New post added to JonMon lawsuit

[cos]

Fascinating. I never commented on the original post this lawsuit seems to be about, but yesterday I received one of those letters to notify me that I'm one a "Doe Defendant" that will be added to the lawsuit. This letter tells me I'm being added because of my posts at both the original post (where I actually did not comment at all) and also this recent post - the one where ron_newman first told us that he's being sued. So... it looks like JonMon is watching the new posts and adding people to the lawsuit as they comment? In any case, the URL of that newer post is in the letter.

As in the other letters, he informs me that he holds copyright to this letter and implies that because of that, he can "prohibit anyone from publishing or disclosing it in whole or in part". Kinda wacky. Copyright doesn't actually give him the right to prohibit disclosure, and even directly quoting it "in part" for the purpose of commentary or criticism is fair use (which is what I'm doing here).

Return address, BTW, is PO Box 391512, Cambridge MA 02139

Comments

[cos]

FYI, "fair use" is hard to claim in court when you're publishing the entire content of something, rather than a small relevant piece. Then again, I'm not sure what sort of commercial value this letter has, or how you may be damaging the market for it, so damages may be small even if a court decides it's not fair use. And of course I'm not a lawyer so feel free to regard my words with skepticism :)

BTW, that letter does look like the one I got, although the one I got of course also lists the URL of Ron's more recent post.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

IANAL (alas), but my understanding is that there are four big parts of fair use, and how much of it is just one part.

I think I'm pretty solid on purpose (criticism and education, not profit), and the effect on his own ability to profit from selling his own copies of the letter; I'm not so strong on amount used. "Nature of the work" I understand less well, but I think the letter counts as non-fiction.

[cos]

I believe that unpublished letters tend to get more protection (that is, the standards for fair use are a bit higher) than other works, but I'm not an expert on that. But I believe that posting the whole thing makes a fair use claim hard to win even if you're golden on the other parts.