p2pnet - rss feed: p2pnet defense fund
p2pnet.net News:-
Yesterday’s Dear P2PNet …….. centres on an email from an unadmirer. Subsequently, several emails and comment posts asked about the balance of the Nikki Hemming vs p2pnet libel suit donation fund.
In yesterday’s post, I should have pointed out that thanks to MUTE p2p application author Jason Rohrer, who wrote the script, hosts the script site AND who put the Online Benefit Concert code together (and who hosts that as well : ) there’s a permanent donations site which updates automatically every time someone, somewhere, makes a contribution. It also has code which’ll allow anyone with a site to add a p2pnet donations button.
And it hasn’t moved for a long time, as the p2pnet attacker observes gleefully.
But as Russell McOrmond points out in his comment post, the reality is:
“Collecting money is hard, especially when it is for the public good. We have the public goods problem. While every Canadian would greatly benefit by bringing defamation law into the modern age, and ensuring that it conforms to the legal norm of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ that all other Canadian laws follow, it is hard to motivate people to volunteer their own resources towards this public good.”
He also says, “There is nothing unique to … the problem that Jon Newton’s case is exposing. Anyone who publishes online, and increasingly this is becoming every literate citizen, risks being targeted by special interests . I am quite confident that a court will find that what Jon published was lawful protected speech, but the court costs of having to prove himself innocent will be substantial - even with the lawyer doing pro-bono work. (My emphasis.)
And that’s what they count on. This Kazaa Kase is the exact equivalent of someone being sued by the Big Four record labels, with whom Nikki Hemming and her bosses, Mark Dyne and Kevin Bermeister of Sharman Networks, are now allied. At one point Sharman, too, was also suing p2pnet.
This isn’t a situation where each side presents its case fairly against the other. In fact, the opposite is true. As with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and similar vested interest sue ‘em all suits, the plaintiffs are playing with loaded dice or, to thoroughly mix the metaphor, Hemming has a battery of howitzers, an endless supply of high explosive shells and a non-stop stream of loaders while I have a pea-shooter and only a handful of of peas (no offence, Dan 
“This site is an example of the potential of the internet, an average citizen (possibly with an advantage with his journalistic background) being able to set up a popular website to publish his own and the views of other,” says McOrmond. “This is what the Internet is all about: decentralization of media, allowing audiences to choose what they will read, and allowing audiences to become full participants.”
And this is what it’s all about. Ordinary people with ordinary resources must be able to stand on equal, or nearly equal, terms against huge vested interests with deep pockets and, consequently, access to all the law can offer them and, as things stand, only them.
Meanwhile, where does the p2pnet fund stand? It’s at $1839.63.
For more reading:
Kazaa parent sues, er, P2P site - The Register, Great Britain, May 18, 2006
Crybaby Kazaa sues P2PNet for libel - Boing Boing, United States, May 23, 2006
Free speech in Canada - p2pnet, Canada, June 2, 2006
Anonymous p2pnet poster named - p2pnet, Canada, June 29, 2006
Sharman drops p2pnet libel case - July 12, 2006
Kazaa boss sues Canada blogger - The Australian, Australia, August 16, 2006
Cheers! And thanks …
Jon
August 21st, 2006 at 2:13 am
I would like to encourage everyone to contribute whatever he or she can afford to this defense fund. P2Pnet.net is a valuable source of information, an excellent forum to exchange ideas with others who are as deeply concerned about our ever-so-rapidly dissolving civil liberties and hard-earned freedoms and rights.
Five bucks, ten, fifteen, twenty – can’t be too much for your wallet to handle. Jon has shown his honesty and integrity over numerous years of service to those who come to this site for invaluable information and to sample the offsetting opinions and insights of many knowledgeable and highly intelligent people, as well as those banal attempts by empty-headed trolls to try to sound educated; then, too, there are those who just like to throw fecal matter into the vortex, who sometimes (rarely, but with some degree of regularity) provide divergent and unexpected entertainment.
When asked to contribute to this very worthwhile cause, no one is asking for hundreds or thousands of dollars (unless you can afford it, that is); but in the spirit of communal assistance for worthy causes, everyone should chip in a few bucks here and there. Like singular, individual votes in an election, the cumulative effect can have overwhelming results and help preserve those rights and liberties that free men have come to depend on and to cherish more than they realize until the threat is uncomfortably too close.
A small contribution to this defense fund is like the power of suffrage – everyone gets one and only vote – but what a flood can be created with an appropriate response! Next time you’re out on the town, have one cocktail less and tip your glass in a salute to Jon, then on the afternoon of the morning after, send a few bucks to his defense fund. It is less painful than it sounds!
And in the long run it will have the effect of letting “them” know that you count! It will tell them that they cannot ride roughshod over people dedicated to the eradication of their venal aims and motivations. It will force them to realize that those who line their pockets are not as effective as they represent themselves to be; that the ones who matter most are not those sitting at the $1,500-a-plate dinner, but the dedicated minority who will not stand idly by while special interests try to exercise control over what should and must continue to be the purview of the average citizen.
I am reminded of a line from Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” where Travis (Chill Wills) tells Mr. Hedly Lamar (Harvey Corman) that he uses his tongue prettier than a French whore! Speak out! Blend your voice with the growing chorus willing to make even a small contribution to the betterment of society.
This cause is not some frivolous attempt to generate wealth for a dedicated web-site host and administrator – it is germane to the very rights of man, which stand in peril.
Think out it! Then do something about it.
High praise and laudatory exclamations for Jon!
August 21st, 2006 at 4:35 am
“This cause is not some frivolous attempt to generate wealth for a dedicated web-site host and administrator – it is germane to the very rights of man, which stand in peril.”
That, and I am sure most everyone would like to see Nikki get a good old fashioned curb stomping… am I right or am I right? A cause well worth my hard earned dollars if ever there was one. 8-p
August 21st, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Jon - stay strong, stay positive. Don’t let the cartel get you down. It will get better.