It's a stupid untenable take down notice, BUT it generates billable hours for the law firm, which no doubt will bill Office Depot for all its "hours" spent finding to so-called violation and composing the weak DMCA.
I think people don't appreciate how a lot of the bogus DMCA and other legal stuff are just about generating billable hours. To me, baseless legal threats etc should cause the offending attorney to be debarred after X instances.
This reminds me so much of other fee-generating licensed professions, such as stock brokers who churn and hedge fund's with fees so high their victim clients would have made lots more money with simple Vanguard low-fee index funds.
Such bogus DMCA and other bogus legal threat letters should at least trigger notifications the lawyer's client that his or her lawyer/law firm is billing them for no good reason.
I think billing for civil law work is out of control.
Two property developers I know recently finished cases in which the lawyers took ALL or nearly all of the money from the verdict/settlement to cover legal fees for the case. In one case, a condo complex really only needed $10k from the developer to fix a sewage system problem but instead believed a lawyer who persuaded the condo assoc to sue the developer for $1 million. The condo assoc won the $1 million but the lawfirm took ALL of it, leaving the condo complex without even the $10k fix for the sewage problem, which the developer had offered gratis before the case. Another developer I know bought a high-rise building and sued the seller for $600k and won, but his lawyer's fees were $500k!
Hedge funds and other financial pros also mostly rip off their clients, as do so many civil lawyers who don't care if their cases settle or lose in trial as long as they get to bill invoice for billable hours.
Lawyers, hedge fund managers, stock brokers: fee whores who make money off their clients win, lose or bust.
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a lot of times it's just about billable hours
I think people don't appreciate how a lot of the bogus DMCA and other legal stuff are just about generating billable hours. To me, baseless legal threats etc should cause the offending attorney to be debarred after X instances.
This reminds me so much of other fee-generating licensed professions, such as stock brokers who churn and hedge fund's with fees so high their victim clients would have made lots more money with simple Vanguard low-fee index funds.
Such bogus DMCA and other bogus legal threat letters should at least trigger notifications the lawyer's client that his or her lawyer/law firm is billing them for no good reason.
I think billing for civil law work is out of control.
Two property developers I know recently finished cases in which the lawyers took ALL or nearly all of the money from the verdict/settlement to cover legal fees for the case. In one case, a condo complex really only needed $10k from the developer to fix a sewage system problem but instead believed a lawyer who persuaded the condo assoc to sue the developer for $1 million. The condo assoc won the $1 million but the lawfirm took ALL of it, leaving the condo complex without even the $10k fix for the sewage problem, which the developer had offered gratis before the case. Another developer I know bought a high-rise building and sued the seller for $600k and won, but his lawyer's fees were $500k!
Hedge funds and other financial pros also mostly rip off their clients, as do so many civil lawyers who don't care if their cases settle or lose in trial as long as they get to bill invoice for billable hours.
Lawyers, hedge fund managers, stock brokers: fee whores who make money off their clients win, lose or bust.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by peekhumility.
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