Diebold, the slimeballs whose faulty voting machines threaten the basis of US democracy, tried to silence its critics, a group of activists who were publishing leaked memos detailing the company's malfeasance, by falsely claiming that they were violating Diebold's copyright.
Now a court has ruled that Diebold knowingly abused copyright and the DMCA when it sent nastygrams to the activists' ISPs, and has awarded the activists damages and court costs.
EFF represented the activists' side here. Man, we're winning some important cases these days. I love my job.
In his decision, Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, "No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the email archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were proteced by copyright . . . the Court concludes as a matter of law that Diebold knowingly materially misrepresented that Plaintiffs infringed Diebold's copyright interest."
