Everytown Sues Twitter Users, DEFCAD

On Friday, October 22nd, Everytown for Gun Safety filed a complaint in federal court in the southern district of New York against four defendants over alleged intellectual property infringement. Two of the defendants are private individuals.

The lawsuit alleges that DEFCAD, the world’s largest 3D gun repository, The Gatalog, a 3D gun repository based on Odysee and thegatalog.com, and two individuals, Twitter users @xYeezySZN and @Freeman1337 have infringed on their intellectual property rights.

Everytown specifically cites the “Everytown 22lr Magazine” as well as two side plates for the Firebolt AR-15 receiver as the supposed infringing material.

Everytown uses PayPal records to identify Twitter users

The prosecution believes to have identified the Twitter user “Yeezy” due to a PayPal account briefly linked to his Twitter account.

Upon information and believe Defendant Twitter User xYeezySZN is operated
and associated with Defendant Phillip Royster as Defendant Phillip Royster’s PayPal account was linked to from Defendant Twitter User xYeezySZN’s Twitter page.

Paragraph 28. Case 1:21-cv-08704

In addition to this information the prosecution claims to have also been able to retrieve the email addresses used by Yeezy and Freeman to set up their Twitter accounts.

The prosecution has yet to identify any personal details from individuals associated with The Gatalog, however they suspect there might be a connection to the banned Twitter account @TheGatalog. 🤔

Everytown seeks damages

The prosecution claims that files bearing their marks are confusing to potential donors who might think that the supposedly “not anti gun organization” (paragraph 57) is associated with “completed dangerous firearms or high capacity magazines bearing the identical Everytown Marks”

The prosecution is seeking:

For an order requiring Defendants to cooperate with Everytown in good faith in
its investigation of Infringing Products, including, without limitation by:
a. Responding to reasonable requests for information about Defendants’ source(s) of
Everytown-brand products; and
b. Cooperating with Everytown’s representatives or its designees in its
investigations of any source(s) of infringing Everytown-brand products

Section 3

Additionally they’re seeking the defendants to:

“account for and pay over to Everytown all profits
derived from their wrongful misconduct”, “Requiring Defendants to account for and pay to Everytown enhanced damages resulting from their wrongful misconduct”, “Awarding any and all other damages permitted by the Lanham Act”, “Awarding Everytown its costs of suit, including reasonable attorneys’ fees and investigation costs” as well as “Awarding such other and further relief as this Court deems just and proper”

Section 3

Discussion with Cody Wilson about the complaint.

TKB approached the lawyers representing Everytown for comment. We were not able to get in contact with them. We were however able to get in contact with Cody Wilson, the founder of DEFCAD.

When asked if he thinks the claim that Everytown was not anti-gun was true, Mr. Wilson responded with “No, that’s horse shit [sic]” he further stated “of course they’re antigun they evolved from a Bloomberg campaign and a set of organizations literally called ‘Handgun Control Incorporated’.”

We asked Mr. Wilson what he thought Everytown was hoping to achieve with the lawsuit. He said “I think it’s just a super cringe move [sic], they somehow think they have resources and we don’t and they can push anons on Twitter around.”

Further expounding on the idea of individuals joining publishers in the suit Mr. Wilson called it “a campaign of intimidation” and said “it speaks to the lack of depth of their strategy, if they can’t get the platforms for infringement, which is a harder get, they can at least get the users for infringement and bully the platforms into unmasking their users. So they’re taking a bottom up approach, they want to scare the individual designers and speakers and they want to rope the platforms in secondarily.”

We also asked Mr. Wilson if he thought that this signaled a shift from a government response to a private response in an attempt to quell the “ghost gun movement” He said “It’s a private public partnership, this may look like private action but essentially it’s government action, it’s got government approval.”

When asked how this lawsuit would effect DEFCAD Mr. Wilson said “I hope it grows our platform, people need to see that they’ll be protected on our platform” he expounded on this saying “I’ll fight this thing to the merits, these people aren’t serious, they think they can just push a bunch of people on Twitter around. I was ready for this lawsuit the same week they sent the takedown.”

We also inquired about the effect this lawsuit would have on the other ones DEFCAD is currently in, Mr. Wilson declined to answer that question specifically but responded by saying “We could talk about the other way.” He said “Best case scenario this is Everytown trying to cut some corners off whatever First Amendment victory we got coming our way” “It’s small, if anything it suggest that their strategy has shrunk. If anything they’ve kinda given up, ’cause they and The Trace and all these people used to run and snitch to Facebook and Twitter everyone was sharing some shit, and that strategy’s not working cause we own our own platforms now.”

In regards to this lawsuit shrinking DEFCAD’s resources he said “Membership is way up, I think I can campaign on this, I think we’ll make money on this lawsuit.” “I can make this thing last just as long as they can” he even went so far as to say “In our terms of service representatives of Everytown can’t use our website, so this dumb bitch is gonna get sued [sic], I’m gonna get my pound of flesh from her, and every other dumb bitch [sic] that went on our website (in reference to accessing DEFCAD in the process of making the complaint). “She’s a dumb fucking bitch and she’s gonna pay for it [sic].”

DEFCAD claims that these items are protected by the first amendment, and are clearly defined by previous cases of parodic use of trademarks. They also claim that Everytown has no jurisdiction in this case to begin with.

Conclusion

This is just another one of the many legal battles that DEFCAD is involved in. Presumably it will be a while before it is resolved. At this point the only thing that’s certain is that with this lawsuit Everytown has firmly cemented the image of the supposed infringing materials in the public’s consciousness. TKB will be monitoring the situation as it unfolds.

Link to complaint: https://ddlegio.com/everytown-sues-defcad/