I originally donated $5. I have told the waxy.org owner that I got my monies worth by having my blog linked to that high-traffic page, and the owner of waxy.org can keep the money.

Link doesn't work

Poor Jish is getting Farked and boinged simultaneously.

Maybe he'll team up with SCO.

I also donated and certainly do not want a refund. FYI, they are still going to give the iPod (and a gift certificate) to the kid and Waxy.org has no plan to keep the dough if that falls through--they will refund all of us if not resolved by 6/10.

Even if the kid (or more likely the parents or other "interested" parties) are now inclined to sue, that doesn't make the kid a jerk who no longer deserves some kind of recompense. He's just a goofy kid and he's been jerked around by his "peers" and now, I'm guessing, by the grown-ups.

Andrew Baio at Waxy.org who started this fund, IMO, was one of the only people out there who handled this meme with some genuine compassion. The ironic thing is that, considering the venues, a lot of the people bashing this poor nerd are nerds themselves who, by the grace of god, didn't have any of their embarrassing moments captured on video and distributed world-wide.

Ich bin ein nerd.

"Some unfortunate news, everybody. Ghyslain, aka the "Star Wars Kid," and his family may be pursuing legal action against the individual(s) who originally posted his video on the Internet."

WTF? Somebody asserting his right to privacy and not be subjected to ridicule is "unfortunate news"? Hell, lets all just start digitizing and uploading to Kazaa any embarassing private video that happens to end up in our possession.

I think this kid does have the right to sue, especially if it was his private property that was taken and distributed on the Net without his consent. He may have a legal leg to stand on on this basis. You can't sue for embarassment, but you can sue for theft. So if that's what he's doing, I say he should go for it.

And why not give him the iPod still? The people who donated funds did so to make him feel better. That's cool and all, but him suing is his own means to make him feel better, too.

i think the reason why several people donated money to his cause was because it seemed he was being such a good sport about finding his videon on the internet, so they wanted to support such a viewpoint in an odd way. now that he's no longer being a good sport, be it either by deciding to sue himself or being influenced by his parents or whatever, the donations feel pretty tainted to those who donated for that reason.

hrm....new look for jish's page.....xroad.com. is Ghyslain a hacker?

i think the kid deserves the iPod as a gesture to help him realize not everyone out there is an ass. if his family chooses to sue, which they have strong reason to, it not only serves as a way to defend his property (and dignity to some degree) but also to act as a deterent to soemone else who might consider embarassing the hell out of someone for kicks.

> hrm....new look for jish's page.....
> xroad.com. is Ghyslain a hacker?

patrick,

Whattya mean? Was xroad's server hacked?

Edited by author 05-31-2003 09:50 PM
>patrick,

>Whattya mean? Was xroad's server hacked?

Could be wonky DNS -- when I click on the link -- or type in jish.nu or www.jish.nu, i get the main xroad page.
http://www.whois.sc/jish.nu shows website status 'not active'. Maybe he was slashdotted (too much traffic in too short a time, for those who aren't familiar)

I don't think this kid will have a leg to stand on in court. The key here is that he LEFT the "offending" tape in the school's video camera, which was discovered by those who put it online. It's like making a MP3 of yourself singing in a horrible falsetto tone and leaving it on a public computer. Ghyslain should've been more careful with the tape if he didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands.

But who knows?

Regardless, I withdrew my donation once I heard about the lawsuit. Ghyslain needs to suck it up and roll with it. Hell, he got good press for what he did, and he might still get his iPod too. And still he (or his parents) chose to sue. What a crybaby.