Diebold still sending cease-and-desist letters...

This just in: Today, the downstream Internet service provider, Hurricane Electric, for the Online Policy Group (who host the IndyMedia site) received a "second notice" of copyright infringement from Diebold's lawyers. This is on the very same day of the OPG v. Diebold hearing in San Jose. What's worse is that this notice claims that excerpts of the email archive are now infringing.

In a 23rd-hour letter and declaration to the Court, the EFF's Cindy Cohn argues that this proves Diebold is improperly using copyright law to silence democratic debate (the declaration contains the text of the second cease and desist notice):

[...]

The second cease and desist notice repeats Diebold's assertions that Hurricane Electric has potential copyright liability for co-locating and providing Internet access to OPG because OPG co-locates and provides Internet access to San Francisco Indymedia and the Indymedia site contains a link to the e-mail archive.

Additionally, and even more disturbing in light of today's hearing, Diebold claims that Indymedia's hosting of excerpts from the e-mail archives, as part of a story discussing the "gems" available in the archive, also violates its copyrights. Mr. Ng's Declaration includes a print out of the web site containing the excerpts from the e-mail archive, highlighting the excerpts that Diebold alleges infringe its copyrights.

[...]

We believe that this second cease and desist notice confirms our assertions that, unless immediately restrained by this court, Diebold will continue to use cease and desist notices to try to remove the e-mail archive, and even excerpts from it, from public discussion.

[...]

I'm going to make a prediction that we're going to win this one. Now, let's get some knowledgeable folks in the Secretary of State's office to 1) launch a full investigation into Diebold's actions and 2) properly sanction Diebold at the 16 December 2003 VSP meeting.

Posted by joebeone at Noviembre 17, 2003 11:12 PM