[DMCA-Activists] Pre-emptive comment on "NY Fair Use" dispute

[Seth Finkelstein]

        Uh-oh ... as this list has another round of the dispute
over who is NY Fair Use, I'd like to request the participants make
their prospective cases in a clearer manner. Again not taking a
position, I repost below what I wrote earlier regarding this issue.
I still haven't figured out the right here.

        Note I have a great deal of sympathy for the *attacked*
party in any rebuttal which states they are simply a madman.
People subjected to injustice tend to be very mad(angry), and
that's very understandable, nowhere near the same as mad(insane).

 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 08:30:50 -0500
 From: Seth Finkelstein <address@hidden>
 To: address@hidden
 Subject: Re: [DMCA-Activists] Statement of New Yorkers For Fair Use

        Apologies for the off-topic post, but can someone please fill
me in, either privately or publicly, as to what *evidence* establishes
the truth of which party? While the obvious reaction would be to
denounce the dispute _per se_, I don't agree with such an attitude.
That allows the wronging party to perpetuate injustice, based on
others' apathy and indifference to the wronged party.

        I speak from some experience here. Just this month, 
Censorware Project attorney Jonathan Wallace has published an essay
describing how Michael Sims (yes, of Slashdot notoriety) attempted to
destroy, and then hijacked, the *former* website of Censorware Project.

"Michael Sims, Domain Hijacking and Moral Equivalency"
http://www.spectacle.org/0203/sims.html

        I found this part of the essay particularly affecting:

  "... we got a number of "We don't want to get in the middle of this"
   type messages from various other participants.

   I was naively astonished by these. If the ACLU's webmaster had trashed
   the organization's site, I think everyone would pretty well recognize
   he was a Bad Character and Not To Be Trusted. As much more minor
   players, despite the significant contributions we had made in
   revealing what censorware actually blocked, no-one could be bothered
   to take a stand for us. There was nothing to be gained."

        N.b.: The way to determine who is telling the truth right there
is simple, Michael Sims outright admits he trashed the site, he now just
rants and raves about the other members - unfortunately, that's turned
out to be pretty effective in distracting people from the fact that he
did everything from holding the site hostage to hijacking it later (and
yes, he calls me many names too, because I write messages like this one!)

        Anyway, I go into that at length to underscore the reason I'm
writing this message - one should take a stand against wrongs - and
that descriptions such as "He's insane! He's a kook! He's a nut!"
aren't meaningful. Both a dishonest and honest person might make the
exact same accusations (after all, that's exactly what a liar would
say, because he would have nothing to lose, so might as well smear the
other person for whatever gain there'd be in it).

        Note, I have not taken a position on "NYfairuse.org" here.

        The area of dispute seems to be who has the right to domains
and group names. And that's a serious matter.

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  address@hidden  http://sethf.com
Anticensorware Investigations - http://sethf.com/anticensorware/
Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/