TechSPOUT calls out Steven Slate or “You litigous son-of-a-bitch.”

Steven Slate is a douchebag.

And I will probably be getting a DMCA notice from him saying that by putting his name next to the word ‘douchebag’ that I am infringing on some kind of trade or service mark (This guy is so bad, I bet he actually DOES have that phrase registered.) and try to delete my entire WordPress account.

Why this crusade, you ask? Well, check out http://chillingeffects.org/search.cgi and type ‘Steven Slate‘ in the search box. This man files about 7,000,000,000,000 DMCA takedown requests per calendar DAY. He goes after anyone evidently who posts the name of his various types of software within the same digital space as any type of decompiler, hex editor, etc.

Now, I am not saying the DMCA doesn’t have it’s rightful uses, nor am I saying Mr. Slate doesn’t occasionally use the DMCA notice in the proper manner. However, you’ll find, more often than not, he just uses them as scare tactics or suppression of speech tools.

Do you understand how the DMCA even works, Mr. Slate? It’s not there for your personal police force/brute squaddery. You file a notice of something being amiss. The company/person receiving said notice has TIME TO RESPOND. The company doesn’t just immediately delete things, you dolt.

Grow up, and stop being a douche, Mr. Slate. You can’t DMCA everyone who mentions your name near hacking/tinkering tools. If you were to actually file these notices with a court authority, they would have thrown everything out past the first 3. But, since you’ve gone the civil route, you think you can just force the hand of these companies/individuals by mentioning the DMCA. Well, we don’t all give up that easily.

So, here’s to you, Steven Slate of SlateDigital. You are TechSPOUT’s DOUCHE OF THE MONTH for January 2011. The second we receive the DMCA notice we are expecting, we’ll post it here.

(NOTE: In the title, where we call you a son-of-a-bitch, Mr. Slate, we aren’t calling YOU a name, we’re calling your mother a bitch for raising a son like you.)

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