peteconnolly.co.uk

Sounds like he is posturing.

The man has postured many times before. This time, he's pulled on his micro speedo jr. and is posing away like a good 'un.

It sounds as though he's accusing you of doing exactly what he's been doing for a long time! I'm sure this won't stand up for a moment, especially with your brainy brother on the case, but I know it's always a bit of a worry to have this hanging over your head.

Personally speaking I wouldn't attempt to "talk to him sensibly". I think he'd welcome that as another chance to try his maind-games on you. I'd leave it until any actual lega; action starts now, and deal with it as dispassionately as possible.

Hi Looby. It is a bit of a worry, but after having a chat with my brother who looked at the rough details, I don't see what he could do on a practical level that he could afford. Litigation is expensive, litigation in a foreign country is extremely expensive. I suppose it would be an interesting test case and a punishing defeat in court might just stop the guy from spraying threats at anyone who mentions his name, but I notice that the notice has been pulled from his web site so maybe he's seen sense.

Interesting times!

Hi Pete,

I believe the US$100,000 amount stems from the 1998 TRG-Novell confendential settlement agreement. It is no longer confidential as Mr. Merkey mistakenly attached it as a exhibit to his Merkey vs World lawsuit without asking for it to be sealed. He realized his mistake later, and asked for it to be sealed, however, it was already obtained from Pacer and made available for download by various entities. It is now more or less common knowledge.
Anyways, one of the provisions of the agreement is if one party is in violation of the agreement, they will pay the other party $100,000 per violation. Since you were not aware of or a party to the agreement, I cannot see how it applies to you.

Aha, that makes a lot of sense. I was wondering where the nice round $100k came from.

I see that he's pulled the notice of intent to file from his web site, so either he's given up on taking me to court or is regrouping for another attempt. Having a brother with a degree in law is probably something Jeff needs to factor in to his accusations.

Cheers for the info.

Hi Pete,

I am not familiar with your laws, and it is rather unfortunate that the American system does allow for this sort of nonsense. I hope that your stalker does learn to grow up or find some other outlet for whatever ails him.

Funny that he doesn't quite understand our First Amendment. Freedom of speech is guaranteed, and if what you are stating is fact or opinion, he really cannot stop your publication of any material in the USA. There is no defamatory statement in fact and there is nothing illegal about an opinion.

I see nothing wrong in making comment on his litigious and ridiculous nature. We wouldn't allow our government to silence dissent, and I wouldn't allow any single person to do this either. It's a right that my forefathers fought to the death to defend. No single man has the right of censorship.

Good luck to you. Have a nice day.

freecode

Hi Freecode. Thanks for the input, but I don't think you have any reason to apologise for your legal system. The US Constitution is one of the finest documents ever to have been put on record, and the principles behind it are so self-evident as being the way people should live as to be a no-brainer, if only all people were so lucky.

It looks like Merkey has gone away for a while, maybe to lick his wounds, maybe to gather evidence for another assault but whatever he does, I don't feel in the mood to be pushed around by some nazi-wannabee. I stated an opinion on this little blog, backed it up by some non-disputable facts, and he took offence at having his name mentioned. I regret pulling the article, I shouldn't have done that, since to pull an article in that way is an admission of defeat in some respects.

My opinion, FWIW, is back and published, and he can't take that from me, however hard he tries. I said what I said, and I stand by it. As you pointed out many, many people, including our immediate family fought and died for that small but important principle . It's so easy to issue a writ to call someone to court, but to do so for frivolous reaons is a waste of everyone's time and a mark of disrespect on the very people that sacrificed their youth to guarantee my future.

Best wishes to you, thanks for the words of support. Most appreciated.

Dear Mr. Connolly,

Find some other hobby than stalking me on the internet. You can promote yourself by riding someone elses coat tails. I want your comments regarding the Novell litigation removed, or I will be forced to take legal action. I mean it -- find someone else to stalk as a hobby, Your "opinions" are libel as are your presumptions.

You should read "internet libel" a great book published in the US. It may help you understand the issues here. Also, remove the yahoo and google links from your archive, or I will be contacting a law firm in the UK to have your served.

Sincerely,

Jeff V. Merkey

Frankly I don't know whether that's Jeff Merkey or a troll impersonating him, but if it really is you, Jeff, I really must point out to you that under US law (I don't know UK law very well, but I imagine it operates similarly), to prove libel you must show 1) malice, 2) falsity, and 3) damages. I haven't heard a word from you since all this has started that would even begin to indicate that you've suffered damages arising from any of these statements, let alone that they were knowingly false and made with malice aforethought. If you take these claims to court, there is a good chance that they will be dismissed and you will be compelled to pay Mr. Connolly's court costs, and as such I suggest to you in my capacity as a layman that you apologize and discontinue all such threats.

schmidt349

"You should read "internet libel" a great book published in the US".

Careful Pete - you're obviously dealing with an intellectual powerhouse here.

I doubt that is the genuine Jeff Vernon Merkey as
there are too few spelling mistakes. The stuff
on Merkeylaw is riddled with schoolboy howlers.

Dear Mr. Merkey

In order to help in the resolution of this dispute, you will need to inform me of the following information.

Factual inaccuracies or unsupportable comment within the words complained of; the Claimant should give a sufficient explanation to enable the Defendant to appreciate why the words are inaccurate or unsupportable;

The nature of the remedies sought by the Claimant.

Details of any special facts relevant to the interpretation of the words complained of and/or any particular damage caused by the words complained of.

It is desirable for the Claimant to identify the meaning(s) he/she attributes to the words complained of.

Thank you.

Pete Connolly

Hello!

I was also briefly 'added' to the lawsuits about three weeks ago. At least, according to Mr Merkey. Nothing's come of it since.

I'd come across an article on the KSL TV website: http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=8&sid=214297

It had a video clip of part of a news programme, in which Mr Merkey made an appearance. A thought occurred to me: might they be interested in Merkey's lawsuit(s)? So, I sent them a comment thing (via their website), in which I suggested their journalists might like to do some investigative journalism on such matters. I referred them to the Merkey Law website, and suggested some handy Google search terms.

I decided it would be reasonable to let Merkey know I'd made that suggestion, so I emailed him to let him know. (After all, if someone had made a news suggestion to the news media about me, I'd prefer to be notified in advance of any phone calls I might then get from journalists asking for interviews, or whatever.)

It was clear from Merkey's response(s) that he was not pleased.

He sent me five, brief emails in the space of about three quarters of an hour. In the course of those emails, he told me he was adding me to the lawsuit(s), that he'd contacted a law firm with offices in the UK, and that he'd be suing me through the UK courts.

There was also, briefly, an article on his Merkey Law website with which he announced, publicly, that he was adding me to the lawsuit(s). There was also something in it about 'cyberterrorism' being reported to Scotland Yard, or something, but I can't exactly remember exactly what it was, exactly. That article disappeared pretty soon afterwards.

In my response to his flurry of emails, I asked him for his UK lawyer's address, telling him that I'd probably get a solicitor, etc, once I'd had confirmation that he really was suing me.

His response was another brief email, in which he didn't give me the address of any lawyer. I still haven't received any such address, or anything else from Mr Merkey.

Within a few days, though, some interesting new posts to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) appeared. The first was this: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/7/1/242 (It's not entirely accurate, as I had not distributed the 2001 email itself, nor had I referred to it when making my news suggestion to KSL TV. My Google suggestions might have led that way, though.)

Just for completeness, the 2001 email can be found at: http://lkml.org/lkml/2001/9/24/253

Regarding the way Merkey responded to the notification I sent him of my news suggestion, I have to say that it was, in my opinion, a bit of a silly way for him to react. It discourages me from keeping him informed of such things, lest he respond by trying to harass me with further threats of vexatious litigation, etc. It's silly, because it means he's (potentially) losing out on information that he might otherwise have (courtesy of me).

Anyway, I thought I'd share that with you, in case you find it useful, interesting, helpful, or whatever.

Oh, it also means you can call on me as a witness, if necessary/appropriate. Please feel free to do so, if Mr Merkey actually does follow through with his threats.

:-)

Simon G Best

Hi Simon

Ouch, sounds like you've been through the mill a lot more that me on this - all I did was post a little entry about how things were back in 1997 or whenever.

I thought about getting in touch with a solicitor, but then after a day or two over the weekend decided it wasn't worth my time. I did get expert advice regarding the charge, from 2 mates in the Spotted Dog, Cold Ash on Friday night and a colleague through instant messenger and we all came to the same conclusion.

I hope you captured a screenshot of your name on merkeylaw.com for posterity. I can see it now - "What did you do in the IP wars, Grandad". Alas, I didn't get to capture one, but I can still see it in my head :)

Thanks for the info, checking into his site tonight it seems he's gone away again. For now.

Cheers

Pete

Dear Pete,

Firstly, may I apologise for misspelling your name in my diary. I was working from memory.

Please feel free to visit ip-wars.net, which is a named defendant. (Yes, Merkey sues websites). There you will meet a couple of other defendants (actual people this time), and future defendants and John Does who, like you, are not prepared to yield to this kind of internet bullying. We're also in the process of putting together some legal resources (though we cannot offer legal advice). Both you and your brother would be very welcome to contribute, especially as some of us Merkey is suing, or might sue, are in the UK.

At the very least, please let us know if you hear any more from him.

With best regards

Sunny

The views expressed here are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the administrator or other participants of ip-wars.net

Hi Sunny

Thanks for the invitation - I'll see you over there.

Pete

Hi Pete,

I found this page when looking up for information on toss pot Berkley's webtripe. Oh my lawd! What a Aylsebury Duck witt. Lets invite 'im Ken' an' Dover ter da UK an' sort 'im aaaht ;-). Lumme!

Good luck I very much doubt he will get anywhere over here besides which can you imagine how he would get laughed out of court. It seems anyone who even attempts to be critical of him immediately ends up on his "to sue list".

Dear Mr. Connoly,

Please remove all content and google links regarding me from this website immediately. If you do not comply, I will add you as a defendant in the Federal Lawsuit and seek damages.

You have 5 days to comply or you will be added and served.

Jeff V. Merkey

Dear "Mr Merkey".

Thanks so much for that entertaining impersonation. You seem to have captured Merkey's nature perfectly.

And if AGAINST ALL ODDS the message is really from Merkey, whoever heard about somone using a blog to serve legal papers? Mr Merkey must be longer gone from reality than anyonme had imagined.