Re: [atlarge-discuss] Mistaken identity

["Micheal Sherrill" <micheal@beethoven.com>]

Hello Joanna:

I understand your concern.  However, this may be already in the process of rectification.  
Just having one's plight in national (and international) attention provides an enormous 
amount of publicity that is not necessarily good for the plaintiff.  Especially in this case it 
can become a David versus Goliath story that will make Microsoft the bad guy.  As if 
they did not have enough problems along that line, anyways.  One would think that 
Goliath would be very sensitive to negative PR these days.

Of course, we have to assume in the above argument that Simon Grainger IS innocent.  In 
any case, I believe that the British judicial system is fairly competent to distinguish 
between a "shotgun" approach to lawsuits and careful study of a technical and legal 
nature.

If needed, I would be happy to review your petition and sign, if you should so design one 
as suggested by James S. Tyre.

Regards,


Micheal Sherrill


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre@jstyre.com>
Date:  Wed, 25 Jun 2003 20:21:52 -0700

At 10:05 PM 6/25/2003 -0400, Joanna Lane wrote:

>A British man accused by Microsoft of spamming has told the BBC it is a case
>of mistaken identity and he will fight to clear his name.
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3020566.stm
>
>This case concerns me and I wish there were an effective user organization
>that could do something for Simon Grainger, who, on the face of it, looks to
>be a genuine case of mistaken identity, but he has limited resources to
>defend his name.
>
>Can we do anything? If so, what?


Allow me to give an indirect answer, one probably more appropriate for 
future reference than for here, if only because of geography.

It would be great if we could help, but sometimes - like it or not - resort 
to attorneys is necessary.  In that regard, many of the things that do or 
should concern us also concern the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 
www.eff.org.  Though their own resources are limited, they have a pretty 
good network of cooperating attorneys, attorneys who will work with them, 
or simply take a referral from them - for a fee if the client can pay, pro 
bono (free) if the client can't.  Something like this, or a domain name 
dispute, or many other things that should interest us also interest them, 
it's a resource you should know of if/when a lawyer is necessary.

I do not speak for EFF, I am not an EFF staff attorney.  But, while 
maintaining my own practice, I have worked more closely with EFF than any 
outside attorney over the last several years, so I do know of what I speak.

Something to file in the memory bank.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
James S. Tyre                               mailto:jstyre@jstyre.com
Law Offices of James S. Tyre          310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512               Culver City, CA 90230-4969
Co-founder, The Censorware Project             http://censorware.net





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