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Students, ISP Sue Diebold

Posted by timothy on from the wiping-the-egg-around dept.

Quixotic1 writes "The campaign against Diebold that began as electronic civil disobedience took an exciting turn today as the EFF announced that they were filing suit against Diebold for abuse of copyright claims. They will be representing Swarthmore College students and the ISP Online Policy Group, who hosted and linked to copies of controversial internal memos."

4 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome by randyest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fantastic. I was afraid Diebold might be able to C&D this under the rug, and even took (perhaps useless) precautions of "archiving" the incriminating memos in several places (floppies, p2ps, random servers for which I have pw's . . . ). But, it seems like this will see the light of day. This choice quote is a good summary:

    "Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

    Indeed. Better still:

    "Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in creating electronic voting machines that include voter-verified paper ballots and other security protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.

    Or just give up and leave it to someone else. Diebold's credibility is ruined, IMHO. If you don't agree, read those memos flying around. Systemic fraud exists in Diebold's practices. The should be nailed. And not like Enron, really nailed.

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    everything in moderation
  2. Shady? by Scalli0n · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From what I read in the article/press release by the EFF, this is going to be a fairly shaky case;

    "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

    How that statement is going to hold up in court would be very interesting; it's debatable how much we the people (in the eyes of the court) should know about the internal workings.

    For example, I'd imagine that's why we don't get to listen in on the Supreme Court's discussions; that's a basis for our democratic process, but we don't watch it, we aren't allowed to (no big fuss about that either).

    Blah, I don't know what I'm talking about.
    Sig & Below

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    Sig & Below
    Yuck Fou
  3. I'm a poor student livin' on loans by blach · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but I still scraped up 10$ and donated to the EFF using PayPal.

    I really encourage everyone to do the same. Lawsuits don't come cheaply.

    James

  4. If you want it done right... by dcfix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hire the guys that create the lottery machines. They're incredibly secure, yet easy enough for convience store clerks to operate. Due to performance riders (the software company pays penalties if the system goes down) they're extremely stable. They sure as hell don't slip patches in when no one is looking.

    Seems like a no-brainer to me.

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    What cod piece?