You never know what humor the mail might bring. I got
back from a business trip today to find a certified letter from an
"attorney" representing the "Usenet Freedom Fighters". It
was a hoot! Someone spent $4.62 to send a bunch of drivel by certified mail with
a whole bunch of wild-ass accusations. Basically, they were complaining that I
recently filed a DMCA complaint against a UFF website. They took a picture of
mine
from an old, old, old (circa 1999) Road Runner homepage and photoshopped it as
part of a hit piece against me on the UFF website. Since they used my photo
without my permission, I asked their provider that it be removed. The provider
complied with my DMCA "Notice and Takedown", and the photo was
disabled. (It appears that it has since been re-enabled. That is a problem that
the provider is going to have to explain.)
Since the UFF is comprised of folks who respect no laws,
they immediately moved the photo to a different hosting service. If they had a
legitimate legal defense, they could have filed a "Counter-notice and
Putback". They did not. Since I had
made my point, and I have no desire to play a stupid game of WWW Whack-a-mole, I
dropped the whole boring thing, but after today's letter, I may decide to put some real
money and energy back into the whole thing, just for the entertainment.
This whole thing reminds me of the nonsense that used to go
on in the anti-spam newsgroups. A couple of spammers claimed to be attorneys and
threatened to sue anyone who complained about their spam. They were transparent
frauds. We called them "cartooneys" (our "clever"
combination of the words "cartoon" and "attorneys".
If necessary, I can go on from copyright
violation to defamation. That would mean subpoenas that would reveal real
identities. Of course my "opponents" are probably real losers who have
no money that would make it worth my while to sue them. Still, it is an option
that remains open to me.
So it looks like they have launched this "cartooney" with
page after page of pseudo-legal babble to somehow intimidate me. I may scan it
and post it for your amusement. In a way, I hope it really is a real attorney.
That would mean that the UFF spent not only $5.00 in postage and fancy paper,
but maybe they wasted real money on a real lawyer. Wow! All that waste,
and all that will happen is that they risk pissing me off enough that I will
actually sue their asses.
Of course this "cartooney" did not use any return
address on the envelope or in the letter or provide any way of contacting him by mail to reply to the laundry
list of grievances the UFF has against me. He left only the phone number (206)
984-3690. It is some phone number in the Seattle, WA area. There are no
attorneys I can find in that area by the name of the
"cartooney" who sent the certified letter. And the letter was
postmarked from New York, NY, not Washington State. That is a strange way of doing business for a real
attorney. I may call the number for the entertainment value sometime in the
future. I certainly will not call soon. Just because the UFF is
yelling "frog" doesn't mean I need to jump.
Stay tuned. At some point I may address every
point in the letter sent by the "cartooney". Right now, I
plan to relax and enjoy a well-deserved weekend followed by a
well-deserved week at home.
The paragraph above was written ages ago. That
is how much of a burning issue this is for me. Yawn.
