Help us defend our First Amendment rights. The Short Version: I run a geek news site called Nerd & Tie which partially focuses on convention news. Over the last few years I've covered a few stories about Convention organizer Ryan Kopf (who runs half a dozen events in the midwest and is involved...
What’s the Situation:
I run a geek news site called Nerd & Tie which partially focuses on convention news. Over the last few years I’ve covered a few stories about Convention organizer Ryan Kopf (who runs multiple events in the midwest including Anime Midwest, Con Alt Delete, Animinneapolis, Yoi Con, Kanpai!Con, MetaCon, QC Anime-Zing and Anime Zap – and is involved in a few others) which weren’t all that flattering. At the end of 2015, Mr. Kopf decided to sue me for defamation. He filed that first suit in the state of Iowa, and also added Pher Sturz (who was a contributor to my site at the time) after he defended me on social media. Eventually I successfully got that case dismissed on jurisdictional grounds though.
Rather than let the bad PR die down, he decided to refile the case in Illinois at the end of June 2016. That second lawsuit is still ongoing, and we are still fighting it.
What do I need:
I stand behind what I wrote (these two articles are the ones cited in the case and this is the petition filed against me in Illinois), but mounting a legal defense is expensive, so I’m attempting to raise funds to pay for it.
I’ve launched a GoFundMe campaign to try and raise money for my legal defense, and any help would be appreciated. Even small contributions like $5 or $10 can make a huge difference – and help us show that the community is standing together on this.
If you can’t afford to even donate that, consider sharing the campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and any other social media you can think of. Help get the word out as much as possible.
Every little bit helps.
Where are you right now?
With GoFundMe and direct donations, we're at $3,243 so far. That’s a lot, and I owe the community a lot of thanks for getting us this far. It’s imperative we still at least meet our goal though, as this is an expensive process that keeps getting drawn out longer and longer.
