Strike 3 Gets Another Judge To Remind It That IP Addresses Aren't Infringers

from the ip-freely dept

While copyright trolling has continued to be a scourge across many countries, America included, there have finally been signs of the courts beginning to push back against them. One of the more nefarious trolls, Strike 3 Holdings, masquerades as a pornography company while it actually does the far dirtier work of bilking internet service account holders based on non-evidence. Armed typically with nothing more than IP addresses, the whole trolling enterprise relies on using those IP addresses to have ISPs unmask their own customers, under the theory that those customers are the most likely infringers of Strike 3 content. The courts have finally begun catching on to how faulty the very premise is, with more than one judge pushing back on IP addresses even being actual evidence.

It’s a list that continues to grow, with one Judge in Florida apparently taking issue with the use of IP addresses entirely.

In February, Judge Ungaro was assigned a case filed by the adult entertainment company “Strike 3 Holdings,” which has filed hundreds of lawsuits over the past several months.

The company accused IP-address “72.28.136.217” of sharing its content through BitTorrent without permission. The Judge, however, was reluctant to issue a subpoena. She asked the company how the use of geolocation and other technologies could reasonably pinpoint the identity and location of the alleged infringer.

Strike 3 went on to boast that its IP address matching was roughly 95% effective. After all, as Blackstone’s Ratio goes: Better to let ten guilty men go free than to let any more than five out of one-hundred suffer.

That, of course, is not how the saying goes. Instead, the idea is supposed to be that justice is based on good, quality evidence that points directly to the accused. Instead, in addition to mentioned flawed IP location issue, Strike 3 flatout admits that this IP-to-user identification doesn’t actually tell who infringed what.

Strike 3 further admitted that, at this point, it doesn’t know whether the account holder is the actual copyright infringer. However, the company believes that this is the most plausible target and says it will try to find out more once the identity of the person in question is revealed.

That’s actually remarkably honest as far as copyright trolls go: we’re not entirely sure our IP address is correctly identified, and that IP address doesn’t actually tell us who the infringer is, but we promise to try to get actual evidence if you help us with this non-evidence. Still, it doesn’t make much of a case for the court ordering anything at all, does it?

That’s why it really shouldn’t be a surprise when you get a judge stating things like the following.

“There is nothing that links the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing Plaintiff’s videos, and establishing whether that person lives in this district,” Judge Ungaro writes.

The order points out that an IP-address alone can’t identify someone. As such, it can’t accurately pinpoint the person who allegedly downloaded the copyright infringing content.

“For example, it is entirely possible that the IP address belongs to a coffee shop or open Wi-Fi network, which the alleged infringer briefly used on a visit to Miami,” Judge Ungaro notes. “Even if the IP address were located within a residence in this district, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence’s computer and who actually used it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” she adds.

Exactly. And the rules of evidence aren’t there just for the sake of letting porn-watchers go free on technicalities. They matter. If we were to allow copyright trolls to substitute the kind of shoddy facts like IP addresses for actual evidence, and if courts were to accept that substitute, then what we’re really all allowing for is a substitute for justice. The public doesn’t want that.

And, it would appear, more and more judges are finally realizing that they don’t want that either.

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Companies: strike 3 holdings

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Comments on “Strike 3 Gets Another Judge To Remind It That IP Addresses Aren't Infringers”

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349 Comments
That Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Someone might want to let the Judge know they lied to her face.
I saw this on teh Twitters & asked Kashmir Hill if MaxMind had 95% accuracy… I think she fell out of her chair.
MaxMind is the company that has sent people to a farm in the middle of america to get back their ‘stolen’ goods b/c IP’s resolved to a dead point in the middle of America that happened to be on this farm.
Same thing happened in South Africa.
Same thing happened to nice people living in a house flagged by MaxMind as hosting IP’s for prolific phone thieves & they got visits from really rational people who completely understood MaxMind isn’t accurate like that… snort

MaxMind doesn’t tout the numbers claimed in court, and infact the certainty % drops the smaller the area you zoom in on… like a single district…

That Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

The fix was because Kashmir Hill called them out after this farm family in the geographic center of the US was screaming for help. They were harassed at all hours of the day & night by people who looked up an IP, where sent to the location that had nothing to do with the IP address. After Kash figured out what was happening & publicly shaming them, they then moved it to the middle of a lake. I wish we had a camera to see how many angry people roll up on the lake still.

After this event, MaxMind claimed they fixed these things… except they missed a few, and there was the family in South Africa who had been arrested over IP ‘evidence’ that could never be wrong… except when it was wrong. IIRC the mapping was flawed b/c they used data provided by the military.

An IP address might point to a geographic location within a courts jurisdiction, while this is a civil matter & not as stringent as a criminal matter one has to ask if the idea of ‘we saw a blue car, we want a subpoena for the DMV to tell us who registered a blue car in a 100 mile radius’ one might ask if thats a bit of a stretch.

An IP address can’t tell you who was using it, instead they ask to get the name of the person who pays the bill. They then accuse the billpayer of being the infringer, then if it doesn’t fit the narrative, they look for someone in the home who owns a penis to blame. It is a legal proceeding and the accused (even if 1000% innocent) still needs a lawyer to avoid being recruited into doing the work for the troll. They accused you, they claimed you did it, & now they want you to give them a list of possible suspects. Gee this case doesn’t sound that strong anymore.

Some Judges allow them to take discovery against people accused, which just serves to annoy the target & run up costs to where just settling is the cheaper option. I enjoy the story about the troll who demanded a forensically sound image of the targets hard drive… they returned it to the target, then filed a motion to get the drive back because in the months they had had it.. they never had the expert look at it. They told the court the drive would totally prove their case… yet never even looked at it??

When the expert finds nothing, they don’t give up, they claim a lack of evidence is evidence of guilt & they used a super secret method undetectable by their expert to delete the evidence. If this was possible, why demand money for an expert who can only look at the closed box & say ‘the hard drive is both alive & dead in the box’??

They get access to social media accounts & claim they liked a post on a topic somehow related to the content & ipso facto they are guilty. These cases are without merit & merely are a $400 down payment to obtain thousands of dollars by harassing targets with ‘legal’ maneuvers designed to upset & ruin the reputation of someone who merely pays a bill. No wonder they rake in cash, as courts still seem to think lawyers are truthful & aren’t lying to their faces.

MaxMind is 95% accurate and I get all the pussy…
Statements hold up until you look at the actual facts that MaxMind doesn’t actually claim that and a clerk just visiting the website could disprove it… just like it would take a clerk about 30 seconds to discover I’m the gay one & a Gold Star Gay at that.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: End of the beginning...

It’s not even as simple as you’re stating… that "if they are accurate" is a HUGE window.

All an IP address is is a virtual destination for a packet stream.

The way it’s supposed to work is that the IP is assigned by its upstream gateway, which has the IP range assigned by it’s upstream gateway, etc. until you get back to the root server.

From an endpoint perspective though, an IP address is something usually assigned by a DHCP server that it then turns around and provides to some device the upstream network can talk to.

There are some mitigations in place that essentially limit you to claiming an IP address served by the same BGP router as the upstream DHCP server, but that’s about as far as it goes.

And, of course, you can have a NAT behind that IP that can route to a virtually unlimited number of devices anywhere in the world.

And, of course, even once you’ve isolated which endpoint was actually pushing traffic through that IP address, you don’t know which person or software program was behind that traffic.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

In a formal debate, my argument remains unchallenged, and prevails.

Well good thing this isn’t a formal debate – otherwise such hit and run comments like yours would get you ejected from the podium.

But you get my LOL vote, for such consistent lies.

Please prove you have been defamed, and we can talk about how your arguments are false.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

Sorry, don’t respond to stalker-bait, and this has nothing to do with any individual. Let me repeat the original statement that posed the unanswered question.

If IPs don’t prove who infringes, they don’t prove who defames either.
Funny how no defamation lawsuit is ever defeated this way.
If someone threatens the president anonymously, is their IP evidence of anything? It should be.
Terrible ruling that allows anyone to just deny deny deny.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Why would it be sufficient if all you have is an IP address? Given the accuracy of the people you advocate, I wouldn’t trust them with an IP address to resolve a speeding ticket.

Maybe instead of being so lawsuit-happy against victims who are the least capable of responding, go after the actual perpetrators? Oh, but not being able to sue Russian bots makes you sad so you have to pillage grandparents, then wonder why people think you’re an asshole.

Also the next time there’s a case where someone can pay up to $150,000 per defamatory thing said you let me know. I’ll be able to file it next to the cases of all the employers who sacked women because someone called them a hooker five years ago!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Why would it be sufficient if all you have is an IP address? Given the accuracy of the people you advocate, I wouldn’t trust them with an IP address to resolve a speeding ticket.
Maybe instead of being so lawsuit-happy against victims who are the least capable of responding, go after the actual perpetrators? Oh, but not being able to sue Russian bots makes you sad so you have to pillage grandparents, then wonder why people think you’re an asshole.
Also the next time there’s a case where someone can pay up to $150,000 per defamatory thing said you let me know. I’ll be able to file it next to the cases of all the employers who sacked women because someone called them a hooker five years ago!

One woman was fired because the man who eventually shot up her workplace and killed her had "warned" her employer about her.

Once again, if IP can prove who defamed someone, it can also prove who pirated. The relative merits of the case are not relevant to that question.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

One woman was fired because the man who eventually shot up her workplace and killed her had "warned" her employer about her.
…they fired a dead woman?

The incident in Baltimore a few months ago.

The woman was not dead when she was fired. She was fired from another job and her new workplace was shot up. Other employers have actually called women into HR to answer about revenge porn, when it’s the HR people who should be locked up.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

In fact, IP addresses are usually the last things that prove a defamation:

  • There is a comment being made.
  • There is a name being used. I mean, a REAL NAME. Of course, this by itself doesn’t prove defamation.
  • The most usual cases, they are linked to social network accounts or blogs, where you get a history of that blog being used by that aforementioned person.

Most investigations end up here because:

  • People use their real names.
  • People use their usual social networks, with their real names.
  • Or even barring that, they usually add pictures and other stuff to make sure that you know that it’s them using their own account.

In many cases, you don’t even need an IP, because you got plenty data telling the authorities who you are already.

At worst, the IP address will give them further hints to gather more proof, rather than being proof of something by itself.

In case of copyright infringement the only thing they got is, usually, a screencap with the IP address of the alleged person. Sometimes they might have logs from software.

Now, even if you have nailed where the copyright infringement was made, you still have to nail the specific person, moreover if it’s an open Wi-Fi (or one that has been compromised).

And there is where the investigation usually leads to a dead end, as it’s almost impossible to prove that it was done by you just because your connection was used.

See that a judge has to be sure to an extent that the person was truly responsible. Any doubts in that assessment, and I mean ANY, means that the principle of "in dubio pro reo" is applied.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
In fact, IP addresses are usually the last things that prove a defamation:
There is a comment being made.
There is a name being used. I mean, a REAL NAME. Of course, this by itself doesn’t prove defamation.
The most usual cases, they are linked to social network accounts or blogs, where you get a history of that blog being used by that aforementioned person.
Most investigations end up here because:
People use their real names.
People use their usual social networks, with their real names.
Or even barring that, they usually add pictures and other stuff to make sure that you know that it’s them using their own account.
In many cases, you don’t even need an IP, because you got plenty data telling the authorities who you are already.
At worst, the IP address will give them further hints to gather more proof, rather than being proof of something by itself.
In case of copyright infringement the only thing they got is, usually, a screencap with the IP address of the alleged person. Sometimes they might have logs from software.
Now, even if you have nailed where the copyright infringement was made, you still have to nail the specific person, moreover if it’s an open Wi-Fi (or one that has been compromised).
And there is where the investigation usually leads to a dead end, as it’s almost impossible to prove that it was done by you just because your connection was used.
See that a judge has to be sure to an extent that the person was truly responsible. Any doubts in that assessment, and I mean ANY, means that the principle of "in dubio pro reo" is applied.

Except if any of this were the case, anyone could defame someone (like that hypothetical pro-230 lawyer) without consequence, all thanks to Section 230 giving immunity to the Starbucks etc.

Heck, just pay a homeless person 20 bucks to do it. If that’s all it takes to destroy the career of this hypothetical pro-230 lawyer, I’d say that’s messed up.

BTW, anyone can post under any name. That proves nothing. Someone who relied on that to sue could easily be sanctioned. The James Woods case is a good example of how people get unmasked.

DISCLAIMER: the situation above is purely hypothetical. No threats express or implied. Void where prohibited. Any resemblance to actual pro-230 lawyers is purely coincidental.

Wendy Cockcroft (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

Actually, that’s impossible unless people are generally more stupid than I give them "credit" for, or unless the story gains credence in some way.

I had someone try to wreck my life by telling lies about me. They failed because I was able to prove they were lies.

Shut up, Jhon. You know nothing. Try being on the end of actual defamation like I was some time. Not the search engines’ fault, nor the platform. It was troll’s fault.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

What part of "usually" you don’t understand? Do I need to spell it out for you?

Of course people use nicks. In fact, smart people use nicks instead of their names and/or social networks.

And even smarter people have their brains on and don’t use their own IP and use either anonymizing tools or public IPs like Wi-Fis.

But you know, we are talking about "smart" people. Something that doesn’t apply to most people.

Btw, FYI, the US isn’t the only country where defamation happens, nor the only country that has the internet. In the EU it does too, and we got stronger anti-defamation laws. And with those laws, people are still stupid enough to post comments using their real names and/or social networks that link them to their real identity in no time.

So yeah, the percentage of people who use their real names to post comments that might be DEEMED as defamatory (if not straight terrorism, as I’ve seen happening) it’s significant enough to point it out.

Of course, if the one that is defaming you is using a nick, the IP won’t tell you much about his real identity.

Point of the whole thing, though, is that we are talking about something being proof FOR A JUDGE.

Judges, at least good ones, don’t work their brains the way normal people do. What’s "obvious" for you, or a "clear cut case", it’s a "there is not enough proof" for them.

At least the good ones. Bad ones…

You know the "in dubio pro reo" principle? The one about "not guilty until proven"?

Point is, an IP doesn’t give DEFINITE proof of wrongdoing that, and here is the whole thing, points out straight to the persons who actually did that wrongdoing.

At best it helps you to locate a possible pool of suspects, and even then, what you get from IP addresses is flimsy.

In short, many judges are finding out that they can’t prove guilt with just IP addresses. At best they can prove that John Doe’s connection was used for copyright infringement.

But they can’t stick it to either John Doe, Jane Doe or John Smith that happen to live there (and that’s if the IP address location is accurate enough), nor to the Joe Smiths that have happened to use that same IP because it was an open Wi-Fi.

In short: an IP is a tool that at best can give you hints as to where a wrongdoing was done from.

It’s a tool for investigators, not for judges.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

"You know the "in dubio pro reo" principle? The one about "not guilty until proven"?"

Save it. Baghdad Bob…or bobmail/jhon/blue/etc…doesn’t susbscribe to "innocent until proven guilty". He wants jail time as soon as someone yells "Pirate" and it’ll be just too damn bad i the jail cells end up filled with shell-shocked senior citizens and laser printers as a result.

That’s why he has that "from my cold, dead hands" approach to ip "evidence". He knows damn well copyright infringement isn’t serious enough to make the feds or NSA move in with full surveillance so having someone handing out a sheep of ip addresses to mass-mail extortion letters to is all he has left.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

You know, that might just be the most honest thing you’ve said all article.

Point is, an IP doesn’t give DEFINITE proof of wrongdoing that, and here is the whole thing, points out straight to the persons who actually did that wrongdoing.

I’ll be sure to quote your own words any time from here on out you piss and moan about IP addresses being good enough.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

So in your mind, defamation is the same as threatening?

You sir are a backwater, redneck, hippie, commie, beatnik, progressive, conservative, democratic, republican, with almost as much appeal as a dung beetle.

Do you feel threatened now? Better get my IP and sue me ‘making you feel bad’…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Now it makes more sense…

Carnac says, "This man is an author who has had ‘bad things’ said about him online, and he is trying to get free legal advice on how to proceed with his defamation suit. So far he has learned that ‘an IP address does not prove you have been defamed’ but since he doesn’t like this answer, he is trying to find something "someone said on the internet" that he can use a "proof" that he is right."

Or perhaps two idiots may express the same stupid viewpoint at the same time on the internet (the ‘broken clock is right twice a day… or used to be before digital, now a broken clock is a paperweight, like this guy).

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re:

If someone threatens the president anonymously, is their IP evidence of anything?

It is evidence that someone using that IP address made the threat. Whether it was the person to whom that IP address was assigned, however, would require an investigation more rigorous than “hey, we got an IP, send the feds”.

The same goes for defamatory content: You may be able to trace the post back to a given IP address, but that alone is not evidence of who made the post in the first place. This is why we have court cases and investigations, and why we do not throw people in supermax prison for 25-to-life or fine them millions of dollars upon mere accusation.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

If someone threatens the president anonymously, is their IP evidence of anything?
It is evidence that someone using that IP address made the threat. Whether it was the person to whom that IP address was assigned, however, would require an investigation more rigorous than “hey, we got an IP, send the feds”.
The same goes for defamatory content: You may be able to trace the post back to a given IP address, but that alone is not evidence of who made the post in the first place. This is why we have court cases and investigations, and why we do not throw people in supermax prison for 25-to-life or fine them millions of dollars upon mere accusation.

So if the rightsholder cannot subpoena the identity of the person who owns the IP address, how exactly does one stop piracy, short of intermediary liability?

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

The RIAA and the MPAA have been playing a game of whack-a-mole with piracy for decades. If they cannot stop it, no one can. The trick to mitigating piracy is simple: Give people a reason to buy into who you are/what you do, and make it affordable and convenient for them to do so. Piracy will continue onward regardless of how you feel about it; best to worry about the possibility of mitigating it rather than trying in vain to stop it altogether.

Agammamon says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

how exactly does one stop piracy, short of intermediary liability?

Maybe you don’t. Maybe you say the damage caused by piracy is far, far, far less than the damage that will be caused by credible attempts to suppress it.

Like, ooooh, are there any real world examples? Has this sort of situation ever come up before where you try to suppress something deemed socially harmful, ideally for a generation or two, and then can get a good look at long-term data about both the cost of the suppression scheme and its effectiveness?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Oh yeah, Prohibition and the War on Drugs.

If its a choice between a ‘War On Piracy’ and rampant piracy – I’ll take the pirates.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

"It is evidence that someone using that IP address made the threat."

Actually…no. Not even that.

After you’ve added proxying, NAT, DHCP and spoofing to the list what you get is actually a case that anyone with the chutzpah to make a credible threat against the president is either a crackpot already on file with the feds for screaming invectives at the white house from street level…
…or you have someone who will provide the NSA with a 10000 man-hour project of tracking halfway through which the feds will already have tracked the suspect through normal police footwork.

Baghdad Bob’s favorite hobbyhorse of "What if someone threatens the president" is as laughably bad an example as it was when he first introduced it on TorrentFreak several years ago.

He’s just trying to regurgitate his long-debunked red herrings and straw man arguments to a somewhat newer audience.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Also to add that there have been cases where the correct IP address was identified, but the wrong person was associated with it (for example, and ISP reading timezone data and fingering the person it was assigned to before or after the target used it).

An IP address is a piece of data to start investigation, nothing more. It’s less evidence than a phone call record, yet these guys want it to be sole proof of something. By all means people, investigate "pirate" and "harassers" , others are just suggesting you have some real proof before the courts get involved.

Agammamon says:

Re: Re:

Funny how no defamation lawsuit is ever defeated this way.

Are there any defamation lawsuits that are started this way? No, there are not. When trying to get information on a defamer, sure plaintiffs demand IP address for discovery – they also demand email addresses, registered personal data, and ‘whois’ data for websites.

Then someone takes that stuff and sits down and does actual, you know, investigative work to find out who really said what was said online.

Oh, and 99% of the time its not defamation anyway – but hey, billable hours, yo – so that’s how most defamation lawsuits are defeated.

If someone threatens the president anonymously, is their IP evidence of anything? It should be.

No, its never been evidence of anything. It is, literally, not evidence. Like, ‘evidence’ doesn’t mean that.

To prevent anyone from ‘deny deny deny’ – you’d have to eliminate the possibility of using VPN’s. As in you’d have to design a network where that capability simply wasn’t possible. Which means leaving most of the world at the tender mercys of despots. But hey, I guess that’s the price to pay to prevent lese majeste and the horrible, shocking, crime of seeing the President threatened by yet another no-hoper who is a greater danger to himself from the bon-bons than a realistic Mitch Leary.

Of course, that’s on top of requiring the registration – with severe penalties for non-compliance – of the location of every internet connected device.

And, cherry on sundae, internet credentials and the hardware to read them. Everyone will need a CAC to log on to anything, desktop, xbox, phone.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Funny how no defamation lawsuit is ever defeated this way.
Are there any defamation lawsuits that are started this way? No, there are not.

Just about every "John Doe" lawsuit starts this way. Remember the James Woods case? The speaker is unmasked either through prefiling discovery or shortly after filing.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

"Anyone else surprised John’s successful case needs one of the parties involved to be incapable of response first?"

Not really, no. Baghdad Bob/Jhon/Bobmail has a long history of not being able to build a sane argument unless circumstances in extremis surround his example.

And even then he can’t help himself from lying through his teeth, as illustrated here:

"Just about every "John Doe" lawsuit starts this way."

…which isn’t true. No lawsuit EVER starts that way. Sure, the plaintiff may hand over the ip address they found first, but that’s like saying that the color of the getaway car was instrumental to the case because the first thing the police could find was a five year old screaming "It wash bwue!!!"

And judges today are smarter by far than to do anything other than toss out a case unheard if what you’ve got is an ip address and your dick in your hand.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re:

"If IPs don’t prove who infringes, they don’t prove who defames either."

Correct. An IP address proves nothing. As far as burden of proof goes it’s at the level of hearsay. What proves defamation is usually login details. browser fingerprinting, and a long list of secondary evidence.

"If someone threatens the president anonymously, is their IP evidence of anything? It should be."

Nope. And Nope.
What you just stated was that if a child screams "He did it!" then it should be considered evidence. That just isn’t true.

"Terrible ruling that allows anyone to just deny deny deny."

We know, Baghdad Bob, that in your own little la-la land "guilty until proven innocent" is the norm.
The real world can not operate under that standard this side of the dark ages.

I’m impressed. Three one-liners, each of which decisively proved your incompetency in technology, basic logic, and basic jurisprudens.

Anonymous Coward says:

“For example, it is entirely possible that the IP address belongs to a coffee shop or open Wi-Fi network, which the alleged infringer briefly used on a visit to Miami,” Judge Ungaro notes. “Even if the IP address were located within a residence in this district, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence’s computer and who actually used it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” she adds.

So if someone uses a "burner IP" address to defame say a group of LAWYERS, who then can’t sue Google for archiving it…hmm…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

So if someone uses a "burner IP" address to defame say a group of LAWYERS, who then can’t sue Google for archiving it…hmm…

Yes? They can’t sue Google for happening to have a record of it. Exactly the point.

You realize that the whole point of defaming someone and getting away with it is to not let your victims know what you’re doing?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

So if someone uses a "burner IP" address to defame say a group of LAWYERS, who then can’t sue Google for archiving it…hmm…
Yes? They can’t sue Google for happening to have a record of it. Exactly the point.

The point being that Section 230 doesn’t account for situations where the original publisher cannot be sued.

You realize that the whole point of defaming someone and getting away with it is to not let your victims know what you’re doing?

I never said I would do this, only that it’s an example of how people are defenseless against defamation, thanks to Section 230.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

I never said I would do this
You just heavily implied it.

No, I used it as an example to show why Section 230 can harm innocent people. Showing how it can be done to a pro-230 lawyer might cause said lawyer to understand the harm that has been inflicted on others, sometimes by OTHER pro-230 lawyers.

Have to wonder why "Stephen T. Stone" would react so strongly to this, in a manner I’d have expected from a few others.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Showing how it can be done to a pro-230 lawyer might cause said lawyer to understand the harm that has been inflicted on others, sometimes by OTHER pro-230 lawyers.

By all means, please point out how keeping liability on the people who committed a harmful act instead of the tool they used to commit it “harms” others.

Have to wonder why "Stephen T. Stone" would react so strongly to this

Because, “Jhon”, your plan is bullshit. It is driven by a quixotic desire to rid the U.S. of CDA 230 even though it would mean both the closing of comments sections on any website and a good chunk of the Internet disappearing in short order. For all the whining you do about harms and revenge porn and all that, you have yet to cite a single case — one case at all! — where CDA 230 is the direct cause of any harm to anyone…or that we should place liability for defamation/revenge porn/whatever on anyone other than the people who posted it or had a direct hand in facilitating its publication. You want to destroy the Internet because people said mean things about you and you cannot sue the site hosting those insults; if I do not ever “react … strongly” to that, I would consider myself less than human.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Showing how it can be done to a pro-230 lawyer might cause said lawyer to understand the harm that has been inflicted on others, sometimes by OTHER pro-230 lawyers.
By all means, please point out how keeping liability on the people who committed a harmful act instead of the tool they used to commit it “harms” others.

The "tool" is a separate actor, a DISTRIBUTOR of defamation, one which can be held liable in any country without Section 230. Google is not a "dumb pipe." It is a website which distributes defamatory content to third parties. Just ask the Australian judiciary about that.

Have to wonder why "Stephen T. Stone" would react so strongly to this
Because, “Jhon”, your plan is bullshit. It is driven by a quixotic desire to rid the U.S. of CDA 230 even though it would mean both the closing of comments sections on any website and a good chunk of the Internet disappearing in short order.

My theory on your reaction is a little different, but this isn’t the place to share it. It’s funny how YOUR leg kicked up when a knee supposedly unattached to your body was tapped.

As for your comments, AUS and UK websites still have comments sections. A notice-and-takedown scheme or simple moderation would keep any site running. Section 230 is opposed by many more than me, but the little gang of twenty or so on here doesn’t use its vitriolic language against elected officials. Their courage has limits.

For all the whining you do about harms and revenge porn and all that,

Nothing compared to your whining about ME.

you have yet to cite a single case — one case at all! — where CDA 230 is the direct cause of any harm to anyone…or that we should place liability for defamation/revenge porn/whatever on anyone other than the people who posted it or had a direct hand in facilitating its publication.

CDA 230 had to be passed to immunize websites from the very specific harm you deny, the harm that AUS and UK courts do not. I suspect that the two congressmen whose names appear on this website, and against whom campaign videos "tying them to cyberbullying" can be made, will be "woke" rather soon.

This site is folly compared to what’s being done in the mainstream to deal with the cybercriminals I tracked to this place by tracking their online activities. People say I’m impotent, "do something," but don’t realize when they see what’s being done it’ll be way too late.

Section 230 harms everyone whose life has been threatened by repeat offenders that would cause liability for the sites which enable them under theories of negligence, etc. You think you can refute all this by assertion, but you prove nothing to no one, and you certainly can’t stop what’s about to rain down on people who started this by thinking it was funny to cause others to threaten to kill me.

If you or anyone else thinks law enforcement doesn’t care about this, that’s up to you. You could very easily be wrong. Even if they don’t, the media already does. This site is being watched by more people every day, thanks to the incredibly abusive behavior of those who post here. There are those who have professional careers to protect and won’t sacrifice them for a stupid website.

You want to destroy the Internet because people said mean things about you and you cannot sue the site hosting those insults; if I do not ever “react … strongly” to that, I would consider myself less than human.

Death threats and defamation are not "mean things," but clearly illegal speech. Distributor liability is well-established. You pretending that isn’t the case means nothing.

You are defending some very dangerous criminals. I’ll leave it to my lawyer(s) to figure out why. Posting back and forth here is just noise.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Google is not a "dumb pipe." It is a website which distributes defamatory content to third parties.

Google is a search engine; it scrapes websites, catalogs the results, and sorts them according to relevance and popularity vis-á-vis a given search term. That it may link to defamatory content — which it did not publish and had no way of knowing beforehand was defamatory content — is an accident of how a search engine works. If a library stocks a book that has defamatory content in it, but does not know the book is defamatory and does not learn until years later (at which point the book is pulled off the shelves), how liable should the library be for defamation?

It’s funny how YOUR leg kicked up when a knee supposedly unattached to your body was tapped.

I like the Internet the way it is, warts and social media and all. Anyone who threatens the idea of an open, participatory Internet deserves nothing but scorn and derision, even if the most they can ever do about it is make impotent threats about getting CDA 230 “cancelled”.

UK websites still have comments sections.

The UK also arrests people who say dumb shit on the Internet. Just because they have open comments sections and social media does not mean people have the same freedoms as they do/would in the U.S.

A notice-and-takedown scheme or simple moderation would keep any site running.

Notice-and-takedown systems are a form of censorship because the takedown removes content on a mere accusation before it is ever judged by a court of law to be “illegal”. The DMCA’s NaT system, for example, can silence speech that would otherwise fall under the protections of Fair Use for at least two weeks — all based on someone (anyone, really) saying the content violates their copyright. If the same system were to exist for defamation, an untold amount of content could disappear for weeks to months to years to forever depending on whether someone filed a counternotice and the plaintiff decided to go through with a lawsuit to prove the content was legit defamatory and deserved to be taken down before such a ruling was made.

If’n you want to talk about censorship and the law, a NaT system for defamation could and would legally censor a lot of content that would otherwise remain up without such a system. Defamation is a matter for the courts, not for an extrajudicial takedown process with no real punishment for filing false notices and no real oversight in re: whether the law is being used to censor someone’s wholly legal speech.

CDA 230 had to be passed to immunize websites from the very specific harm you deny

CDA 230 was passed, in part, to make moderation of online platforms possible without the platform facing legal liability for any content it moderates. The expressed authorial intent of 230 has long made this fact clear.

I suspect that the two congressmen whose names appear on this website, and against whom campaign videos "tying them to cyberbullying" can be made, will be "woke" rather soon.

I know that you sound like someone making impotent threats. If you plan on ever doing anything, do it and be done with it, but quit talking about it. Nobody believes your threats about police investigations any more; it is all the talk of a playground-age child with all the effectiveness of “my dad can beat up your dad”.

This site is folly compared to what’s being done in the mainstream to deal with the cybercriminals I tracked to this place by tracking their online activities.

What, did you backhack their firewalls through seven proxies and install trojans in their router’s firmware before disabling the master password to the BIOS and fooling the antivirus?

People say I’m impotent, "do something," but don’t realize when they see what’s being done it’ll be way too late.

Yes, and Trump’s wall will totally be built in his lifetime~.

Section 230 harms everyone whose life has been threatened by repeat offenders that would cause liability for the sites which enable them under theories of negligence, etc.

You know who actually harmed those people? The repeat offenders. Punish them, not the tools they use. (If they send a threat via snail mail, who should be held liable for it — the USPS, the company that made the paper, or the person who made the threat?)

You think you can refute all this by assertion

You assert things all the time, then refuse to back them up with citations of fact. If anything, you are the one reliant on assertion in this neck of the digital woods.

you prove nothing to no one

Thank you for a perfect summary of your comment history.

you certainly can’t stop what’s about to rain down on people who started this by thinking it was funny to cause others to threaten to kill me

Quick question, Jolly Jhonny: How will you be able to prove anyone legitimately threatened you — the person who you are offline, the person who has a real legal name — if all you ever do is post anonymously?

If you or anyone else thinks law enforcement doesn’t care about this, that’s up to you. You could very easily be wrong.

We could be, and most likely are, correct in our assumption.

Even if they don’t, the media already does.

[citation needed]

This site is being watched by more people every day, thanks to the incredibly abusive behavior of those who post here.

You mean like the abusive behavior of someone who is repeatedly told to leave but continues to post despite the protestations of those who originally told him to get the hell out.

…that is what you meant, right? Right?

There are those who have professional careers to protect and won’t sacrifice them for a stupid website.

I am guessing you are not one of them.

You pretending that isn’t the case means nothing.

You pretending that you are going to file multi-million dollar lawsuits against commenters here and have Techdirt shut down so hard that the servers will be coated in acid just to ensure the data is wiped forever, on the other hand, means everything~.

You are defending some very dangerous criminals. I’ll leave it to my lawyer(s) to figure out why.

By all means, have your lawyers contact me on Twitter. Given that you have said you know who I am, I should not be too hard to find.

And make it fast, son. I have things to do.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Not sure where but I think somewhere around Albuquerque you pulled a Bugs Bunny (TM) and flipped the argument on yourself…

You still haven’t sited one case, and you keep rambling about, "You think you can refute all this by assertion, but you prove nothing to no one, and you certainly can’t stop what’s about to rain down on people who started this by thinking it was funny to cause others to threaten to kill me."… blah, blah, blah

So less with your "assertions" and lets see some actual proof that Section 230 harms ANYONE, now sure it makes life difficult for Trolls (your masters) and all those greedy suckers hoping to make a buck by doing nothing but suing others (you obviously). What it has done is ensure that the people responsible for the actions are the ones held responsible. I mean how would you feel if someone nuked you from orbit because you offended them on the internet?

This is what you are proposing, that anyone should be able to sue a website for everything they own, shut them down and put them out of business, because someone said something bad about you online… I propose a new solution, we shoot the complainer… the shootings will continue until the complaining stops…

Ok, problem solved, this solution as all things posted online is copyrighted, trademarked, patented, and a protected trade secret of Anymouse, Inc.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

The point being that Section 230 doesn’t account for situations where the original publisher cannot be sued.

So you are still trying to hold intermediarias responsible instead of the original creator?

Your tired cries of defamation are nonsense. You have never been defamed, and are just puppeting talking points form the music industry.

Wendy Cockcroft (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

We’re all defenceless against defamation, 230 or not. Defamers will defame, and lawsuits are a rich man’s game. I can’t afford to sue, and wouldn’t. That’s why I relied on my own good conduct and the fact that the liar who defamed me couldn’t keep his story straight. Or stand by his claims. That’s why he failed.

Agammamon says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Yes? They can’t sue Google for happening to have a record of it. >Exactly the point.

They can sue Google in AUS or the UK, or many other countries.

Not for defamation. And no more or less to find the identity of an anonymous commenter than the US.

They can sue to get something memory-holed and that’s about the only difference.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

And now when somebody searches for Milorad they’ll know that he argued that someone who saw his picture in passing with a gangster know without a doubt he’s a gangster.

When your case is dependent on such a huge suspension of disbelief odds are people are going to think you’re talking shit and the Australian courts fucked up, instead of the scenario you desperately crave.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Someone said that Google couldn’t be sued for defamation in Australia. I posted a link that shows they can, and have been sued for defamation in Australia. In response, you post something about how the courts "fucked up."

Yes, you know SO much more than they do.

Section 230 is on the way out. Done deal at this point, according to my sources.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Except that Google didn’t defame him in Australia. The courts said he could sue Google because of search engine results. Which, for some reason you need to be reminded of, is not a sign of him getting defamed. Instead of suing the papers and websites who described him as a gangster, or the photographer who put him next to a gangster, he chose to broadcast the fact that he shared a picture with a gangster by letting the whole planet know this lawsuit exists.

So yes, if the Australian courts sincerely think that if you’re walking on a road that happens to be occupied in nearby meatspace as a gangster, and the courts think that people en masse are going to think you’re a gangster, the courts fucked up. Because you can then sue everyone who’s ever acted alongside Danny Trejo.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Except that Google didn’t defame him in Australia. The courts said he could sue Google because of search engine results.

Yes, he could sue FOR DEFAMATION IN AUSTRALIA.

If someone is going to deny the sunrise, there’s no point in debating them. Fortunately, people with actual power know the truth and that’s why Google is getting sued there.

Figures a lowlife like Masnick wouldn’t attract a very intelligent fan base.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Perhaps you can answer how someone can "sue the original publisher" if the original publisher uses a "burner IP address" (public wifi etc.), and the IP address isn’t sufficient to get a subpoena to identify this publisher.

Sounds like an easy way to get away with libel. How can this be stopped?

It’d be terrible if someone did this to a bunch of pro-230 lawyers, though I’d never advocate it. It would just be so ironic.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

It’d be terrible if someone did this to a bunch of pro-230 lawyers, though I’d never advocate it.

Given the detailed outline of such a plan that you have posted over the past week or two of commenting here, you have not only advocated for it, you sound as if you are threatening to do the deed yourself. The only reason you will not is because you are a coward.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Given the detailed outline of such a plan that you have posted over the past week or two of commenting here, you have not only advocated for it, you sound as if you are threatening to do the deed yourself. The only reason you will not is because you are a coward.

That’s a bit of a stretch, and I wouldn’t do this myself because I’m a law-abiding citizen (though if I DID do it there’d be no way to catch me now would there?), but this is something that ANYONE can do, and it shows a fatal flaw in Section 230.

Maybe there are lawyers who have already figured this out and do it to opposing litigants, or who engineer lawsuits by doing this to people they know will sue others who repeat what they have planted. If there are, and they’ve done this to people, I’d imagine those they harmed this way might be looking for some payback.

Section 230 is just flawed. I still haven’t seen a single person post here on how to stop this god-awful scenario from materializing.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Maybe there are lawyers who have already figured this out and do it to opposing litigants, or who engineer lawsuits by doing this to people they know will sue others who repeat what they have planted. If there are, and they’ve done this to people, I’d imagine those they harmed this way might be looking for some payback.

If there were cases that use the fantasy plan you have outlined, we would have heard about them by now. That no one has taken your fever dream of a scam and put it into practical use should tell you something.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Actually, those who would do something like that probably wouldn’t bother notifying you.

The point is that it is EASY to do, and Section 230 enables it.

There was a time when falling off a cliff while taking a dangerous selfie hadn’t happened yet.

Who is this WE? Is this groupthink?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

It would be terrible if you made more impotent threats. So terrible.

It’s not a threat if I point out that SOMEONE ELSE could use a "burner IP" to defame a bunch of pro-230 lawyers in a way that they could never sue to have the defamation removed from the internet.

Just ask one of those big-mouthed lawyers who talk about how it’s not a "true threat" or whatever.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

"It is at least an implied one. “Such a nice law practice you have here. It’d be a real shame if someone were to fuck that all up because you support CDA 230…”"

Not even that. Old Baghdad bob is just, as per usual, desperately trying to get people to board his creaky bandwagon by using a flawed argument based on false premise to demonstrate why not having freedom of speech is in EVERYONE’s interest.

That he sounds like a sleazy huckster fronting for a mob extortionist…that’s just the way he normally rolls.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

It’s not archived by Google, you twat. If something you post happens to be on a site that gets crawled by Google’s spiders then your drivel will be indexed in their search engine. Not the content of your drivel, just the location and keywords (a simplification but the point stands). Then people who search for such drivel may find yours listed on Google. They can click the links Google provides as search results and go see the drivel you posted on the original site you posted on.

GOOGLE IS A SEARCH ENGINE, NOT AN INTERNET ARCHIVE

It’s amusing that someone who understands so little about how the internet works is posting their crap on a topic about IP addresses and needing to understand internet technology.

Seriously, if you hate the internet so much, get the fuck off of it and take your luddite dogma with you.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

It’s not archived by Google, you twat. If something you post happens to be on a site that gets crawled by Google’s spiders then your drivel will be indexed in their search engine. Not the content of your drivel, just the location and keywords (a simplification but the point stands). Then people who search for such drivel may find yours listed on Google. They can click the links Google provides as search results and go see the drivel you posted on the original site you posted on.
GOOGLE IS A SEARCH ENGINE, NOT AN INTERNET ARCHIVE
It’s amusing that someone who understands so little about how the internet works is posting their crap on a topic about IP addresses and needing to understand internet technology.
Seriously, if you hate the internet so much, get the fuck off of it and take your luddite dogma with you.

Insults (of the cowardly, internet-tough variety that would lead to involuntary urination before spoken to someone’s face), slanted language, and a desire to see me not post (s/he’d have to KILL me to make that happen and is too cowardly to do that) are not wise debating tactics.

Actually, the data IS archived on Google’s servers, which then serve it up. They just don’t publish the "cache" that they used to (probably due to copyright concerns). As the Australian cases show, Google does harm people separately from any original defamation, but that didn’t even address the post, which said that the ORIGINAL PUBLISHER can use a "burner IP" and then place defamation online (even about lawyers who defend 230) over which they can’t be sued, a and which any search engine that amplifies it cannot be sued either.

Masnick is not taken seriously as a journalist because of commenters like the above.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Yes, mostly full of ridicule and mockery.

That’s called bullying, but that’s what cowards do, especially when hiding behind internet monitors. Reflects only and very poorly on them, and scores no points in a formal debate. Not exactly worth bragging about.

Masnick would never let people talk like that to anyone to their face if he were around. That he hides behind his commenters says what a coward he is. Anyone who sponsors that type of conduct shouldn’t be in business, and can be reviewed online so that their customers know they are sponsoring bullying.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

For what reason should he do what you so desperately, longingly, potentially sexually need him to talk smack on-camera?

He doesn’t NEED to do anything, though the sexual reference is an example of language I think two congressmen who posted an article here should be asked, on camera, if they endorse, along with much of the comment language.

Like the coward he is, he’ll probably say NOTHING. Since I already have the attention of the national media, it will be very easy to arrange this. Don’t confuse internet fame with ACTUAL fame.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

Due time has been well over a year, Herrick. Especially since you threatened multiple address with subpoenas just last week.

But given that the police generally have better things to do than to help an embittered, angry man whose idea of a livelihood is spamming websites he openly dislikes, I’m not going to hold my breath.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

"Since I already have the attention of the national media, it will be very easy to arrange this. Don’t confuse internet fame with ACTUAL fame."

Ah, so you’re famous now? The same way you are a certified genius, a network technician, a skilled lawyer and businessman…

If even one of your claims was true you’d be the next steve jobs. Instead you apparently spend your days stalking this blog. And for some reason you aren’t capable of presenting a single halfway coherent argument containing actual facts.

I maintain that so far the only talent you’ve displayed is that as a performance artist on a street corner, you might be able to gain a few nickles from merciful bypassers.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

"Ah, so you’re famous now?"

My rule of thumb is that genuine successes don’t feel the need to boast about it, especially among strangers. It’s the insecure frauds who feel the need to inform everybody all the time. I’ve met both types in my life, and it’s usually the guys who are running up their last credit cards to fund their lifestyle who are brash and loud about what they have, not the people with a few spare million of actual wealth in the bank.

Anyway, it’s worth repeating again – no matter how famous or not this guy is, not a word of what’s written here is directed against his good name. That will only get sullied if he decides to out himself, say, by suing a community who he has chosen to spend a serious amount of time whining at like a toddler.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

no points in a formal debate

Your comments do not deserve a formal debate because as soon as you are called out on your BS, you run away and don’t come back to continue the debate. You have done it with me dozens of times where I own the debate and you run away.

So yes, your comments are mostly deserving of ridicule and mockery.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Your comments do not deserve a formal debate because as soon as you are called out on your BS, you run away and don’t come back to continue the debate. You have done it with me dozens of times where I own the debate and you run away.

I haven’t run anywhere. I just have a life beyond this site. Perhaps you don’t.

So yes, your comments are mostly deserving of ridicule and mockery.

So you’re proud of being a bully, which makes you deserving of much, much worse. Masnick’s the real bully here for allowing it though. He’s a sniveling little coward who can’t even own those words himself, so he lets his "commenters" do it.

You mock and ridicule because you can’t argue logically. Your intellect is too limited, which is obvious from your words.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

You mock and ridicule because you can’t argue logically. Your intellect is too limited, which is obvious from your words.

No, I mock and ridicule because every attempt to have a civil debate with you, it always turns into you making big proclamations with absolutely zero evidence to back up your assertions. So when you are faced with trying to support your asinine statements by providing solid facts, you instead decide to run away and never own up to the fact that you are wrong about 99.999999% of the time you make statements on this site.

So when you finally decide to have an honest debate where you can provide actual facts instead of wild assertions with zero supporting proof, then maybe we can have a conversation where you do not deserve mockery and ridicule.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

Except that there’s already plenty of precedent where laws are enacted in the name of copyright and fail to do anything constructive while leaving plenty of collateral damage behind. FOSTA. HADOPI. Three strikes.

Your scenario on the other hand is so mystical no cases of it happening even exist but that’s somehow enough to trash existing law.

In that case there’s plenty of reason to trash Article 17.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

The question is how to prevent it from happening, and you have no answer

That’s like saying "how to prevent tornados", and you have no answer. Because of everything you say here in the comments, it’s nothing more than just conjecture. Personally, I think you are just trying to test out your next scam by posting your ideas here (defamation, email lists, dvd ebooks, etc) and the idea that gets this least amount of ridicule will be the next scam that you try to perpetrate.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

No, it’s a specific scenario: someone uses a "burner IP" to defame someone, say a pro-230 lawyer, maybe spreads the lie that the lawyer sexually assaulted a teenage girl in his office who was working part time (easier if the lawyer has an internet history already accusing him of something similar, of course). Since the IP doesn’t identify them, the publisher cannot be found, and thanks to Section 230, anyone who links to the defamation cannot be sued.

Exactly how would this hypothetical pro-230 attorney stop this? As for why it would have been done, maybe the pro-230 lawyer used Section 230 in the past to defame someone who got really pissed and then took revenge. As this is just a hypothetical example, there is no actual defamation, but how would it be stopped?

Now put yourself in the place of this pro-230 attorney trying to find a job, date someone, even find a place to live as a "known internet predator," all based on a pack of lies that was quoted so often that people began to believe it. Make the attorney a whistleblower who powerful, corrupt people need to silence, and now they have their weapon, and of course a motive to do it.

As the pro-230 attorney moves through his life, anyone he argues with online goes looking for "dirt," finds it, but instead of linking to it, just "reiterates" the lie in a manner that makes them liable as an original publisher, and gets sued, again because of 230, because of what they believed online. If you think any person should have to endure that type of falsehood, or the ridiculous vigilantes who will act on it, all I’ll say is I disagree.

What you have NOT done here is explain how this can be stopped.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:15 Re:

Ah, so thanks for confirming that it’s never happened.

You know what would happen to a waiter who calls a woman a hooker based on five year old 4chan posts?

MeToo would be on his backside faster than you could pray to the RIAA.

…Oh wait, you hate #MeToo, don’t you?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16 Re:

Ah, so thanks for confirming that it’s never happened.
You know what would happen to a waiter who calls a woman a hooker based on five year old 4chan posts?
MeToo would be on his backside faster than you could pray to the RIAA.
…Oh wait, you hate #MeToo, don’t you?

But if it’s a woman accusing a male, pro-230 lawyer who has previously been accused of sexual misconduct, they wouldn’t. In fact, she’d be believed almost automatically.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:15 Re:

That’s the wrong idea, completely. As with a great many things, there are laws against defamation. Those laws are there to (hopefully) prevent the act due to the threat of punishment. But the laws don’t completely stop that or anything else. They’re not expected to nor should they be.

There are countless acts a human could perpetrate that there is no mechanism to prevent. Murder, rape, schoolyard bullying. The list is endless. There is only the threat of punishment to curb such behavior.

Section 230 protects platform operators from being held liable for the actions of the public who posts content on those platforms, just as it should and is right. If a member of said public posts something that violates a law somewhere then that person is the one who should be punished, not the platform operators who provide for us the venues by which we communicate such as this one.

If that dastardly person hops on a public wifi to post their illegal content then they’ve made the investigation more difficult to conclude. Again, that’s perfectly normal and should be expected. But just because it’s harder to find the real perpetrator doesn’t mean we need more laws to allow the victim(s) to go after those not responsible for the illegal content. Asking for such laws is actually wanting an authoritarian, fascist government.

You’d have to be a complete snowflake to be so fragile. Shit happens in this world; Deal with it. We don’t need a police officer standing over every shoulder.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16 Re:

Section 230 protects platform operators from being held liable for the actions of the public who posts content on those platforms

The acts of a platform or search engine are separate from the acts of a publisher, and, as noted, "burner IPs" make it impossible to find some publishers.

Australian law recognizes this difference, as does American law, except the latter immunizes the platforms against liability for the recognized harm of "distributor libel."

A platform refusing to delete a posting is a separate act from the posting itself.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:17

A platform refusing to delete a posting is a separate act from the posting itself.

If and when a platform violates a legitimate court order to remove any content that has been ruled defamatory, that act would put them in legal jeopardy. But saying something is defamatory does not make it so, and compelling a platform to remove possibly-but-maybe-not defamatory content on a mere accusation is the move of a thin-skinned authoritarian whose feelings got hurt by people saying mean things about him.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:18 Re:

*A platform refusing to delete a posting is a separate act from the posting itself.

If and when a platform violates a legitimate court order to remove any content that has been ruled defamatory, that act would put them in legal jeopardy. But saying something is defamatory does not make it so, and compelling a platform to remove possibly-but-maybe-not defamatory content on a mere accusation is the move of a thin-skinned authoritarian whose feelings got hurt by people saying mean things about him.*

Actually, the DMCA does not require a court order, neither does defamation anywhere without 230. Notice is sufficient. "Mean things" are not the issue, but rather "defamatory things," like the nurse who was falsely accused of doing porn and then loses a job five years later because it turned up in a search engine (this has happened numerous times and with revenge porn).

Now in the cases of women who REALLY did porn but now work as teachers or nurses, there’s a definite public interest in putting them on blast, since they are entrusted with the care of the underaged and vulnerable.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:19

the nurse who was falsely accused of doing porn and then loses a job five years later because it turned up in a search engine (this has happened numerous times and with revenge porn)

Cite the story to which you refer, then cite at least three more legitimate instances of people losing their job only because of revenge porn.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:19

Now in the cases of women who REALLY did porn but now work as teachers or nurses, there’s a definite public interest in putting them on blast

lol, so apparently the whole thing about protecting women from shit claims ends up moot because someone used to work in the world’s oldest profession. You’re not interested in protecting women, John Smith, everything you post drips with hate and distaste for the fairer gender. You’re interested because you think every woman is a Debra Lafave, desperate to sleep their way into acceptance.

Your predator shtick is obvious a mile away and you’re angry because people call you out on it, every single time, because you’re so transparent I could mount you on a frame and use you as a window.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13

it’s a specific scenario: someone uses a "burner IP" to defame someone, say a pro-230 lawyer, maybe spreads the lie that the lawyer sexually assaulted a teenage girl in his office who was working part time (easier if the lawyer has an internet history already accusing him of something similar, of course). Since the IP doesn’t identify them, the publisher cannot be found, and thanks to Section 230, anyone who links to the defamation cannot be sued.

Damn, you really have thought about doing this to someone. A semi-specific target, a specific lie, a plan to tell the lie without (hopefully) being caught and punished for it — the only thing missing here is an evil laugh and the twirling of a mustache.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14 Re:

Damn, you really have thought about doing this to someone. A semi-specific target, a specific lie, a plan to tell the lie without (hopefully) being caught and punished for it — the only thing missing here is an evil laugh and the twirling of a mustache.

Yeah, Stephen King is gonna get busted too!

Like I said, I’d never do this myself, though if someone else did, I doubt I’d be saddened.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

"The question is how to prevent it from happening, and you have no answer."

Nope. The same question could be posed about ANY crime in human history and the answer has always been "Yeah, that sucks, but we either live with that or roll society back to the dark ages".

And your specific example is so insane it’s comparable to asking how we’ll prevent lunatics from bringing down airliners by blinding the pilots with synchronized hand mirrors.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

That’s called bullying, but that’s what cowards do, especially when hiding behind internet monitors. Reflects only and very poorly on them, and scores no points in a formal debate. Not exactly worth bragging about.

Says the AC with a long history of lies about the law, and lies about their amazing self-help scam business, and lies about calling the cops on TD posters.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Which "scam" is this again?

Yes, I have called the police on people who have posted here. I had very good reason to. Harassing me over this could be construed as anything from witness intimidation to obstruction of justice.

You’ve basically created a situation where I can’t post under my own name without suddenly having a cause of action against you. That alone could be construed as damages.

You have no fucking clue what you’re stepping into, or maybe you do. At the very least, the police have more than enough probable cause to dive as deeply as they wish into this site and numerous people who have posted here.

Two congressmen have authored an article here. Wonder if that means they endorse the numerous bigoted terms used here.

It’s not my fault you’re a pathetic little nobody.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

Which "scam" is this again?
Your big self-help scam business. The one where you bilked people out of money,

Except you can’t know what a scam is without more specifics.

If I’m no one then why are you so upset and need to post 30 times on these articles to "prove" you are a big shot?

Not trying to prove anything. I post opinions, and people like you get rabid and post all this ad-hominem crap in response. You’re making Masnick look even worse than he already does.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

Let’s see… what is known of your history, based on your various ramblings posted, informed us that you’re someone who wrote books and e-books, likely in the self-help or how-to genre, which is why one of your pet peeves is five minute YouTube videos providing lifehacks. You claim pirates stole your mailing lists, replaced all the names and credits so nobody could ever possibly know it was your work, and the shadow entity running the entire enterprise is so powerful and rich, you claimed the courts weren’t a good way to pursue justice.

So instead you come here and piss and moan, about how you’re someone who wields so much influence and patrons in Hollywood and the mainstream media… and yet can’t pursue justice over the crimes of plagiarism committed against you.

This illogical story is precisely the reason nobody takes your claims seriously, never mind that of your own design, you chose to make your identity as dubious and nebulous as possible, then get all offended when nobody accords you with the respect you think you’re entitled to.

If Masnick looks so horrible and is so instantly reviled by everyone, why obsess over him? If YouTube and Section 230 are such non-threats, why complain about them? Did murder and revenge porn laws just up and vanish? No, they didn’t. Which is why you’re wrong, again.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

Let’s see… what is known of your history, based on your various ramblings posted,

Slanted language and fixation on me noted.

informed us that you’re someone who wrote books and e-books, likely in the self-help or how-to genre, which is why one of your pet peeves is five minute YouTube videos providing lifehacks.

Not "peeved" at YouTube.

You claim pirates stole your mailing lists, replaced all the names and credits so nobody could ever possibly know it was your work, and the shadow entity running the entire enterprise is so powerful and rich, you claimed the courts weren’t a good way to pursue justice.

That’s correct. My work was SO good that’s what was done to it. Tons of money was made off it by the pirates, due to the nature of the work. THEY are the scammers, not me. I’m just a writer/content creator, which is why I have an interest in copyright. Someone who posts here incited people to threaten to kill me (and harmed innocents in doing so), which is why I took an interest in this site. Tracking that person’s social media uncovered a network/echo chamber which is, um, "fascinating." I don’t know how you react to credible death threats, but I report them to the police, and generally don’t take kindly to them.

So instead you come here and piss and moan, about how you’re someone who wields so much influence and patrons in Hollywood and the mainstream media…

Being well-known doesn’t equate to having influence, and that’s not even relevant to these discussions, which you and others seem obsessed with making about ME rather than the topic at hand. I pointed out here how Section 230 makes people defenseless against "burner IPs" used to defame someone, because they can’t find the original publisher, and people respond with ad-hominems. Thankfully, two congressmen posted here so they likely read a lot on this issue.

And yet can’t pursue justice over the crimes of plagiarism committed against you.

Pirates operate overseas and are difficult to get justice against, which is why I favor Article 17. It’s not that difficult and it’s certainly not just about me.

This illogical story is precisely the reason nobody takes your claims seriously,

You speak for yourself, not everyone, and people don’t break laws against those they don’t perceive as a serious threat to something.

never mind that of your own design, you chose to make your identity as dubious and nebulous as possible, then get all offended when nobody accords you with the respect you think you’re entitled to.

Not asking for respect, as the source is worthless on this site, where I share my viewpoints and those who can’t refute what I say just attack me. I don’t think you understand the level to which I’ve been stalked, or by whom. There are some NASTY people around these parts, pretending to be decent, even though the way they speak proves they aren’t.

If Masnick looks so horrible and is so instantly reviled by everyone, why obsess over him? If YouTube and Section 230 are such non-threats, why complain about them?

Section 230 is a threat to everyone. It literally allows lies and misinformation to spread. Anti-vaxxers wouldn’t be able to spread their lies without platform immunity. Lies have no place on the internet, no matter how old, no matter about whom. Google could easily remove them but chooses instead to let people’s lives be ruined by them. That makes them pure evil.

Did murder and revenge porn laws just up and vanish? No, they didn’t. Which is why you’re wrong, again.

The laws didn’t vanish? So? Nonsequitur.

At some point the cockroaches here will be dealt with, but on my timetable, not theirs.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

So you continuing to come back to a site you hate is kosher but keeping track of what you said is a fixation, gotcha.

You’ve said on multiple occasions that the posters on this site, and this site as a whole, aren’t taken seriously. As in, "nerds living in their parent’s basement" level of insignificance. And yet we’re powerful enough to order death threats?

Not to say you’re worth taking a hit out on, but maybe consider all the times you threatened police action because you feel offended that no one thinks you’re rich enough to get a lawsuit. Ever think that someone else here might have taken offense and decided to preemptively nip the problem in the bud?

SOPA wasn’t needed to kill Megaupload. SESTA wasn’t needed to kill Backpage. I’m sick and tired of paying my government to fund your retirement because you think you haven’t got enough yachts.

Look, I’ll even give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you run an empire of self-help eBooks, just tell me what they are so I’ll avoid them. Or don’t. I promise to never read one of those self-congratulatory books describing one person’s journey of realizing that buying 15 Lamborghinis was a terrible financial move.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

Not to say you’re worth taking a hit out on, but maybe consider all the times you threatened police action because you feel offended that no one thinks you’re rich enough to get a lawsuit. Ever think that someone else here might have taken offense and decided to preemptively nip the problem in the bud?

Well now the cops will know where to look. Police were involved regarding these people before I got here, and it looks like the reports will have to be updated.

You may have just crossed a line.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

“Well now the cops will know where to look. Police were involved regarding these people before I got here, and it looks like the reports will have to be updated.
You may have just crossed a line.”

Remember when you didn’t do police investigations bro?

We do

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14 Re:

“Well now the cops will know where to look. Police were involved regarding these people before I got here, and it looks like the reports will have to be updated.
You may have just crossed a line.”
Remember when you didn’t do police investigations bro?
We do

We = admission of acting as a group

I don’t do police investigations. The police do. Duh.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16

Um, I do police REPORTS, not investigations.

I reported a regular on this site to law enforcement long before I ever posted here. This led to my uncovering a network of some pretty serious financial crimes. As they say, follow the money.

I know where to point the feds now. The rest is up to them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:18

Sure you did bro. Sure you do. I wonder though. Do you even know you’re lying or have you been spinning bullshit for so long you don’t even know what’s the truth anymore?

Yes, I did. I’ve been stalked for years by numerous visitors here.

Now I’m finding dirty money and if I can find it the feds can too.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:20

"…Holy shit you guys, John Smith was MyNameHere all along!"

And Baghdad Bob
Bobmail
Half a dozen other nicknames from TorrentFreak…
…and a dozen or so other sockpuppets around here, including out_of_the_blue.

And of course he thinks he’s been stalked – that, in his little mind, IS the definition of HIM turning up at a private forum visited by a regular crowd and screaming in demented hysterics, again and again and again.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15 'Dozen eggs, one loaf of bread, sandwich meats...'

Bold of you to assume that they’d even bother to write anything down, as opposed to merely moving around a pen with the ink-head retracted, or wouldn’t merely take the opportunity to write grocery lists.

(I jest of course, there’d be no need for the police to pretend to write anything given empty threat to tell their mo- the police are all they have, and they’d be laughed right out of just about any police department if they ever did try to go to the police to report how people on a site they choose to go to are just so mean to them.)

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:16 'They hurt my feelings again!'

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know if they are required to accept all complaints? Do they have to treat any and all complaints submitted to them with the same seriousness as an actual crime worth attention, or can they just ‘nope’ right off if someone comes in to file yet another complaint about say, purely hypothetically, that people on a site they choose to go to keep being mean to them?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14 Re:

well now the cops know where to look
… In their circular file where they put the rest of your complaints?

That’s a good way to get police to NOT do that…no one speaks for them.

I guess the IRS does the same thing with my charity-fraud and money-laundering reports too….did you guys know witness intimidation is a federal felony?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16

Tell us who you are so that becomes true. Until then you’re just an anonymous coward and not a witness to anything.

Wow that DID is kicking in again, unless this one person is admitting to a group "enterprise."

See, the intimidation is against my filing reports that would require me to disclose my identity.

Masnick is allowing this because he has a lot of money at stake. Hope he can handle financial discovery to establish motive. Those who claim to be his fans are definitely not helping his case.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:17

See, the intimidation is against my filing reports that would require me to disclose my identity.

What… fucking intimidation are you even talking about? Hasn’t your entire point been “the moment I reveal my true identity behind the pseudonym, you’re all fucked because it means you actually defamed my real name all along”? Now suddenly intimidation applies?

Five years, John. Five years you’ve beat the same old, broken-ass drum until you were blue in the face for the sweet fuck all you’ve managed to accomplish. You take so damn long with this I think the women in your life will have all identified as non-binary before you even come close to finding a journalist willing to host a platform for your dreck.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16

*did you guys know witness intimidation is a federal felony?

Tell us who you are so that becomes true. Until then you’re just an anonymous coward and not a witness to anything.*

I’m not anonymous, I’m pseudonymous.

There’s actually a body of law about "involuntary defamation" relating to job references, i.e., when someone has to decloak to protect their rights, if that triggers defamation, well…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16 Re:

“did you guys know witness intimidation is a federal felony?”
Crybaby Jhon is intimidated by a couple random assholes on the internet because they hurt his feelings.

No, they incited people to threaten to kill me (among other things) and harmed innocent people in the process.

They know what’s coming. That’s why they’re lashing out here. The light shining on this sight is gonna be so bright so soon everyone will have to wear shades.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14 No promise

So brave when they think they’re anonymous.
Says the confessed self-help scammer who keeps threatening police action, and posting as an Anonymous Coward?

Still no evidence of any scam….that makes the above poster the liar.

Police were called on people who visit this site long before I did. Tracking them led me here.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14 Re:

it was the one who kept accusing others of being me who brought me back
Keep telling yourself that lie. Maybe one day, it will be true.

Except it WAS true. There’s no way to refute a claim that someone else is me than to reappear to refute it. Absent that, I had no intention of ever posting here again, as I’m preparing reports for government and law enforcement.

Now that I’m getting death threats that this site is choosing to leave up, there’s more to add to the filings, unfortunately. I was trying to avoid that paperwork.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:15 Re:

Except it WAS true. There’s no way to refute a claim that someone else is me than to reappear to refute it. Absent that, I had no intention of ever posting here again, as I’m preparing reports for government and law enforcement.

Now that I’m getting death threats that this site is choosing to leave up, there’s more to add to the filings, unfortunately. I was trying to avoid that paperwork.

Ridicule and mockery!

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15

There’s no way to refute a claim that someone else is me than to reappear to refute it.

There was no need to refute the claim if you had just…you know, gone away. You post anonymously, and a not-zero number of people already use a pseudonym when talking about you. Unless your real name is “Jhon Smith”, you had no reason to come back and refute people saying another person’s posts were “Jhon Smith’s”. You could have stopped commenting and no one would ever have known (or cared) whether a given Anonymous Coward was really you. That you came back to refute the claim when you did not need to refute it says a lot about your rabid obsession with Techdirt — and your obviously bruised ego.

I had no intention of ever posting here again, as I’m preparing reports for government and law enforcement.

Sure you are, son~. Sure you are~.

I’m getting death threats that this site is choosing to leave up

Being told that you are not worth killing is not a death threat. If anything, it is a “threat” to let you live.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16 Re:

There was no need to refute the claim if you had just…you know, gone away. You post anonymously, and a not-zero number of people already use a pseudonym when talking about you. Unless your real name is “Jhon Smith”, you had no reason to come back and refute people saying another person’s posts were “Jhon Smith’s”. You could have stopped commenting and no one would ever have known (or cared) whether a given Anonymous Coward was really you. That you came back to refute the claim when you did not need to refute it says a lot about your rabid obsession with Techdirt — and your obviously bruised ego.

Yet people care SO much that I post here. What I say is obviously a threat to someone.

The second my name comes out, any defamation against "John Smith" is actionable. I actually use that name a lot so I may already have standing. A lawyer is researching this and the California Business And Professional Code, as well as number laws involving charity fraud and self-dealing.

Nothing said here is going to stop this. The more you respond as you do, the more credibility you give me.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:17

Yet people care SO much that I post here.

We care because you refuse to shut up even when you are explicitly told — like right now, in fact — you are a toxic presence in this “community” and no one wants you around. If you would leave, nobody would care, and any posts attributed to “Jhon Smith” (please note the spelling) would be attributed to other anonymous schmucks who are decidedly not you. The only good you are doing here is showing everyone that you are a playground-level troll who hits upon some new catchphrase every other week (e.g., “mailing lists”, “California Business And Professional Code”) and clings to it like a life preserver within a sea of conversation in which you are wholly out of your depth; the only good I am doing in this specific comments section is reminding you of that fact.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

You have no fucking clue what you’re stepping into, or maybe you do. At the very least, the police have more than enough probable cause to dive as deeply as they wish into this site and numerous people who have posted here.

And this is why you are deserving of mockery and ridicule. You sound like the childhood bully who says things like "my dad can beat up your dad"… or "I’mmmm telllling on you"… or "teacher, he’s being mean to me"… or "I’m calling the cops because you called me a bad word." etc..

Didn’t you ever learn the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" but here you are, in the majority of the techdirt posts, talking about how butthurt you are than people are saying mean things about you.

Maybe you should think about the fact that there is a reason why this is happening and just maybe you are the root cause of it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

And this is why you are deserving of mockery and ridicule

And why those who believe that are deserving of much worse. You’d NEVER talk like that to anyone’s face. That makes you a stupid internet bully. No wonder you take me seriously enough to fixate as you do.

So sorry you’re so irrelevant and powerless.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

You do realise websites have IP address logs bro? And you did threaten to rape and or assault multiple people in multiple jurisdictions. It’s far too late to deny it. I mean after you went full on “bring it on motherfucker.” Maybe just maybe, you shoulda kept your promise and left here never to return.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

And why those who believe that are deserving of much worse. You’d NEVER talk like that to anyone’s face. That makes you a stupid internet bully. No wonder you take me seriously enough to fixate as you do.

Ridicule and mockery, that is all your comments deserve! And somehow I wonder how you made the leap from being ridiculed and mocked to "you take me seriously enough to fixate as you do", but I suppose yes, I take you seriously enough to ridicule and mock you for your idiotic comments here.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Aww the poor little nobody can’t write anything people would buy or even read in the self-help arena (there’s also the HOW-TO arena) so has to call anyone who might have done this a scammer. That would be like saying anyone with a "free speech" blog is a SHILL with a hidden agenda, and trying to use the blog’s mere existence as proof.

Some people are actual experts whose advice helps actual people, and their writing is valuable enough for pirates to STEAL. Governments recognize this value and make this THEFT illegal. As for the police being called on someone who visits this site, that’s most definitely the case. It’s pretty clear that if I did post as myself I’d need the cops AND a lawyer on speed-dial. It’s simpler to avoid that.

Just because YOU don’t want that to be the case is as irrelevant to the world on which you will leave not a single mark, literally as if you had NEVER existed.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

“Aww the poor little nobody can’t write anything people would buy”
Who are you again bro?

Someone well-known enough to have stalkers that necessitated police involvement. You wouldn’t be able to relate, as you’re a nobody who will never leave a mark on this world.

None of this has anything to do with the Section 230 problem created by "burner IPs." why the deflection?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

I’m not talking about what happened to a pseudonym.

Just because I have MUCH bigger fish to fry doesn’t mean I won’t eventually get around to dealing with a few gnats. I wouldn’t waste a high-powered attorney on this peanut gallery but that doesn’t mean I don’t have one, or couldn’t find another if the need arose.

I am anonymous here because if I weren’t, people here would start breaking the law immediately, and that creates a lot of paperwork.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:15 No one remember the impotent fuckeit

At which point all defamation against "John Smith" becomes actionable.

A strong show of legal force will be required to protect my rights.

Jhon Smith is a goat fucker who kidnaps children and eats them for dinner. How’s that for defamation, so sue me!

I make more money in one day than you will see in your entire life so I will purposely drag out a court case for decades and bury you with motions for discovery for years to come. I will also counter sue, and file suit in every state where I have a residence, (about 15 states right now) so you will be dealing with lawsuits coming at you from all across the country. And just for the fun of it, I will finance anybody else who wants a piece of the lawsuits against Jhon Smith action!

You will go broke and give up like a whinny little bitch in less than a year.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:17 Re:

I make more money in one day than you will see in your entire life so I will purposely drag out a court case for decades and bury you with motions for discovery for years to come. I will also counter sue, and file suit in every state where I have a residence, (about 15 states right now) so you will be dealing with lawsuits coming at you from all across the country. And just for the fun of it, I will finance anybody else who wants a piece of the lawsuits against Jhon Smith action!

Looks like we have an exception to this site’s pro-SLAPP legislation stance.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16 No one remember the impotent fuc

I make more money in one day than you will see in your entire life

Of course s/he does.

so I will purposely drag out a court case for decades and bury you with motions for discovery for years to come.

Of course s/he will.

I will also counter sue, and file suit in every state where I have a residence, (about 15 states right now) so you will be dealing with lawsuits coming at you from all across the country.

Aside from the fact that this is not how internet lawsuits work, the threat to sue me "creates a controversy" that allows me to file for declaratory relief. In that course of that, I can conduct my own discovery.

And just for the fun of it, I will finance anybody else who wants a piece of the lawsuits against Jhon Smith action! You will go broke and give up like a whinny little bitch in less than a year.

Or I’ll note which lawyers are engineering this for profit.

Wonder if the two Congressmen who have an article here in their name will be proud of what’s on this site.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:12 No one remember the impotent fuckeits

That the best you got bro. You went from I’ll rape your assburger ass to “believe what you want.”
No wonder your wife left you bro.

I never said what you think I did. If you have to lie to make any kind of a point your argument is failing.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

can’t write anything people would buy or even read in the self-help arena (there’s also the HOW-TO arena) so has to call anyone who might have done this a scammer

Yup, I’m calling you a self-help scammer, and a failed one on top of that. Self-help books are scams, and you suck at it so bad you couldn’t stay in business.

Do yourself a favor and get the medical treatment you deserve. Obsessing over your crusade to destroy free speech and shut down all user generated content isn’t healthy or sane.

(Except from the point of view that it pushes the agenda of the record companies who want the same thing to stop self-publishing of music.)

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

Yup, I’m calling you a self-help scammer, and a failed one on top of that.

All without a shred of evidence.

Self-help books are scams,

Because s/he can’t write one, anything anyone else writes must be a scam. Same for how-to books like say how to repair a car by a mechanic?

and you suck at it so bad you couldn’t stay in business.

Which business is that again?

Of course, quality didn’t matter when people attacked an artist who didn’t care about piracy.

Masnick’s got a nice little money train from what he allows on this site, now at my expense.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

and you suck at it so bad you couldn’t stay in business.

Which business is that again?

The million dollar self-help scam market you brag about constantly.

Oh – apologies if I’m confusing you with a different Anonymous Coward hiding behind their monitor hurling insults.

No one here has ever "attacked your business" because you don’t actually have one. Claiming again and again to have sold millions of dollars of books is what we like to call a lie.

You claim you are "being harassed" but constantly post off-topic, post lies, multi-post, and claim that the only way to stop you, is to kill you. That actually sounds like harassing, doesn’t it?

You seem to lack a basic grasp. This is all to make some sort of sick point that posting boards should be shut down.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

and you suck at it so bad you couldn’t stay in business.
Which business is that again?

The million dollar self-help scam market you brag about constantly.

Businesses have names. Which business do you call a scam?

No one here has ever "attacked your business" because you don’t actually have one. Claiming again and again to have sold millions of dollars of books is what we like to call a lie.

I never claimed to have sold millions of dollars in books. You called my business a scam yet you don’t even know its name or have any evidence to support your claim.

You claim you are "being harassed" but constantly post off-topic, post lies, multi-post, and claim that the only way to stop you, is to kill you. That actually sounds like harassing, doesn’t it?

No, it’s not backing down to people who have already incited others to make credible death threats against me, the kind that give police probable cause to dig anywhere. I might not be able to make them do anything, but anyone looking for a reason to do something can find it in me.

You seem to lack a basic grasp. This is all to make some sort of sick point that posting boards should be shut down.

No, I said Masnick should stop people from harassing me on this site. He’ll make a great test case for Section 230, both in the courts and the media.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

"Which business do you call a scam?"

The one you’ve been claiming to run. The fact that you refuse to identify it by name does not discount the fact that every description you’ve given of it labels you as a failed scam artist. If you disagree with this, name the business we should not judge as such. I’m sure that most people here would be happy to apologise if you’re a fraction as honest and successful as you claim to be.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

Do yourself a favor and get the medical treatment you deserve. Obsessing over your crusade to destroy free speech and shut down all user generated content isn’t healthy or sane.

You should get a medical degree, and Masnick should check the California Business And Professional Code about allowing harassment based on disability.

Time to get those subpoenas going. Let’s see who you really are.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Still impotent bro

“That’s called bullying, but that’s what cowards do, especially when hiding behind internet monitors.”

Soooo much projection.

“Anyone who sponsors that type of conduct shouldn’t be in business, and can be reviewed online so that their customers know they are sponsoring bullying.“

Have fun with that. Let us know how it goes.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Still impotent bro

"Masnick is a proxy for someone they take VERY seriously, someone to whom you are making him an increasingly bigger liability."

Who? The Bavarian Illuminati? The cult of Cthulhu? Greys? Slender Man?

Yeah, Baghdad bob, that you’re deluded and obsessed hasn’t escaped us, but you need to put that tinfoil hat right back on. I think those mind control rays have been getting to you again.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

If Masnick is not taken seriously as a journalist then you have nothing to worry about what’s posted on this website.

Why would you need to? You yourself stated that he wouldn’t be taken seriously.

Of course, the only reason why the fact that this site exists should bother you so much is, in fact, that Masnick is probably taken more seriously than you’d like.

It’s not my fault to counsel you just because a bogeyman takes up so much office space in your head.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

If you think me a coward tell me who you really are and where you live and let’s have a proper "discussion".

Now that makes you more a psycho…doubt those congressmen who posted an article here read many of the comments…at least I hope not. Then again, you’re not even brave enough to identify yourself, so coward still applies as well.

Masnick’s crossing into territory not protected by Section 230, that’s for sure.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

That will be done via a press conference and a LONG article about Masnick and many others.

The light shining on that shithead gets brighter and brighter the more people gang up on me. I’ve counted twenty against one. Gang members don’t do so well in isolation.

Dirty money has consequences.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

That will be done via a press conference and a LONG article about Masnick and many others.
Are you Jacob Wohl?

I am not that amateur.

I’m someone Masnick’s buddies have been stalking for several years and who received death threats because they incited people. By the time they figured out they were fucking with someone who doesn’t roll over, it was too late. Innocent people were harmed in the process.

I don’t know how you react to people who threaten YOUR life or harm innocents they tried to use as pawns against you, but I know how I do.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re:

For most of them it likely is simply a mix of ignorance and not being able/willing to comprehend just how grossly dishonest copyright extortionists can be, such that they simply take anything said at face value unless the defense knows enough to be able to push back(upon which the extortionists will generally run like the cowards they are).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Some judges don’t believe in the theory of evolution either.

On a serious note, judges who do believe in IP address exclusively as conclusive evidence have known RIAA and MPAA links. Beryl Howell being one. Liam O’Grady being another.

Howell is especially notable for giving Prenda law one of their few courtroom victories. Which was later overturned.

Again, nobody think IP addresses have no evidentiary value, but copyright enforcement insists on using it as the sole basis of guilt. Even when they sue the wrong person, and especially when they sue the wrong person. This would be why more judges are less willing to give carte blanche permission for the likes of Fox Rothschild to sue grandmothers because of your history of numerous false positives.

You’re being called out because you think this error rate is acceptable and worth encouraging.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: How do courts rule with other "evidence"

According to John Smith, ownership would constitute liability, even if you know somebody else pulled the trigger. And if you can’t be bothered to prosecute the gunman you can sue the owner instead.

Right now though John is busily dreaming a scenario where the gun shop would be irreparably liable instead.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

For someone who wants to get this website permanently and irrevocably shut down and disappeared from the Internet forever, you sure do an awful lot of talking about it and not nearly enough doing something about it. Verbal threats are the surest sign of impotence.

Learn to read: it’s the people ganging up on me (two dozen against one now) that he should stop, not shut the site down.

Impotence is your inability to say what’s REALLY on your mind.

Wasn’t it Steven Seagal who said the anticipation of an event can be worse than the event itself?

Since your IQ seems to be about 20, please have your special-ed teacher explain to you that whatever is being done wouldn’t be done through postings, and that some of us can walk and chew gum at the same time.

BTW is your real name "Stephen T. Stone?"

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Learn to read: it’s the people ganging up on me (two dozen against one now) that he should stop, not shut the site down.

You know, you are not required to come to this site and make your idiotic comments, so if you are tired of people group-mocking you for your stupid comments and threats of cops and lawyers, then just FUCKING STOP COMING HERE!!!!! Problem solved.

So maybe you should have your special-ed teacher come and tell you that if you just leave this site, you will never have to worry about being ganged up on here. Especially when you are a basic nobody and I don’t think that there is a person here who has a single fuck to give if you decided to leave.

Anonymous Coward says:

You know, you are not required to come to this site and make your idiotic comments, so if you are tired of people group-mocking you for your stupid comments and threats of cops and lawyers, then just FUCKING STOP COMING HERE!!!!! Problem solved.
So maybe you should have your special-ed teacher come and tell you that if you just leave this site, you will never have to worry about being ganged up on here. Especially when you are a basic nobody and I don’t think that there is a person here who has a single fuck to give if you decided to leave.

With what’s going to happen to the gang, I’m not concerned.

You’re all very weak and stupid, and you’re bullies. You started shit that at some point you will wish you hadn’t. Masnick is the ringleader, and he obviously wants a pissing contest. He has one. The more he allows this to continue the worse it will be for him.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

1) Learn how this site works and hit the "reply to this" link when replying to a comment instead of starting a new comment you idiot.

With what’s going to happen to the gang, I’m not concerned.

2) But here you are, 285 comments into this article, coming back hour after hour, minute after minute making sure you are still spewing your impotent threats about lawsuits and cops and email lists and defamation and having your feelz hurt, and it boils down to nothing more than a childhood bully saying "my dad can beat up your dad"

3) Therefore, it must really concern you, especially considering how triggered you get over some of the most simple of statements that are made about you.

Hurt feelz much?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

You, on the other hand, seem fixated on having this pissing contest.

All you had to do was leave, which honestly should have been easy given your deep-seated loathing. But no, all you’d rather do is boast about your erectile superiority.

If there was a pissing contest would it have to be held in a toilet without urinals? To not immediately disqualify you…

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