Wanted: your Michael Crook blog harassment testimony

Here's the latest on Michael Crook (shown at left), the nutty griefer who tried to bully a bunch of blogs including BoingBoing into removing this photo (despite the fact that Fox News, not Crook, produced it). Scott Beale, founder of the ISP Laughing Squid, says,

10 Zen Monkeys, the blog hosted by Laughing Squid which is currently at the center of the EFF lawsuit against Michael Crook, has just put a call out for Michael Crook DMCA war stories in order to help in the case against him. Link to post soliciting your documentation.

WHY THIS MATTERS:

Crook is a deranged, serial troll, and his behavior is consistent with that of someone who craves attention, no matter how negative. But what does matter is the fact that the DMCA is so poorly conceived and written that even the nuttiest, most deranged of trolls can abuse it into silencing constitutionally-protected online speech.

For instance, others might use the same tactic to chill political speech: what better way to see to it that your opponent's campaign ads are yanked from YouTube a week before the elections? Laws this broken need to be fixed.

Reader comments: Anonymous says,

YTMND does Crook: Link.

And someone else points us to online video of the Fox News interview with Mr. Crook that led to the whole mess: ~~Video Link~~ New Video Link to Hannity and Colmes interview.

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by auntie_m , February 8, 2008 9:16 PM

My niece was killed 3 weeks ago and her body is yet to be found. I have never heard of the guy Crook. I found his site by googling my niece. He has taken articles from the news and newpapers to post on his site. I had posted his postings on a free site which I created in memory of my niece for her friends and family to know what is happening. He reported me to the main people under copywrite laws and they were deleted.
http://www.myspace.com/miciana

#2 posted by CUZICAN86X , February 14, 2008 10:08 AM

Check out the following,
The Crook has been kicked off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Godaddy.com dropped Mikey today, here is the letter to him.....

Dear Mr. Crook,

Our records indicate that you are responsible for the domain name MICHAELCROOK.ORG and any related services.
We have been receiving numerous complaints about your domain names and the contents of your websites. Upon reviewing the situation, we have found that they are in violation on section 7 of your Domain Registration Agreement. (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=REG%5FSA )

We understand that this can be a very sensitive topic, and that there will likely be a difference of opinion as to the nature of the complaints. As a result, we ask that you move your Domain registration and related services to another registrar (Not affiliated with GoDaddy.com or our Reseller division, WildWestDomains.com).

Additionally, considering previous abuse of our Terms of Service on other sites under your control, we require that you move all domains, hosting accounts, and other services away from GoDaddy.com or any of our affiliates or resellers.

If you can initiate this move within 24 hours of the transmission of this notice, there will not need to be any downtime for your sites. If the transfer is not initiated by this time, we will suspend services to your domain names and any related services we provide. Please note that if you purchased Private Registration services through Domains By Proxy, this service will also be canceled.

We strongly recommend you reply to this message as to your intentions. This will further help insure that no unnecessary downtime results for your site. If you have any questions, please let us know. Please be aware that this decision is final, and is not up for debate.

Regards,

Spam and Abuse Department

GoDaddy.com
abuse@godaddy.com Abuse Department Hotline: 480-624-2505
ARID1001

#3 posted by Anonymous , August 8, 2008 4:35 PM

I completely agree with your point that Michael Crook craves attention, no matter how negative. Recently a 16-year-old named Faith Sinclair was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Sharon Hill, Pa. Her fellow high schoolers created a Facebook group called "In Loving Memory of Faith Sinclair" where they posted her pictures and comments about how much they missed her, things like that. Crook joined the group and posted a link to his blog, where he's done several entries saying Faith Sinclair is fat, was too "retarded" to get out way of the speeding car, and that the 16-year-old is in hell right now. I had never heard of this jerk before, and when I read those blogs I thought he was just some dumb kid. I was appalled when I read more about him. I'm not only amazed that he would write such horrible things about a teenager who just died, but that he would post a link to it on a group consisting of all of her friends. It's really sickening.