Flow My Thoughts, The IT Professor Said

The Right To Vote Right

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60927,00.html

In this article we have a good example of rights in conflict. A firm providing electronic voting services, Diebold Inc., had internal memos detailing problems [potentially serious] leaked to voting activists, who have published them on Web sites. The company is suing the ISPs carryng the Web sites, claiming copyright violation, and many ISPs have submitted on this issue [though this fatally compromises any claim they might have to "common carrier" status, in my opinion. Note that the telephone company would not be liable if someone phoned the press and read one of the memos in question to someone at the other end].

One the one hand, you have the company claiming that its intellectual property has been stolen, and on the other, you have the publicizers claiming that the company cannot use IP law to cover up what may be a criminal activity. On the face of it, one would have to think that the activists have the better of the case, but consider this: an internal memo often does not state facts, but opinions or incorrect information -- so wonders whether the gun is smoking as furiously in this case as might initially have been thought.