Information Warfare Lawsuit

Hey kids, remember this: every problem in your life should be solved via lawyers! Under no circumstances should you have to actually communicate with somebody other than your legal firm! If you've got any situation you want resolved, make sure to absolutely NEVER talk to the person you are involved with - go STRAIGHT to the lawyers!

Before anybody accuses me of hitting the Jack Daniels a little too hard, let me explain what brought this on. Last Friday the postman rang my doorbell, delivering a registered letter. Since I knew it wasn't a check from Gamefan (Hell hasn't frozen over yet), I was curious as to what is was. After signing approximately 10,000 forms, I was finally given the letter. I ripped open the package and was greeted by a series of papers from the "Stradley Ronon" lawfirm in Philadelphia, representing somebody named "Jeffrey Frieberg", a guy I never heard of before. I read through the letter and soon discovered that they were threatening to sue me for copyright infringement, which seemed quite odd considering I had no clue who the guy was. Anyway, I continued through the letter and soon noticed that I was being sued for this thread posted to the SA forums, making fun of this guy's site. Yup, instead of just emailing me and asking to take down or remove his copyrighted picture from the thread, Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg decided to go straight to his lawyer and threaten to sue me. Despite the fact that I would've edited it on my own accord, Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg had to run and cry to his lawyers, challenging the mean ol' Lowtax to a court duel because somebody on my forums copied his grade school Paintbrush graphic to a forum thread.

Since I don't have a dime to my name, I just did the simple thing and removed the offending picture. I don't really care for any legal battles other than suing Gamefan for the money they owe me. But the question remains: why didn't he simply email me and ask that I take it down? Why is the first reaction one involving lawyers? Does every conversation have to go through a third party, one who can sue you?

With this in mind, let me nominate Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg's site, "INFORMATION WARFARE", as the Awful Link of the Millennium. Let us briefly review this site: as I've already established, Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg seems like somebody very out of touch with reality, and his HTML / language skills sure do back up this theory. I can't really tell what the hell his website is about but evidently he's offering some "services" as a psychotic* HTML designer who will run around and send threatening legal letters to targets picked from public forums. Part of his useful service includes Capitalizing Every Letter In a Sentence and displaying hundreds of animated gifs. However, these are no ordinary animated gifs though; they are used to send the message that he's a real "SECURITY COMPUTER INTERNET SECURITY" person**. As proof there's an animated nuclear explosion, dancing robots, fans, a hockey player, the spinning Earth, a spider, and a blinking light. Yes, nothing says "professional" quite like an image yanked off an AOL family's personal homepage. If you want to employ Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg's services, you can either email him or give the guy a call at 215-364-3200 (both publicly available on his webpage, the same page where they misspell "computer" as "Commputer")***. I'm sure he'll appreciate any business inquiries you may have****. Well, actually, if you want to contact him in the "proper way", perhaps you should ask your lawyer to give the guy a call*****. God forbid you make contact with the guy. He might try to jump on your face and implant eggs into your brain or something******.

*Legal disclaimer: I am not a certified psychologist. This does not count as a professional diagnosis.
** Legal disclaimer: I can not guarantee Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg is a real person. He could be some kind of malfunctioning robot or exotic fungus.
*** Legal disclaimer: All of this is public information which cannot be copyrighted. I am not suggesting you call Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg unless you actually want to hire him for whatever the hell he's advertising.
**** Legal disclaimer: Or he may just sue you.
***** Legal disclaimer: This is a joke. I'm sure you can contact him by the means suggested on his webpage.
****** Legal disclaimer: As far as I know, Mr. Jeffrey Frieberg does not have the ability to implant eggs in your brain. However, I have been wrong in the past.

I have done something I fear I may regret. Yes, I have given Ed Baker, the man behind SA's failed marketing scheme to make money from Stoplight.com, his own hosted site. He is using his hosted space to put up and promote his series of "unique" Christian comics, entitled "Ed Baker's Christian Decision". Head on over and check out the first comic ("A Party With Satan!") yourself! You just may learn something about yourself, the world around you, and Jesus Christ. Or you may learn absolutely nothing. I really don't care either way.