From TechDirt:
As you may have heard, last week we were sued for $15 million by Shiva Ayyadurai, who claims to have invented email. We have written, at great length, about his claims and our opinion — backed up by detailed and thorough evidence — that email existed long before Ayyadurai created any software. We believe the legal claims in the lawsuit are meritless, and we intend to fight them and to win.
There is a larger point here. Defamation claims like this can force independent media companies to capitulate and shut down due to mounting legal costs. Ayyadurai’s attorney, Charles Harder, has already shown that this model can lead to exactly that result. His efforts helped put a much larger and much more well-resourced company than Techdirt completely out of business.
So, in our view, this is not a fight about who invented email. This is a fight about whether or not our legal system will silence independent publications for publishing opinions that public figures do not like.
And here’s the thing: this fight could very well be the end of Techdirt, even if we are completely on the right side of the law.
Whether or not you agree with us on our opinions about various things, I hope that you can recognize the importance of what’s at stake here. Our First Amendment is designed to enable a free and open press — a press that can investigate and dig, a press that can challenge and expose. And if prominent individuals can make use of a crippling legal process to silence that effort, or even to create chilling effects among others, we become a weaker nation and a weaker people because of it.
We are a truly small and independent media company. We do not have many resources. We intend to fight this baseless lawsuit because of the principles at stake, but we have no illusions about the costs. It will take a toll on us, even if we win. It will be a distraction, no matter what happens. It already has been — which may well have been part of Ayyadurai’s intent.
Link to the rest at TechDirt and thanks to Scott for the tip.
I would have thought that ‘who invented email’ was a matter of public record – and patents and such.
I would think so too. This seems to the sort of suit you’d expect to never make it to court, because it’s so obviously frivolous.
It has been generally understood that email was invented by Douglas Englebart and company while developing ARPAnet:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
The mouse, too.
The claim in the dispute seems to date back to 1978, a time at which time share systems like CompuServe (1968) and hordes of dial-up BBS systems were already doing email.
Seems like over-reach at best.
After reading through some of the comments on other Techdirt articles, it seems that “synchronous” vs “asynchronous” is the point of contention. I was surprised that a handful of commenters were supporting the guy who makes the seemingly ridiculous claim of having “invented” email. “Synchronous” email is basically instant messaging, and “asynchronous” is when you write it at one time and the receiver reads it at a different time, if I understood correctly. He says that by HIS definition, he created the first true email system. Whatever that means.
He can say whatever he wants.
But what we call email is something IBM was doing in the 60’s on their mainframes.
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/networkbus/
“The first computer-based system to transform the flow of interoffice data was the IBM ® Internal Tele-Processing System, installed at the company in 1963 and built with the new IBM 7740 as its hub. The system used leased, dedicated communications lines—including transoceanic cables—to carry business data and administrative messages to and from offices scattered around the world. With real-time responsiveness, the system enabled its central computer at IBM corporate headquarters to process data as it was received and to respond instantaneously to inquiries from distant points on its network.”
Here’s a nice short video detailing when and how the main elements of the Internet were created:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7bFbq5jaxQ
Email as we know it? 1972.
That is when xxx@yyy.zzz was established.
Before then, every mainframe and minicomputer OS did it diferently.
Is there any recourse in counter-suing because the lawsuit is frivolous? Any lawyers on here know what the possibilities are?
Oh wait, I see there is a lot of discussion of that option in the comments on the original post.
The plaintiff is relying on winning by outspending Techdirt.