[ih] Defamation lawsuit brought by self-proclaimed email "inventor" settles

[Mark Goodge]

On 18/05/2019 22:26, Richard Bennett wrote:
> Is this a win or a loss for Masnick?
> 
> It looks like Ayyadurai has won. Masnick has to give him free 
> advertising after spending a small fortune to defend his speech rights 
> and Ayyadurai doesn't have to give up his criminal ways.

Legally, nobody has won, as it was settled out of court.

In practice, Masnick has won, as Ayyadurai has failed to make his claim 
for defamation stick. The agreement to include a link to Ayyadurai's 
website is essentially just a sop to make it look like both sides have 
given some ground.

Basically, what this means is that if anyone else wants to describe 
Ayyadurai's claim to inventing email as false, they are free to do so. 
If Ayyadurai can't win in a case against Masnick, he can't win against 
anyone else either.

Mark