More on Intel v. Hamidi 243
The case of Intel v. Hamidi has been going on for a few years now, and it's now reached the California Supreme Court. Hamidi is an ex-Intel employee with a grievance against the company who sent several mass-emails to most of Intel's staff. Intel attempted to block him from sending email via technical measures, and when that failed filed suit against him claiming that he was causing some harm to their property (company mail servers and computers) - there's an ancient legal concept called "trespass to chattels" which Intel is attempting to use in their case. Now, in real-dollar terms, Intel has suffered very little - a few megabytes of email more or less is a miniscule cost in terms of computer wear and tear, indeed, too small to measure (Intel is not alleging that Hamidi sent any sort of mail-bomb or that his emails caused damage). So the case comes down to an unsettled legal point: if someone has made some use of your electronic equipment, which you may not have desired but which has not damaged your property nor deprived you of its use, do you have a legal cause of action against them?
mass-mailing cost employee time... (Score:1, Interesting)
Can't do it (Score:3, Interesting)
Digital tresspass is a very real problem. One benefit of any laws passed to combat the problem is that spam would be made completely illegal and spammers would be prosecutable under the law.
Your free speech ends where my ears begin.
Torn... (Score:2, Interesting)
If they win, I'd be willing to bet it will eventually come back to bite them in the ass.
Re:Can't do it (Score:3, Interesting)
This would be the equivalent of putting someone in jail for "trespass" for sending you a letter in the mail. Its an abuse of the language and the law.
I hope he looses. (Score:5, Interesting)
He should have posted his grievances on the www and let people who were interested find them, not spam them.
Granted, Intel would have sued him regardless and he'd still be in the shithouse, but he would have been in the right.
If he did the same thing today, couldn't he be sued under anti-spam laws in some states?
Re:Email is a COMPANY resource (Score:1, Interesting)
No, in real life you don't. Several countries have granted the public rights to private property without anything like this happening. Norway is one of them.
In Norway, everyone can use whatever bits of the country is not closer than 600 feet to a building and not used to grow crops (as inq fields, forests do not apply). Berries are mostly free for the picking. If you want to pitch a tent, that is fine as long as you ask when you are close to houses. Fishing in salt water away from river outlets is fine.
Hunting rights and freshwater fishing are regulated since there is a need to control a scarce resource. Vandalism is covered by other laws.
This has not lead to an irretrievable breakdown of law and order. People do not use the equivalent of thousands of dollars to repair damages by what would be called trespassers in the US. The public gets to take their sunday morning trip without fear of being chased off by some egotistical land owner who can't stand to have people on his property. And why shouldn't they? The norwegian system demonstrably works.