Latest Filings In Our First Amendment Fight; Please Help Keep True Independent Journalism From Being Silenced

As we mentioned a few months ago, we are currently in a First Amendment fight for our very survival against Shiva Ayyadurai, who has announced his desire to shut us down for explaining, in detail, why we feel he did not invent email (given the long history of the development of email that preceded Ayyadurai's particular software application). Ayyadurai has retained the lawyer Charles Harder in this lawsuit, and Harder has been successful in getting another media property, much larger than Techdirt, to go bankrupt and be sold off in the face of a number of similar lawsuits. Last month, we asked for the case to be dismissed for a variety of reasons, including under California's anti-SLAPP law. Ayyadurai has opposed these motions. Yesterday, we filed our reply to Ayyadurai's opposition.

We recommend reading our reply carefully, along with all of the other filings in the case, and familiarizing yourself with all of the details in order to make up your own mind. If you believe that free speech and a free press matter in holding powerful people accountable -- or if you are worried about claims by public officials that it's time to "open up" or change our libel laws to go after a press that may report less than flattering things about them -- then please consider contributing to our Survival Fund at ISupportJournalism.com. As I have noted before, this lawsuit has been a massive distraction. It has already forced us to delay multiple projects that we were working on, and to postpone other projects that we were scheduled to begin. It has, similarly, limited our time and resources to continue reporting on a variety of topics that we would normally cover. In short, no matter what the outcome of the actual case, the lawsuit alone has already been tremendously costly for us in terms of how we operate.

At a time like this when truly independent reporting is so important, especially on a variety of matters concerning free speech online, net neutrality, copyright, patents, innovation and more, we hope you'll consider supporting our continued ability to report on these topics.