This page is my own quiet little rant, just for Mr. Paul Andrew
Mitchell, BA, MS, blah blah.
This web page is an exercise of my right of freedom of speech,
and one wherein I can say anything I wish. I can even say that I
think that the entity that I understand to be Paul Andrew Mitchell
is a dork, because I really do.
1999 September 10 (or so)
So I was surfing the net a few years ago and I came across a couple of
links to something called "The Federal Zone" (purportedly copyrighted
name used within the limitations of fair use as a reference, and such
purported copyright allowed, without waiver of rights, without refute
for simplicity in this document), and I stuck 'em in my bookmarks
file. The links have since gone dead, but that still didn't keep this
guy from apparently including me in his huge lawsuit, or something
that looks like one, wherein I understand that he purports that
over two million copies of a document that he states he wrote and
copyrighted were distributed, perhaps with modifications, without
payment to him, and wherein it appears that he wants to collect
damages to the tune of almost a cool US $60 million. Meanwhile,
I've never seen a copy of this purported lawsuit or his supposed
written complaint against some 500 parties. Now, correct me if
I'm wrong, but I don't think that I can be sued and not notified;
if I can, then maybe I'll dream up a little suit against Mr.
Mitchell and even award myself damages and then pop up one day to
collect.
Oh, but he's promised everyone
amnesty
if -- get this -- we go out and buy a copy of his book as well as
remove this link. Hmmm... Let's see, here... So, if I go and link
to a book, I suddenly have to buy it? In fact, if I've ever seen
the book, I have to buy it? I don't think it quite works that way...
Now, it seems to me that I have not actually done anything to
infringe on his copyright; after all, I simply had a couple of
links that pointed to another location that may or may not have
infringed on his copyright. It is not a copyright violation for
me to have on my site *any* link pointer, whether it be to a
great book
at a place like Amazon or to
a picture of
me
(yes, anyone is welcome to link to this picture and I promise to never
come after you and complain about copyright; it's taking a copy of
the picture and using it for yourself which might raise an eyebrow)
or even a pointer to a bootleg copy of my picture (sure, go ahead
and link to it; *you* didn't do anything wrong by hanging up a big
sign in the web pointing to someone else's crime).
So you'll notice that, in his letters, he points out a few pages
at the Software Publishers Association, including
http://www.spa.org/piracy/programs/risk.htm.
In that page, the SPA appears to reference the US Code (and even
provides a link, though the text noted is not found anywhere in
their page) regarding "Contributory Infringement",
stating that anyone who knows or should know that s/he is
contributing to the infringement of the author's copyright can
also be held liable. They then go on to provide examples,
including "linking to FTP sites where software may be unlawfully
obtained".
Let's take this apart for a moment. So someone (let's say, for
example, "me") who knows or should have known about infringement
and links to an FTP site is a bad guy. But Mr. Mitchell makes
the specific statement that "many Internet users throughout
the world were completely unaware that all copies of "The Federal
Zone" extant on the Internet were stolen and then modified",
so it seems that he certainly understands that there could be a
time when one couldn't "have known or should have known".
And as soon as this example person, in this case, heard about the
copyright problem with The Federal Zone, he checked the two links
that he had and found them to be dead -- and so they weren't links
"to FTP sites where software may be unlawfully obtained".
So I still don't see why this whole mess applies to "me".
Hey, wait a minute... I think I see an opportunity here... I'll
contact all criminals whose prosecution included eyewitness
testimony of their actions, get them to copyright their actions,
and then force the courts to remove such testimony from the record
or face copyright infringement penalties. Yeah, that's it!
Is this making any sense yet? I am asserting my right to use the
words "federal" and "zone" and "fed" and even "Federal", "Zone",
and "Fed" any way I wish, as long as I don't claim that some work
which might be called "The Federal Zone" is mine. So, therefore, I
officially and completely disavow any claim to "The Federal Zone"
or, for that matter, anything else that Mr. Paul Andrew Mitchell
has said that he has written -- including his lawsuit (oops --
can I mention that on my own private web page?).
Check back here some other day for more; I'll have links (gasp!)
to copies of his email or any other documents I can find -- and
maybe even to a copy of the Zone itself, if I can find one!
First, we have the
original letter,
minus a couple of pages; then we have a
followup letter
as if the first weren't funny enough. (Both were copies kindly sent
to me, since Mr. Mitchell didn't bother to send to me at all, via my
callwave fax number and
then processed with my
way cool script
for web viewing.)
This just in! Right
here
we have a list of all of the domains which he's apparently suing.
Gee, I wonder how many acquaintances I can find in there :-)
Meanwhile, who thinks that he'll have any luck suing such
organizations as
aol.com,
anonymizer.com,
bigfoot.com,
earthlink.net,
erols.com,
geocities.com,
mindspring.com,
netcom.com,
primenet.com,
prodigy.net,
stanford.edu,
uga.edu,
much less all of the little guys? What a riot!
2001 June 8
He's making himself a bother again, I hear, so I'll be updating this
page soon. I wanted to take the opportunity as quickly as possible,
though, to invite mister dork Paul Andrew Mitchell to contact
ME
if he has a beef with me. I have yet to have any sort of direct
communication from him, and all of the information and references
contained herein have to this point come to me through the kindness
of others.
There will be more later; just let me get my hands on the garbage
he's mailing around.
2001 July 26
It took a while, but I finally have the three letters that were
recently faxed to the guys who own my server's domain name (the June
8 letters were apparently identical to this batch). You can see them
right here by clicking on
2001-07-25.10:19:56..fbi.verified.criminal.complaint
and
2001-07-25.10:23:16..discovering.identity
and
2001-07-25.10:29:16..copy.of.1999-08-20
if you'd like. I don't have much time to anything else, so read away :-)
[BTW, IE users will probably have trouble with the links... Too bad :-]
2001 Aug 18
Well, that was boring; there wasn't even anything interesting in
there. I might have to look up that doctor and his eye foundation,
though...
This is good, though. Have you wondered just what this Federal Zone
thing is? Now you can see!
A friend who may or may not be mentioned in the suit but who is at
least aware of it was kind enough to do some digging (thanks,
Michael!) and has found, amongst other things, that Mr. Mitchell has
put up his work on a web page for all the world to see. And can you
guess what I'm going to do? Yep -- here's a link! Just click on
http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/
to see this sixty-million-dollar document. In fact, you could even
go to
google
and run your own search (like
http://www.google.com/search?q=fedzone11&btnG=Google+Search
for example) and find it without my link. I wonder if he'll now be
suing Google, Yahoo, Lycos, and any other engine that has crawled and
indexed his page(s)...
You know, I probably just missed my chance to meet him, or at least
someone who knows him. As I go wandering through the document
linked above I see lots of references to San Rafael, Marin County,
California, and this suit is, I hear, filed in the Eastern District
of California, which includes Sacramento -- which is not terribly far
from San Rafael. I was just out there a bit north of Marin County,
and I could probably have knocked on a few doors and gotten somewhere.
Of course, Mr. Mitchell hasn't bothered to provide any sort of address
for himself, preferring to handle everything through a forwarding
agent, but perhaps I could find those who know him. Oh, well. I'm
busy enough as it is.