. He was on the OMG its the end of the world side, & a different ISP CEO was like ummm no.
But because Mike doesn't believe all ISP are caring angels, and dares to call them out on their shit... he is the enemy of the state who deserves it.
He runs afoul of the nicest people, like the Comcast (IIRC) Lobbyist who is very angry if you call him a lobbyist, the **AA's with their huge imaginary loss figures, SOPA supporters, etc...

He believed some sociopath with a trendy avatar (pssst thats me) about copyright trolling and what was happening. He didn't take me at face value (I would have run away if he had) but did the research, looked at all of the data the Scooby's compiled, verified it & reported on it.

They report the story, but give you the links so you can see for yourself. They report on things you might miss across the spectrum of tech (and sometimes to some peoples chagrin just outside the imaginary borders people mentally impose on "tech" blogs. They show up in the comments if you have more questions, and if you are just a whiny shill they will takedown your stupid argument politely & in depth.

If you haven't made any enemies, you're not doing it right. Even if you disagree with every single post & comment on the site... support TechDirt. We can not allow people with deep pockets to silence the truth, and if we don't stand up now... they'll come for sites you support next and there might not be enough news outlets left to report on it for fear of a lawsuit.

 

[Jurrasic]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":5iszxa93]Lol, I'm not making a statement about this particular case, but if you find yourself siding with the cancer that was Gawker, you might need to, you know, do some self-examination. Just back away slowly and pretend you don't know them.

Edit: I see people around here still like their fake news. Keep on eating up your HuffPo/WaPo/CNN/MSNBC bull$#!+ like it's candy lol...the world is a demonstratively better place for Gawker's passing.

No one's siding with Gawker, don't be a dumbass. Just because this lawyer brought down Gawker dosen't mean he's in the right this time, and on a completely different case.

 

[D.Becker]

Coriolanus[/url]":3oxonxsr]

Copyright exists at the moment of creation, so if it was created in 1978, then he technically owns it at that time. However, he only owns that very specific implementation of it and not the concept in general.

Copyright does not exist at the moment of creation.

In the U.S. in1978 you needed to take specific steps to claim copyright on a work.

It wasn't until 1989 that copyright was automatic.

 

[JoeManco]

hellonearthis[/url]":35pl6438]NOTE that Ayyadurai copyright/patented the term EMAIL all caps.

Wrong on multiple levels. He has a copyright on the code of a program called EMAIL. You cannot copyright a term. You would have to trademark the term, but he holds no such mark. Secondly, copyrights and patents are not the same thing and you also cannot patent a term. Lastly, he holds no software patents on email in any form despite trying to foment this confusion since he first started this campaign of lies. Software was not eligible for patent protection when he wrote his program.

 

[eldakka]

ChrisSD[/url]":18mxqbru]

Coriolanus[/url]":18mxqbru]

killerhurtalot[/url]":18mxqbru]And we all know how reliable and well funded our copyright/patent/trade mark system is right?

I hope this guy gets knocked down a peg and hit with a countersuit for damages and reclaiming lawyer fees for Techdirt.

This isn't about copyrights, patents or trademarks. This is about libel. While Ayyadurai has a copyright on a specific implementation of email from the late 1970s and the code that comes along with it, and a registered trademark of "The Inventor of Email," this is purely about libel. He isn't asserting any of them except as collateral evidence to support his claim that he invented email.

If EFF gets in on the fight against Ayyadurai, I'll donate money to them.

NItpick: Technically his copyrighted program comes from the early eighties, although it may have been initially created in '78 or '79.

Another nitpick, his copyright registration comes from 1982. A registration is not a grant of a copyright. The US Copyright Office does not grant copyrights, or review or validate them, it maintains a list of copyright registrations.

 

[InfiniteWisdom]

I invented the Internet Forum with too many comments.

 

[tricorn]

PLATO Personal Notes (as opposed to General Notes) existed in 1974, the first time I used it. That code is still in use on the Cyber1 system.

I'm not sure exactly what his claim is, he obviously didn't invent the concept of e-mail, I'm pretty sure he wasn't the first to call it e-mail, and he certainly didn't develop any of the standards used in modern e-mail programs.

I've "invented" many things only to find out they already existed. I think one of the first was the idea of an array in BASIC (or the concept of indirection), the BASIC I was using had variables A, A1, etc, and I wanted to use A(B) to reference A1, A2, etc. depending on the value of B. Then I found out about the DIM statement!

Later, I invented 4-d rotational matrices after I learned about matrix multiplication and 3-d rotations. Then I invented the Bresenham line drawing algorithm (on an Apple II, no less, so optimized for the screwy memory layout).

If I publicly tried to lay claims to any of those, I'd expect to be ridiculed.

 

[hellonearthis]

JoeManco[/url]":3jxlti0t]

hellonearthis[/url]":3jxlti0t]NOTE that Ayyadurai copyright/patented the term EMAIL all caps.

Wrong on multiple levels. He has a copyright on the code of a program called EMAIL. You cannot copyright a term. You would have to trademark the term, but he holds no such mark. Secondly, copyrights and patents are not the same thing and you also cannot patent a term. Lastly, he holds no software patents on email in any form despite trying to foment this confusion since he first started this campaign of lies. Software was not eligible for patent protection when he wrote his program.

You're right I forgot to add the ?? as i was trying to recall what he did to EMAIL for rights protection. I talked to him on twitter about this, his firstish replay he called me a racist and yet I hand not even gone anywhere close to saying anything racist. I guess he has issues with words and their meanings. Should be a laugh to see the case. Also if he was so good at geek being inventor of EMAIL, why did he not do anything else as good. Most people with such alleged skill develop many great internet tools. He's done nothing else inventive.

 

[bugballou]

False pride cometh before the fall. That being said, thinking people know about these jackasses. I for one wouldn't give Mr Hogan the time of day. What needs to be done is to publicize their faces, I remember when OJ couldn't get a seat in a restaurant, everyone knows his face. Thinking people knew he did it. We reserve the right, so take a hike.

 

[kobblestown]

eyesoars[/url]":2tergc5h]How lame can a guy get?

Copyright? Copyright doesn't protect anything regarding his claims about email. Copyrights do not apply to titles, names, or phrases. The most he can do with a copyright is use it to prove that he had a program then. And prevent anyone else from using that program or its derivative works. As if.

As for e-mail, Unix had single-host email by 1976 at the latest, and probably a couple years before that. Not that it was called email; it was 'mail'. I'm pretty sure most other "time sharing" operating systems of the time had similar features.

He has no trademark on 'email'. And it's not like it is or could be a trade secret.

Those are the only possibilities for protecting any rights he might imagine he has to email.

If he thinks his "invention" of email is worth anything, I've got a large suspension [of disbelief?] bridge to sell him.

I wonder, if you call your program 'mail', what kind of real world system you are trying to replace/emulate...?

 

[passivesmoking]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":s5b20u15]Lol, I'm not making a statement about this particular case, but if you find yourself siding with the cancer that was Gawker, you might need to, you know, do some self-examination. Just back away slowly and pretend you don't know them.

Edit: I see people around here still like their fake news. Keep on eating up your HuffPo/WaPo/CNN/MSNBC bull$#!+ like it's candy lol...the world is a demonstratively better place for Gawker's passing.

I'm siding with the people who are in the right. The gobshite neither invented email as a concept, or the name "e-mail". He could be suing Donald Trump and I'd still side with Trump. Lawsuits should not be decided on which plaintiff you like the least.

 

[frunobulax]

jnk1000[/url]":1i2fk55t]

The item that I found most amusing... or infuriating is spelled out in the introductory paragraph of the linked article. Ayyadurai's creation couldn't send messages outside the university. It was nothing more than an interoffice messaging system.

Haha.. Ayyadurai invented the memo.

Hehe, no that would be Volvo...

 

[Kazper]

arkiel[/url]":3vxazv7w]

raxx7[/url]":3vxazv7w]

Mazzicc[/url]":3vxazv7w]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":3vxazv7w]Lol, I'm not making a statement about this particular case, but if you find yourself siding with the cancer that was Gawker, you might need to, you know, do some self-examination. Just back away slowly and pretend you don't know them.

Edit: I see people around here still like their fake news. Keep on eating up your HuffPo/WaPo/CNN/MSNBC bull$#!+ like it's candy lol...the world is a demonstratively better place for Gawker's passing.

Honest question: In what way is it demonstrably better without Gawker? How is my life, or anyone who was not paid money as a result of that lawsuit, better off with no Gawker in the world?

Gawker was a news organization whose business model included breaking the US laws which protect journalists and relying on the fact the US justice system favors those with deep pockets, which they had, to consistently get away with it, by settling cases where they hurt people out of court.

It's unfortunate that it took a prick with a vendetta like Peter Thiel to allow a case against Gawker to go all the way to a jury, but we are indeed better of without Gawker.

EDIT:
Lithmus test: if the US justice system wasn't so broken, Gawker would have been sued out of existence much much sooner, by victims with much less money than Peter Thiel.
Or at least, they would have learned to operate in a manner more consistent with US law and journalistic ethics.

In my opinion, of course.

This is the problem: Gawker was -shit-, but them losing created a precedent that leads to shit like this. Gawker should have won, and maybe/probably would have on appeal, because them losing represents an erosion of First Amendment rights.

Its near impossible to convince people that hate Gawker that the outcome wasn't a good thing, but it really wasn't. I'd rather have a shitty news service over fewer individual rights.

And there's my opinion.

Yeah. I got like 100 downvotes on the original Gawker verdict thread for making this exact point. At least I get to feel a little smug to see my predictions play out like this. Not much consolation though - I'd rather I'd been wrong.

 

[fivemack]

mr_dee[/url]":26wm1idk]

taswyn[/url]":26wm1idk]

It's not even the first instance of "electronic mail" or even "email" to show up in the copyright system: and that's only counting the digital archives, which only date back as far as 1978 (and some late 1977s that squeezed in).

According to Google, "Email" has been in use since 1800!

(Which is presumably just OCR noise.)

Not necessarily - 'email' is the French for 'enamel', I could certainly see that creeping into English articles about objets d'art.