Image by Loubie
The saga of the charming folk at Just3D Print continues, or at least rumbles on, after their last missive to me, I obviously wrote back to them asking for a little clarification:
Thanks for getting in touch. Whilst you say that you’ve been “cleared of any wrong-doing in court” I can’t help but wonder about the veracity of this as:
1) You don’t mention the fact that you lost your case against TechCrunch which was based on very similar claims – so as you lost that one presumably you’ve been found guilty of thousands of instances of copy right infringement?
2) The case you won was on defamation and just because you win a defamation case doesn’t mean that you’ve actually been found to not be guilty of the things the person accused you of.
3) Also as I understand it Stratasys, the only one of your three cases you mention, only “lost” because they didn’t bother to turn up. Which again means that your claim hasn’t been tested.
4) I believe that even in the small claims court people can appeal judgements, I assume you’ll be doing this against Tech Crunch, so until any appeals process is complete it’s really quite hard to say if you’ve been cleared of anything or not.
If you could address these points I’ll be more than happy to consider the information you’ve provided before deciding if any changes are needed to my original article, I’ll also obviously make sure to publish updated information to make sure that an accurate picture is presented.
I would lastly note that whilst damages have been awarded against Stratasys that doesn’t mean they’ve paid if you could provide evidence that they have paid you that would give some indication that they accept the verdict. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to download the court transcript from the very helpful Philadelphia court web site, so if you could provide that so I can see just what the court said in both cases that clears you of all wrong doing that would be terribly helpful.
Thanks.”
Quite polite and reasonable I thought, I left it almost a month and no reply so I got in touch with them again saying:
It is now almost a month since I replied to your request that I correct my article asking for clarification of a few points. If I do not hear from you within the next 14 days providing answers to the points raised in my previous e-mail then I will take it that you consider my previous article to be a fair and accurate account of events and that no clarification is required.
I await your reply.”
Well that elicited a reply from them. Their reply was I’m afraid to say to the usual standard, and the same connection to reality that we’ve come to expect from them.
2. Not a single person has been able to provide a single copyright # for inspection in court or outside of court so the court held that the statement “Just 3D Print infringed on copyrights” to be false.
3. Stratasys paid $10,000 to an attorney to show up and the case was argued. They lost.
4. If you want to wait for all appeals to wrap-up, that is fine. But you should be aware that in all liklihood your statements are highly defamatory. The only reason you have not been to court yet is that we don’t want to sue blogs/individuals who cannot afford to pay a judgement. We would prefer if you voluntarily took down the piece to prevent any further damage to us.
Their tone isn’t quite as polite as previously, but it is at least direct and to the point. I think it’s worth going through their points to see if they stack up as well as they have in the past :)
1) I haven’t seen the TechCrunch court transcript so this may or may not be correct.
2) Nice to see that their grasp on how copyright works hasn’t improved any since this whole farce began. Obviously all of those copyright take down notices to e-bay which seem to have been upheld and which Just3dPricks seemed not to have contested don’t count in the magical realm which they inhabit. As to a court upholding that “the statement “Just 3D Print infringed on copyrights” to be false.” well I’ve yet to see any evidence of that.
3) Now this is an interesting and bold claim on their behalf as court records are a matter of public record and thanks to the excellent work of Michael Weinberg we can all read the relevant court transcript. It’s not that long and it really does make fascinating reading. One thing it certainly doesn’t do is in any way show that Ryan and pals didn’t infringe copyright, the matter of copyrights isn’t gone into and it’s really not very clear why the judge found in their favour at all. So I’m quite at a loss as to what court case found “the statement “Just 3D Print infringed on copyrights” to be false.”. At the moment it’s not been proven either way in a court as far as I can see, but there are many many e-bay copyright infringement notices against Just 3D Print that were up held. So at present I;d say the available evidence does point to Just 3D Print being knowingly serial copyright infringers. I am of course not a lawyer or anything like that so that’s just my opinion on the matter.
4) What can I say to this generous offer except perhaps “Hah! What a maroon!”
whilst I’m half tempted to get back in touch to ask just where a court found ““the statement “Just 3D Print infringed on copyrights” to be false.”“, but I’m not sure I can be bothered at this point. Ryan seems quite divorced from reality and arguing with over delusional over privileged arseholes* isn’t the most fun use of my time I can think of. I will though of course watch how the legal situation develops in the US and post updates as and when.
Oh and for the record Ryan considers my account and opinions on his activities to be incorrect, but then he also things that publishing something under license revokes copyright so I don’t really put much stock in what he has to say.
* I apologise to arseholes everywhere for associating them with Ryan and co over at Just 3D Theft.
You can find the court docket for the appeal at
https://fjdefile.phila.gov/efsfjd/zk_fjd_public_qry_00.zp_main_idx?uid=&o=
Case# 170701489
Awesome really glad to see that appeals are happening