Linux users, pissed off at the fact that SCO, a company that claims to hold certain patents on Unix, has started to sue companies that provide Linux distributions for violation of their ownership of “intellectual property,” have started a petition, reading as follows:
To: SCO
I am a Linux user. I feel that SCO’s tactics toward an operating system of my choice are unjust, ill founded and bizarre. I am willing to be sued because I am confident that SCO’s tactics toward Linux will fail. If I have published my email address as part of this petition it is so SCO representatives can email me and begin the process of serving me a court order.
(Petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/scosueme/petition.html; via Techdirt).
It strikes me that a similar strategy would be of use in regards to mp3 filesharing. What would the record companies do, if millions of people signed a petition saying, in effect, “I have made music files available for peer-to-peer sharing; go ahead and sue me”?