2600 NEWS: FORD TAKES 2600 TO COURT

FORD TAKES 2600 TO COURT
Posted 28 Apr 2001 00:00:37 UTC

Update June 28, 2002: VICTORY!

Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

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You may have read some stories in the media recently about us getting sued by yet another major corporation - this time the Ford Motor Company. We wanted to wait until we actually heard something official before saying anything about it. Incredibly, we didn't get anything official until late Friday.

You may recall that last year we received a threat from General Motors concerning the fuckgeneralmotors.com site we had registered. They demanded that we turn it over to them. We declined, citing such things as freedom of speech. At the time, we had the site pointing to General Motors while we waited for a better one to be developed. In subsequent months we pointed the site to all kinds of other places: consumer information sites, auto safety sites, even sites of their competitors.

Imagine our surprise when we found out that the Ford Motor Company was actually taking us to court to get us to stop pointing www.fuckgeneralmotors.com at ford.com. Ordinarily, we applaud when huge companies look out for each other. But this was a bit extreme.

Had Ford come to us and asked us not to point to them, in all likelihood we would have pointed it someplace else out of courtesy. But when demands and accusations are made without any attempt at communication, we have to object. After all, these tactics are designed to intimidate, and in most cases they work because people don't have the energy or resources to counter them. The fact that Ford has chosen to waste a huge amount of money and a whole lot of court time is something we find repulsive.

In addition, Ford has always had the ability to simply block any requests that are forwarded from www.fuckgeneralmotors.com. This is a fact they certainly don't want known, since it would show how they are clearly wasting resources with this frivolous suit and attempting to establish a precedent that would forever affect the net community in a very bad way.

It's very important to realize what such a precedent would mean. It's easy to see a four letter word and see it as a bad thing. But it's not the four letter word that's the issue in this lawsuit but rather the criticism of the corporate entities involved. Once the precedent is set, any site that is critical of such entities - regardless of how they say it - will be affected. If you point to someone without their specific permission, you could find yourself being sued. That's why we intend to fight this and that's why we will continue to register sites dedicated to preserving the right of free speech.

We're told that a hearing will take place in federal court at 231 West Lafayette Boulevard, Room 707 in Detroit on Wednesday, May 2, 2001 at 2:30 pm. It's unlikely we'll be able to be ready for this due to the incredibly short amount of time we've been given as well as the fact that we're going to be in court the day before with our DeCSS appeal. Perhaps that explains the timing of this latest threat.

Brief for Preliminary Injunction (Word Format)

Brief for Preliminary Injunction (PDF)

Complaint (Word Format)

Complaint (PDF)

Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Word Format)

Motion for Preliminary Injunction (PDF)

Notice of Hearing (Word Format)

Notice of Hearing (PDF)

Protective Order Motion (PDF)

Protective Order Motion (WordPerfect)

Goldstein Affidavit (PDF)

Goldstein Affidavit (WordPerfect)