N2H2's (censorware co) views on censorware blacklist litigation

N2H2's (a censorware company) recently-issued current Financial Annual Report has another gem:

An individual represented by the American Civil Liberties Union has recently filed a lawsuit against us in federal court. The plaintiff is purportedly a computer researcher who allegedly seeks to conduct a quantitative analysis of the accuracy and comprehensiveness of our Internet filtering solutions for purposes of determining whether these solutions exclude some speech on the Internet that is constitutionally protected. He alleges that his activities in conducting this analysis, if he ever does so, would violate our standard license agreement and our intellectual property rights. The plaintiff alleges that the threat that we will enforce our license agreement and our other rights has deterred him from this activity, which he alleges is protected under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law and other legal doctrines. He seeks a declaration to prohibit us from enforcing the license agreement against him based on his use of our software in his research activities. To the extent that this claim is resolved in the plaintiff's favor, it could materially affect our ability to enforce our license agreements and other intellectual property rights against certain users of our software filtering products. In addition, it could contribute to an increase in the number of people who seek to use our software in ways that we believe violate our proprietary rights. ...

Hmm, what an interesting idea .

By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware | on December 24, 2002 12:23 AM (Infothought permalink) | Followups

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