Ayyadurai v. Floor64, Inc. et al

Filing 1

COMPLAINT against All Defendants Filing fee: $ 400, receipt number 0101-6439091 (Fee Status: Filing Fee paid), filed by Shiva Ayyadurai. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Exhibit, # 3 Exhibit, # 4 Exhibit, # 5 Exhibit, # 6 Exhibit, # 7 Exhibit, # 8 Exhibit, # 9 Exhibit, # 10 Exhibit, # 11 Exhibit, # 12 Exhibit, # 13 Exhibit, # 14 Exhibit, # 15 Exhibit, # 16 Exhibit, # 17 Exhibit, # 18 Exhibit, # 19 Exhibit, # 20 Exhibit, # 21 Exhibit)(Cornell, Timothy)

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Huffington Post Finally Removes Most Articles About Fake

Email Inventor; Meanwhile, Ayyadurai Threatens To Sue
His Critics

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from the didrie-irii,'eiif-sIaj>,j>-suifs-foo ? dept
Email
by Mike Mas nick

toon, Sep 8th 2014
5:37am

Filed Under:
arianna huffington,
email, fraud,
history, inventor of
email, journalism,
larry weber, lies,
shiva ayyadurai,

FEEL RIGHT AT NOME WITH

Over the weekend, it appears that someone at the Huffington Post finally realized that hoping the
fuss over its entirely bogus "history of email" series would blow over wasnt going to happen. In

Tl IE WORLD'S MOST AWARDED AIRLINE.

case you missed it last week, we had called out Huffington Post for allowing Shiva Ayyadurai and

EXPERIENCE IT FDR YOURSELF

his friends to post an entirely bogus "history of email" series, all designed to make it look like

Ayyadurai himself had invented email -- a claim he's been making for a few years, despite it being
entirely false, based on totally misrepresenting a number of things, including what copyright
means, misquoting a 1977 research paper and playing "no true Scotsman" over what is a "true"

$8

A'

email system. Despite the evidence of how wrong Ayyadurai and his friends were, HuffPo allowed

m

&

v.a. shiva

the series to go on with more false claims, and then told me it had "added a clarification" that

7¦
I

ayyadurai

didnt clarify anything, but was .a statement written by Ayyadurai, repeating the false claims. On

i n

Companies:
huffington post

Permalink.
Short link.

It appears the powers that be at HuffFo finally realized that they had a problem.

All of the posts by 5hiva Ayyadurai's friends, making the entirely false argument that he "invented
email," have been removed from Huffington Post, redirecting people to this page with the
following text:
The post that previously appeared in this space -- part of a blogger-generated series

V

U

Friday we wondered how Huffington Post couild justify pasting obviously false information.

ii I

' vt

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Essential Reading

Hot Topics

5.3

The FCC Suggests Some Wishy Washy,
Highly Unlikely Solutions To The

on the history of email — is no longer available. Readers and media commentators

Poorly-Secured Internet Of Things

aleited us to factual and sourcing issues in the series and, after an internal review,
we removed it from the site.

5.3 1 If You're Worried About What President
Trump Can Do To The Press, Blame

There are some interesting language choices there. First, note that they admit that it was a

Resident Obama

"blogger-generated series," which is an attempt to distance the fake series, put together by Shiva
Ayyadruai himself with PR guru Larry Weber, from Huffington Post's journalistic "news" side.

5.3

Iran The Latest Country To Use 'Fake
News' As An Excuse For Widespread

Ayyadurai and Weber had been banking on the fact that most people don't realize that the

Censorship

blogging side of HuffPo has no editorial controls to pretend that the series had some sort of
journalistic credibility, They appear to be promoting the fake articles everywhere, and some of
their supporters have been trying to use the Huffington Post series as credible citations for

New To Techdirt?

Wikipedia [amusingly, one of their supporters kept trying to reject others pointing to my detailed

Explore some core concepts:

debunkings by saying it doesn't count since I'm just a blogger - ignoring that Weber, Ayyadurai and

Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics

their friends were using HuffPo's blogging platform as well).

5tep One To Embracing A Lack Of Scarcity:

Of course, what that note also (conveniently) leaves out is that it wasn't just the "blogger-

Recognize What Market You're Really In

generated series" that was the problem and has been taken down. HuffPo Live (part of its

An Economic Explanation For Why DRM

"journalistic" side) also did a long interview with Ayyadurai, and had articles written up by

Cannot Open Up New Business Model

reporters like Emily Tess Katz (who continues to ignore every question asked about this), repeating

Opportunities

ridiculous claims from Ayyadurai about how his critics are just racists who don't like the fact that a
read all »

"dark-skinned immigrant boy" invented email. Of course the reality is that it has nothing to do

with racism, but rather the facts -- which Huffington Post journalists apparently didn't even think
were worth the trouble of a quick Googling, to find where all of Ayyadurai's claims had long since
been debunked.
r

Finally, HuffPo didn't actually take down all such articles, There's a blog post from 2013 by Deepak

r

Chopra and Ayyadurai making the same claims that remains on the site. Ayyadurai is associated
with Chopra and frequently uses his connection to Chopra as some sort of validation of his claims.

—

*

n
j.

Amusingly, despite HuffPo PR people telling me to email them with any more questions last
Wednesday, they ignored every question I sent them since then [with one exception which I'll get to

below), and (of course) didn't bother to tell me they had pulled the series either, despite my
sending a few questions about whether thev intended to keep it up. Instead, a whole bunch of vou

18

Document title: Huffington Post Finally Removes Most Articles About Fake Email Inventor; Meanwhile, Ayyadurai Threatens To Sue His Critics || Techdirt
Document title: Huffington Post Finally Removes Most Articles About Fake Email Inventor; Meanwhile, Ayyadurai Threatens To Sue His Critics Techdirt
Capture URL: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-most-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-ayyadurai-…
Capture URL: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-most-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-ayyadurai-_
Capture timestamp (UTC): Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:23:46 GMT
Capture timestamp (UTC): Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:23:46 GMT
Page 1 of 16

been debunked.

Finally, HuffPo didn't actually take down all such articles. There's a blog post from 2013 by Deepak
Chopra and Ayyadurai making the same claims that remains on the site. Ayyadurai is associated
with Chopra and frequently uses his connection to Chopra as some sort of validation of his claims.

W,

Amusingly, despite HuffPo PR people telling me to email them with any more questions last

03

Wednesday, they ignored every question I sent them since then [with one exception which I'll get to

below), and [of course) didnt bother to tell me they had pulled the series either, despite my
sending a few questions about whether they intended to keep it up. Instead, a whole bunch of you
-- the readers of this site -- let me know. It's almost as if HuffPo wished to sweep the whole thing

2
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under the rug.

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Of course, one part of the problem may be that Ayyadurai is now claiming in the Economic Times
of India that Arianna Huffington herself "commissioned" the series after hearing Ayyadurai give

Checklist: Lifetime

a talk. I asked HuffPo PR (and Arianna directly) if that was accurate and (finally) HuffPo PR got
back to me to say that (once again) Ayyadurai is lying, and that "neither HuffPost nor Arianna

Subscription Bundle

'commissioned' Shiva's series,"

In that same Economic Times article, there's also the absolutely hilarious claim from Ayyadurai

Report ttiK ad

suggesting that he's considering legal action against his "critics,"

\

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Techdirt Insider Out

Shiva Ayyadurai, the man in the middle of a raging controversy over his claims of
http:iMtheregi5ter.co. uld2016i12/08Aviriter_is_c<

being the inventor of email, doesn't want to go legal on his detractors but is looking

time forthe touches and pitchforks, I think.

for support from the public. "Lawsuits take a long time. If I have to pull the

Dark Helmet: Touches and pitchforks is my

trigger I will. But I have decided to go directly to the people," Ayyadurai said in an

new favorite typo win

interview with ET.

Jeffrey Nonken: hah.
Well, mobile interface. That's my excuse.

First off, there is no "raging controversy" There's no controversy at all. Ayyadurai is simply making
\fidiot: WaPo article on copyright fight gets it

false claims and that's agreed upon by pretty much everyone who's looked at the evidence, Second,
"going to the people" is great, but historically he's done that with clearly bogus claims -- such as
misquoting Dave Crocker's 1977 research and pretending that his 1962 copyright on his EMAIL

software is the equivalent of a patent for the concept of email. So it's pretty easy to counter that,
since the facts are not on his side. As for the idea of a lawsuit, I would hope that any lawyer he

wrong, of course... ASCAP and MPAA seen as
the Office's only constituents. How about us
citizens instead?
https ffwww.was hin gto n p o st. co m/n ews/a rts-

andentertainnnent/wp;2016J12/09/congressional-

discusses a lawsuit with takes the time to look at the details here -- and .also understand the laws

panel-calls-for-independent-copyright-office

around SLAPP suits and the nature of the First Amendment, Because I may not be "the inventor of

Mike Masnick: well. they do quote new head of
the ALA toe, and lie's good

email," but I can guess that any such Lawsuits won't end well for Ayyadurai,

I

i

B i*i B3 D

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Document title: Huffington Post Finally Removes Most Articles About Fake Email Inventor; Meanwhile, Ayyadurai Threatens To Sue His Critics || Techdirt
Document title: Huffington Post Finally Removes Most Articles About Fake Email Inventor; Meanwhile, Ayyadurai Threatens To Sue His Critics Techdirt
Capture URL: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-most-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-ayyadurai-…
Capture URL: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-most-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-ayyadurai-_
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