Criticised online? Sue for copyright violation
Forbes magazine is running rather strange series of articles on how honest businesses (such as SCO suffer at the hands of bloggers, who initiate smear campaigns against them.
The worrying part is not that the articles make it seem as if weblogs were invented for the sole purpose of bashing reputable corporations. If that is the author’s understanding, so be it.
Much more offensive is the suggestion to use copyright to deprive critical minds of their right to free speech:
ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn’t liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger’s access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger’s name or Internet address.
The only thing standing between this guy and his pals and an opinion monopoly are the “fair use” clauses that copyright offers – but for how much longer? I know that the tactic described there is not new, but this snippet of text illustrates in abundant frankness how copyright increasingly becomes a tool for those with pockets deep enough to spring for a large legal department.