All of the above. Geekstuff; open source; Android; disruption; direct support of creators; that gooey feeling from helping others; potential tax writeoff for solo practice (research); oh, and geekstuff.
I'll likely be asking questions too, but still... I got in at $99 and am willing to take the risk. (PS2 with used $4.99 games is getting old, after all.)
I honestly thought Twitter was a useless trifle until the CA Easter 2010 earthquake, that we felt on a mesa in San Diego - which meant it had to be huge (no significant fault line here). But no news anywhere about it.
So I joined Twitter to see who else was affected, and instantly learned that it was felt up in LA and all the way out to AZ. I.e., huge - probably in the desert (which turned out to be the case). Most useful, it turns out.
Now when something big goes down, I go to Twitter first.
Understood. My point was that I have seen plenty of these shakedown letters, and they never said *in writing* that they were going to expose them to embarrassment by outing their porn downloads, etc. That is why I think plaintiff may have pled sufficiently that a line was crossed in this matter. And trying to say they legitimately believed this gal was the downloader is not the excuse it was even last year.
As to: "Then if you pay your own lawyer many of them just take their fee, and negotiate you a lower settlement price... because they can't be bothered to even look at if the case has merit."
Disagree. It does not take much to look at the merits. Did you download "Far Cry?" -- "Um, I see it in my hard drive, but I didn't intentionally download it. Never heard of it." OR "No." -- either way, most folks don't want the hassle and the cost, so cough up the $2-3k to the trolls.
That's where it's really angrifying. Many lawyers want to help and fight these trolls, but they gotta eat too - can only work for free so much, and the client's don't have loads of cash laying around, and so the cost/benefit goes to paying those extortionate fucks off. And who learns a valuable lesson out of it? Nobody.
Wonder if they have the "litigation privilege" in KY, where statements reasonably related to a lawsuit are privileged. Even if so, the claims of fraud might go beyond the bounds of the privilege, at least at the pleading stage.
And, when you have Randazza arguing that it should constitute negligence for a party to have an open wi-fi (although, NOT - because no personal injury or property damage) in recognition that the IP does not identify the downloader; and when you have Courts now understanding that IP addresses do not necessarily identify the perp; and you have professional trolls making the phone calls ... well guess what? The trolls are not going to have such an easy time getting away with saying that their representations that IP address = the perp were not fraudulent statements. Fraud also can lie where the person making the statement has no reasonable belief that their representations are true. And they can hardly reasonably believe the gal was the downloader in light of the above.
That's probably why they make phone calls rather than put it in writing - for denial purposes.
It's ethically okay for the party himself to communicate directly with the other party. Only lawyers are precluded from communicating with parties they know to be represented by counsel.
But ... in normal circumstances (not here), a party should generally not be communicating with anyone about the case but their own counsel, as anything they say is admissible against them (even if the person they said it to gets it totally wrong). Here... no matter.
HaHa, I totally forgot. I sampled the snare from "Pour Some Sugar..." last year because it has people going "Hey!" mixed in, and sounds awesome in a goofy home-video soundtrack I did.
It's obvious that he's repeating a tactic that has always worked for him in the past ...
... and like so many other stories on this site, in so many other contexts, he is sticking to an Old-School Model despite battling in a New World Playground. Square peg ... round hole. Adapt or die, Chuck.
Issue of First Impression? Expressly Vexatious Litigation? Really?
"9. That the litigation, being of first impression in virtually every Circuit, grounded in a federal question, involving a registered trademark, and dispositive of many open issues in the field of Internet commerce and speech, might very well continue for a decade."
Actually, it's been litigated a whole lot. It's called a "gripe site," which is described as "a web site established to criticize an institution such as a corporation, union, government body, or political figure. Not surprisingly, powerful institutions often do not take kindly to being criticized, and they have invented a variety of ways to try to suppress the speech of their adversaries."
Perhaps those funds at your disposal should be used to fire up a Westlaw subscription.
And Chuck, brazenly threatening to forum shop and to prolong litigation for the express purpose of outspending and wearing down the opposition is a big fat bucket of ethical violations. But you know that, right?
Re: Re: Re: Y is to .... how much of WHOSE money, did Inman donate to charity ?
Yeah, so Inman's got a Black-Hat-SEO background and suffered the Gpenalty. So what? People change. Sometimes people become cartoonists instead.
Har. No fauxtrollbash response here. Most interesting. If Carreon had lawyers, I imagine they'd be making big hay of this -- despite its irrelevancy to the issue at hand (unless he actually had good lawyers, which would create a paradox in light of the existing lawsuit and cause the universe to collapse on itself).
Hey, I'm all about access and such, but I'm sick of ADA trolls overreaching where's not necessary or practical. E.g., all the corner store parking in my hood. One corner store at a busy fustercluck 5-way intersection now has .8 of a parking space, since a local ADA troll forced them to put a disabled spot there. I drive by there daily and have never once seen it used. Sometimes reality should step in...
On the post: Facebook Engineer Apologizes Via Reddit For Accidentally Blocking Imgur Across Facebook
On the post: German Supreme Court Suggests Cyber Lockers Need To Filter Content If Alerted To Copyright Infringement
Re: fine points of grammar
On the post: Lord Finesse Learning How The Streisand Effect Works: Tons Of People Re-Upload Dan Bull's Video
Re: Re:
On the post: OUYA: Android Based Game Console Takes Kickstarter And The World By Storm
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: OUYA: Android Based Game Console Takes Kickstarter And The World By Storm
Re:
On the post: Irish Rail Uses Twitter To Help Reunite Lost Dog With Owner
So I joined Twitter to see who else was affected, and instantly learned that it was felt up in LA and all the way out to AZ. I.e., huge - probably in the desert (which turned out to be the case). Most useful, it turns out.
Now when something big goes down, I go to Twitter first.
On the post: Class Action Racketeering Lawsuit Filed Against Copyright Trolling Porn Companies
Re: Re: Some Teeth Perhaps?
As to: "Then if you pay your own lawyer many of them just take their fee, and negotiate you a lower settlement price... because they can't be bothered to even look at if the case has merit."
Disagree. It does not take much to look at the merits. Did you download "Far Cry?" -- "Um, I see it in my hard drive, but I didn't intentionally download it. Never heard of it." OR "No." -- either way, most folks don't want the hassle and the cost, so cough up the $2-3k to the trolls.
That's where it's really angrifying. Many lawyers want to help and fight these trolls, but they gotta eat too - can only work for free so much, and the client's don't have loads of cash laying around, and so the cost/benefit goes to paying those extortionate fucks off. And who learns a valuable lesson out of it? Nobody.
On the post: Class Action Racketeering Lawsuit Filed Against Copyright Trolling Porn Companies
Some Teeth Perhaps?
And, when you have Randazza arguing that it should constitute negligence for a party to have an open wi-fi (although, NOT - because no personal injury or property damage) in recognition that the IP does not identify the downloader; and when you have Courts now understanding that IP addresses do not necessarily identify the perp; and you have professional trolls making the phone calls ... well guess what? The trolls are not going to have such an easy time getting away with saying that their representations that IP address = the perp were not fraudulent statements. Fraud also can lie where the person making the statement has no reasonable belief that their representations are true. And they can hardly reasonably believe the gal was the downloader in light of the above.
That's probably why they make phone calls rather than put it in writing - for denial purposes.
So ... it might stick. One can only hope.
On the post: Hipmunk Raises Money... And Is Immediately Threatened By Patent Troll
On the post: Matthew Inman Takes Photos Of $211,223 In Cash To Send To FunnyJunk & Charles Carreon
Re: Confusion
But ... in normal circumstances (not here), a party should generally not be communicating with anyone about the case but their own counsel, as anything they say is admissible against them (even if the person they said it to gets it totally wrong). Here... no matter.
On the post: With Wikileaks Releasing Syrian Emails, Will People Realize It's Not Just Targeting The US?
Why I like Techdirt
2. "Spaceballs" references need not be explained (Ditto Star Wars).
On the post: Def Leppard Covers Its Own Songs With 'Forgeries' To Fight Back Against Universal Music
Re:
So I suppose I'll be commenting from jail now.
On the post: Def Leppard Covers Its Own Songs With 'Forgeries' To Fight Back Against Universal Music
On the post: Jimmy Wales Confident That UK Gov't Won't Ignore 200,000+ Signatures Against O'Dwyer Extradition
Re: The UK shame
On the post: Charles Carreon Tries To Intimidate Parodist With Bizarre List Of Demands Plus DMCA Takedown Threat
Re:
... and like so many other stories on this site, in so many other contexts, he is sticking to an Old-School Model despite battling in a New World Playground. Square peg ... round hole. Adapt or die, Chuck.
On the post: Charles Carreon Tries To Intimidate Parodist With Bizarre List Of Demands Plus DMCA Takedown Threat
Re: Re:
On the post: Charles Carreon Tries To Intimidate Parodist With Bizarre List Of Demands Plus DMCA Takedown Threat
Issue of First Impression? Expressly Vexatious Litigation? Really?
Actually, it's been litigated a whole lot. It's called a "gripe site," which is described as "a web site established to criticize an institution such as a corporation, union, government body, or political figure. Not surprisingly, powerful institutions often do not take kindly to being criticized, and they have invented a variety of ways to try to suppress the speech of their adversaries."
Oh, and that quote apparently came from attorney Paul Levy, of Public Citizen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gripe_Sites
Perhaps those funds at your disposal should be used to fire up a Westlaw subscription.
And Chuck, brazenly threatening to forum shop and to prolong litigation for the express purpose of outspending and wearing down the opposition is a big fat bucket of ethical violations. But you know that, right?
On the post: Charles Carreon Keeps Digging & Digging: Inman And IndieGoGo Hit Back
Re: Re: Re: Y is to .... how much of WHOSE money, did Inman donate to charity ?
Har. No fauxtrollbash response here. Most interesting. If Carreon had lawyers, I imagine they'd be making big hay of this -- despite its irrelevancy to the issue at hand (unless he actually had good lawyers, which would create a paradox in light of the existing lawsuit and cause the universe to collapse on itself).
On the post: Charles Carreon Keeps Digging & Digging: Inman And IndieGoGo Hit Back
X is to ....
On the post: Websites Deemed 'Place Of Public Accommodation' Under The ADA; Expects Lots Of Sites To Get Sued
Friggin' ADA Trolls Rejoice
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