<nettime> eToys wins

[RTMARK Admin <admin@rtmark.com>]

We at RTMark are happy that the behemoth, eToys, has seen fit to
temporarily pull its lawyers off the blood-scent of etoy.com, and to allow
the art site to continue for a while with its existence. After telling the
public for weeks that etoy.com was trying to blemish the wholesome eToys
image, eToys is now forced to lie that its "intent was never to silence
free artistic expression." We are happy that the torrent of public disgust
in all its manifold flavors has forced eToys into this ridiculous
position.

We are sad, however, that etoy.com is stuck with the enormous fees it has
had to pay its lawyers as its financial price for temporarily continued
survival (the other prices are incalculable). These fees are enormous to
etoy, but would be trivial to eToys. We are sad that under American law,
eToys has no obligation to help etoy.com recover from its unethical,
absurd, and completely disgusting attack. etoy, like the thousands of
other annual victims of frivolous corporate suits, must recover alone, if
it can.

We are sad to be stuck with our rage as onlookers and only, in redress, an
assertion by eToys that it is "moving away" from the suit. (They will not
say they've dropped it.) We are so sad about this that we hope that eToys'
stock value does indeed plummet all the way to zero point zero zero, and
we do hope that people continue to attack this wretched entity with every
means at their disposal.

We are surely most sad that while this case has scared eToys into
momentarily relenting, there are countless other similar cases--some of
them equally outrageous and equally cruel--that will not be resolved
except in court, if the defendants can muster the financial and
psychological strength to keep their cases alive. The law has not changed,
and until it does, this case will at best make other corporations take
trickier routes to their financial goals in the future.

We can only hope that someday, people will wake up and rescind some laws
protecting the power of these entities whose only desire, whose very
nature, is to profit at any cost whatsoever. Perhaps a good point to start
would be that 1886 Supreme Court decision decreeing that corporations are
"persons" under the 14th amendment (written to protect the laws of freed
slaves). It is thanks to this decision--which many legal scholars have
since decried as flawed and ridiculous--that corporations are protected
under the Bill of Rights as only humans are supposed to be. The 1886
decision gives American corporations the rights of free speech, equal
protection under the law, and due process--and the right to sue anyone
they like, whenever they like, in any court in the land.

What can you expect from monsters like eToys, whose only possible interest
is in profit, when laws like that give them free rein?

http://rtmark.com/
Bringing IT to YOU.

[see also http://rtmark.com/etoystatement.html]


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