Posted by Chris Hurd on 08/14/07 05:42

Howdy from Texas,

On Aug 13, 3:04 pm, "Mark & Mary Ann Weiss" <mweissX...@earthlink.net>
wrote:

> I knew him for the same amount of time.

No Mark, you have *not* known me for the same amount
of time, nor nearly to the same extent as Bill Davis knows
me. Bill and I know each other on a face-to-face basis; we
have broken bread and shared drinks together frequently.
Yet you and I have never met. I have spoken with you just
once, by telephone, and that was ten years ago.


> I was interviewed by Chris in 1997, when he was operating a
> pirate radio station in San Marcos, known as KIND Radio.

I have never "operated a pirate radio station," nor have I ever
operated any type of radio station in my life. From April 1997
to August 2000, I was one of about 75 volunteer programmers
who put two hours a week into an LPFM radio station known
in San Marcos as Micro Kind Radio. I had a weekly two-hour
talk show on Kind Radio, but I did not operate the station. Kind
Radio was operated by the Hays County Guardian, a local
alternative media printed publication. While I fondly remember
Kind Radio and while I'm very proud of my admittedly limited
participation there, the fact is that I had absolutely no say
nor any involvement in how it was operated.


> However, it becomes problematic when two or more
> individuals use his board as a forum to libel my name.

Sounds like a paranoid fantasy, since your name doesn't
even appear on any forum at DV Info Net -- a simple search
for your name will readily reveal that there are no returns
for "Mark Weiss" anywhere: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php

DV Info Net maintains a very strict policy against using
any of our boards to flame, libel or slander any person,
whether they're a member of the site or not. On the very
rare occasion where it does happen, we deal with such
content immediately by withdrawing it from public view,
and in most cases, closing the account of the offending
party. You have *not* been libeled at DV Info Net.


> It is only reasonable that I should be able to
> respond and refute these absurd claims.

No that is not at all reasonable. DV Info Net never has
and never will exist for that purpose -- such public battles
of personality are more in the realm of usenet. It is only
reasonable that if you discover a suspected case of libel
on my site, you should bring it to my attention immediately
so that it can be evaluated and withdrawn from public view.
You have no expectation whatsoever to use my web site as
your own personal battleground. I won't allow such a thing.


> Then the guy goes over to DVinfo and continues to spout
> lies about me. I informed Chris that I didn't appreciate
> someone using another board that I have no dealings with,
> do libel my name and asked him in a rather firm manner to
> remove or edit the thread. He got huffy on me ...

Well of course I got huffy -- in your opening email you
threatened to sue me! I don't respond well to that, not
at all; I don't suspect that anybody would. If you had
simply brought the matter to my attention peaceably,
especially given our previous acquaintance, then I would
have promptly accommodated you. However, since you chose
to immediately threaten legal action against me, my hands
were tied with regard to that thread remaining in public
view until I could consult my attorney. What complicated
that situation even more was your strange response to a
similar occurrence at the AVS Forum, in which they removed
from public view a similar thread which contained offending
material, only to find you posting a copy of it (a violation
of their copyright) on your own site! But I don't see how
any of this is relevant, as the thread in question on DV
Info Net was in fact withdrawn from public view (due to
our policy, not due to your pathetic threat to sue).


> DVinfo and others are beholden to the camera manufacturers and
> as such are self-censored so as not to upset their monetary stipend.

This claim is of course a ridiculous fabrication. From its
inception up to today, DV Info Net has never received any
monetary stipend whatsoever from Sony or any other
camera manufacturer... and even if it actually did exist,
it certainly wouldn't affect our editorial content. That's a
matter of ethics, integrity and pride.


> Since the guy from AVSForum carried his beef with me
> into DVinfo, a forum at which I was never a member,
> he has tainted the waters permanently for me,

Nope -- you did that all by yourself, primarily in your
communication with me by email. He had nothing to do
with it except to alert me to the coming storm.


> caused one of their moderators who is respected in
> the industry to blanketly dismiss anything I say,
> as a total farce,

That's because most everything you say *is* a total
farce, like the bulk of your bizarre claims about me
which I'm having to respond to here.


> and as a result, my account remains languishing,
> un-activated, so I can't post in defense of, or to dispute
> the lies coming from the individual who uses his good
> reputation to smear others.

Lies, reputations, disputes, defense and smearing are
not topics of conversation on DV Info Net. If any content
there is thought to be objectionable, the proper course of
action is to simply click the "report bad post" button
(located to the left of every post). An active account
isn't required in order to report a bad post. That function
is available to all visitors including unregistered guests.
The report goes to the top forum moderators, where they
evaluate the complaint and act on it if necessary. The
one thing we don't do (never have, never will), is let it
drag out into a big online battle between personalities.


> I had a long chat with Chris about that, and he chooses
> to advise me not to join the forum, accusing me of being
> a copyright violator, simply because I employed the journalistic
> "fair use" privilage to display some frame grabs from some
> publicly-available non-commercial footage, as examples of
> typical picture quality from a particular camera, which, BTW,
> I now own.

Some of the creators of those images, a few of whom are
members of my site, made the valid complaint that not only
had you redistributed their work without their permission
(not to mention without at least proper credit), but also the
unathorized copies which you've redistributed are noticeably
degraded from their original form. There was some initial
conjecture that you had perhaps purposefully degraded those
images, since you had made your own crass accusation that
another fellow had purposefully misrepresented his; which
automatically lowers you to the same level of culpability
for the same thing that you accuse others of doing.

But ultimately it was decided that the degradation you
introduced into that stolen material was just a result of
your incompetence with the editing software. Regardless,
those folks on my site whose copyright you violated were
not very happy about what you did with their images, so it
was out of respect for them that I told you not to bother
joining our forum. They would have eaten you alive, and I
have better things to do than to police such a mess.


> He has the audacity to lecture me on the law, when he was
> the biggest law-breaker himself, violating FCC regulations
> by operating and willfully refusing to shut down a pirate
> radio station

Once again... I did not operate Kind Radio; therefore I was
never in any position whatsoever to "shut it down." At no time
were any of Kind's volunteer programmers (myself included) ever
named or sought or otherwise indicated in any of the FCC's
dismal and continuously unsuccessful attempts to quell our
Freedom of Speech. And just for the record... none of the
volunteer programmers at Kind Radio were ever charged with
breaking *any* law. So, no we were not lawbreakers.


> when confronted by federal agents.

The operators of Micro Kind Radio were *never* confronted
by "federal agents," at least never in person; and what limited
contact the FCC had with Kind Radio was conducted via certified
mail and in San Antonio, where Kind Radio's operators filed a
lawsuit against the FCC and took them to court. But this is all
fairly well documented at http://www.diymedia.net/feature/micro/f091200.htm


> Not to mention the copyright violations he commited by
> broadcasting commercially-recorded music on KIND Radio
> without paying ASCAP fees.

I had a two-hour talk show at noon on Fridays. What little
music I actually played during that block was submitted by
mostly local area artists such as Carolyn Wonderland, Trish
Murphy, Terri Hendrix and others who brought their music to
us. The vast majority of Kind Radio's rich, diverse programming
came from anything *but* commercially produced ASCAP labels;
most of the music played on that station was either locally
homegrown or remotely obscure, but for the most part pretty
much all of it was underground or well outside of the ASCAP
domain. By design, Kind Radio didn't broadcast "popular" music.


> He is a coniver and a slippery fellow, who speaks legalese
> terminology and pretends to know the law, when in fact, his
> closet is full of skeletons.

My happy experience during my time as a volunteer programmer
at Micro Kind Radio -- the friends I made there, the support that
the city gave us, and everything I learned from that time -- is no
skeleton in my closet. However my interview with you from
1997 has just become one.

I speak "legalese terminology" only when confronted with it,
such as the hostility with which you first brought it to me,
in your initial threat to sue me. As for being "a conniving
and slippery fellow," well thank you for very much the ad
hominem attack... it is indeed all you can muster when
you truly have nothing valid left to stand on. It takes one
to know one, is what I say.


> I didn't want to say all that, but his decision to ignore
> my e-mail requests to activate my month-old account

Request -- singular, not plural. I had *one* email from you
about it which came in yesterday, which was a Sunday; I'm
typically away from the computer as much as possible on
weekends. You can consider this as my reply to your email.


> My beef with Chris is that he is "pre-banning" me, when
> I have commited no bannable offense on his board, due to
> not being a posting member. It's sort of like "Minority
> Report" where they arrest you for crimes you have not
> yet commited.

A private club with a strict dress code doesn't have to
go through the motions of letting you in just so it can
kick you out. It can simply point to your shoes and deny
your entrance at the door. It happens all the time in the
real world. You're a fool if you think you have any "right"
to get in.

Prior to your registration at DV Info Net you were thrown out
of the AVS Forum and banned, you've threatened to sue me,
you've engaged in hostile ad hominem attacks upon members
of my forum and other people, you've redistributed degraded
versions of copyrighted material belonging to members of my
forum and other people without their permission, and you've
demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of some very
basic and key concepts of digital video technology, so no,
I don't believe I'll let you post on my site at this time.


> At any rate, as far as I'm concerned, my respect
> for the two of them has dropped into the basement.

Likewise, that feeling is now completely mutual.


> Shame on them for their "selective morality".

And shame on you for your "selective intelligence."

Mark Weiss, you can kiss my Bill of Rights. Good
luck with your one-man crusade against Sony. You've
got the rest of the internet at your disposal (except
the AVS Forum, where you're banned), but you sure
as hell are not going to use my web site to grind your
broken ax.

(My apologies to the regulars here for my brief
intrusion, but this was an attempted attack upon
my character and unfortunately too many people will
blindly believe anything they read on usenet. That's
the reason why I created DV Info Net in the first
place; to get away from such malice. Hopefully for
your sake and mine, I won't have to return. Best
regards, and a hearty thanks to Bill Davis.)

Chris Hurd
DV Info Net
San Marcos, TX

[Back to original message]