The SLAPPs From the Microsoft Strangler (and Sidekick) No Better Than Patent Trolling
"If you give in to extortionists, they’ll extort you and others for more. If you let bullies get their way, those bullies will bully you and others even more menacingly." stallman.org only hours ago
It is often correctly pointed out that one must never settle with trolls (e.g. people who abuse your wife or strangle women), otherwise they'll do more of the same, or yet more worryingly, do the same (and worse) to more victims. Need we patiently wait until somebody dies? Or told to commit suicide (that's what the Serial Strangler from Microsoft did after a family member had done so)? The abusers must pay for their actions. It's the only way they'll ever learn. It's a matter of collective interest. Society stands to benefit from it.
We see a lot of this pattern in the case of patent trolls and I've written about examples for well over 20 years. Never settle with them. Do not pay "protection money". Do not let bullies get even an inch. Certainly never fund the bully/ies (they would use money to sponsor their next attack/s).
In the news this week we see a warning in UK Press Gazette about "failure to tackle online abuse of journalists," saying that it "could prove fatal, editors warned". To quote: "Carole Cadwalladr and The Sun's Jerome Starkey give stark warning over online abuse."
We can certainly relate to that.
Carole Cadwalladr exposed a bunch of charlatans/fraudsters and got 'punished' for it. That's how Cadwalladr became even more famous.
We can moreover relate to Cadwalladr's experiences since for writing about bullying against her (online) my wife only received more bullying and even threats from misogynists. These dangerous extremists have a history of getting arrested (one of them is still in prison), yet society underrates the problem or brushes it aside, dismissing the matter as "not my problem" (which means to say, not a risk to me, personally). Don't be so selfish. Some people do fight the bullies [1, 2].
SLAPPs are no joking matter. More so when the SLAPP is directed by violent men who attack women. The one from Microsoft is already doing that to his victims, whom he previously told to kill themselves. So the patent troll analogy goes a long way (some patent trolls did this to me years ago).
Then there's the issue of Microsofters pursuing software patents ("Balabhadra GRAVELEY (San Francisco, CA)") on their code plagiarism and GPL violations (plagiarism is a recurring theme there, as we explained several times before). It's a horrible bubble, but it has real victims.
On top of that, to borrow the troll analogy, imagine a cash-strapped law firm - working for foreigners as a "gun for hire" - trying to misuse "copyrights" to hide the threats it sends to people who expose crime (because the criminals pay for reputation laundering). I did a video about our experiences with copyright trolls 2 years ago.
"Trolls" is an understatement really; those are violent extortion artists. █
Also see: Brett Wilson LLP Does Not Deny Microsoft or Another "Third Party" Secretly Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights, Bankrolling Despicable People Who Deserve Criticism | Microsoft's Serial Strangler and Matthew J. Garrett Join Forces in Trying to Gag Techrights (for Exposing Microsoft Corruption and Crimes Against Women)
Image credit: By Molly MEP, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77508825