2600 Magazine Defeats Ford 221
narftrek cut-and-pastes the text from 2600's announcement that Ford has conceded the case they brought against 2600 over a certain domain. Our earlier story has some background. A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent, you see, because Ford really sucks.
Sounds familiar (Score:2, Insightful)
There isn't anything there now, but I do remember something being up there at one point.
Hell, Ford should be happy with the link! (Score:2, Insightful)
The one who should be angry is General Motors. They're the ones being told to screw off.
Freedom to Speak.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or has that been changed recently too?
America still works - sometimes (Score:2, Insightful)
The point is that, though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse. Think about it. 2600, a bunch described as hackers, vandals, criminals, terrorists, up against Ford Motor Company, which probably has bought thousands of politicians and other officials over the years. Anywhere else, the trial would be a foregone conclusion. 2600 would have been summarily ordered to stop whatever Ford didn't want them doing and that would have been it.
Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link! (Score:3, Insightful)
The wonderful thing about 2600 cases is that the worst that can happen is they throw Goldstein et. al. in the slammer which given that they appear to have the personality of the Grouch in Sesame street (being anoyed makes me happy) I suspect they would really, really enjoy...
I don't much care if 2600 can't point 'fuckxyz' at Ford. But I do care about the various deep linking cases.
The sheer eggregiousness of the 2600 case made it a pretty good test case. If 2600 lost the risk of collateral damage to serious deep linking would be minimal. If they win, well if you can point fuck at someone then you can probably point most anything.
The downside being that it was a pretty risky case that could easilly have backfired. 2600 made a really good target for the MPAA in the DeCSS case. My concern about this case was that they might easily have got a Reagan appointee conservative judge who might well have made an idiotic rulling because he disliked the 2600 people trying to turn a court case into performance art.
I had been asked to give expert testimony in the case but could not because Ford's legal people had added my employer in as a defendant in yet another case.
I suspect that the basic problem is that either the Ford lawyers are fundamentally incompetent or an incompetent manager insisted on a lawsuit. Starting a law suit in an untested area of law is a pretty stupid first recourse if your interest is to solve a problem. It is possible that Ford really wanted to have this area of law settled, but I doubt it.
It is the cases like this one that led to the charges for domain names in the first place. Until people started to file lawsuits registration was free.
Re:I did something like this a few years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its really similar to TV or talk radio. If I don't like the humor on a show I don't watch it. If I find the opions espoused by a host inane or baseless, I don't listen. That's the great thing about free speech, anyone can say whatever they want, within certain reasonable limits. I certainly don't think any of the examples presented here are anywhere near any of those limits.
People don't have a right not to be offended.
Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what is really, really stupid about your entire argument. Ford brought on the lawsuit; 2600 defended themselves, and yet you blame 2600 for wasting the legal system's resources? How can that possibly make any sense whatsoever? Answer: it can't, and doesn't.