Copyright Lawyers Sue Lawyer Who Helped Copyright Defendants
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Dear lord, this is like "who's on first"!
From what I actually understood, the uscg are being HUGE pricks. Hope they lose horribly.
From what I actually understood, the uscg are being HUGE pricks. Hope they lose horribly.
This story made me pirate The Hurt Locker out of spite, with no intention of actually watching it. Also, "unless they are going to actually work for a living" made me love this Syfert fellow, who clearly realizes that profiting from financial terrorism makes you a lazy prick.
While that is usually the norm, the defendee in this case is already also a lawyer isn't he? I'd think the only thing he needs to spend is his time, and in return should get a lot of good exposure to help him in the long run.MaxPowers666 said:
I don't know exactly how it all works but I think what's kind of the problem with lawsuits like this is when lawyers become corporate employees. There isn't anything wrong with that in itself, but rather than the lawyer waiting for work to come to him, I'd imagine these corporate lawyers are on payroll so are basically free to pursue whatever the hell they want to justify their paycheque?
You guys realize that more than just pirates will come under fire if this guy loses, right? Do you guys like toonami streams (like toonamiaftermath), abridged serieses,and even emulation? Say goodbye to those if this guy loses. Every abridged series. No more DBZ abridged, no more abridgimon, no more yu-gi-oh abridged, no more abridged anything. Ok, the other side has the right to go after pirates, but we all know they go after so much more than that. Ever hear of someone getting sued over too much character likeness? That's probably also going to happen alot more.
The most obvious basis (without knowing the actual particulars) is to claim that he's practicing law without a license.Therumancer said:
Let's assume he's licensed only in New York State. He sells his package of legal forms to a client nowhere near New York State but, rather, in California. On those facts, there's a half-decent claim that he's practicing law in California without a license by giving legal advice (i.e., the package of legal forms) to a California resident.
LegalZoom, an online company with the same business model (i.e., providing self-help legal forms and advice on the cheap), have run into problems for doing the exact same thing in a number of jurisdictions where they can't claim admission to practice.
This.Starke said:
For those who aren't in the know, in the US, for a civil suit to get anywhere in court, the plaintiff has to have personal jurisdiction - that is to say, to successfully sue someone, you have to have been directly harmed by their actions or else legally empowered to sue by someone who has (i.e. granted you power of attorney). Essentially, I can't sue on someone else's behalf unless they've actually given me the right to do so.
So if someone sues you who doesn't have legal standing to do so, you can get the suit dismissed simply by filing a motion to dismiss on grounds of lack of standing with the court; you don't even need an attorney to do this.
However, settlements are not actually part of the court system - a settlement is just a standard contract, and thus they are legally binding even if the lawsuit being settled has no legal validity.
This is important because U.S. Copyright Group is filing these lawsuits on behalf of the studios in question of their own volition, but have not been granted the right to do so by said studios. In short, they are filing lawsuits without proper legal standing. Their entire business model relies upon people not being aware of this fact and not being aware that they can get these lawsuits dismissed at no cost, which is why their "settlement fees" are significantly lower than typical judgements in copyright infringement cases - they need to keep said fee smaller than what it would cost someone to hire an attorney to defend them, even though of course the very first thing said attorney would do is file the very same motion to dismiss. But because the settlement is itself a perfectly legal contract, if you agree to settle you have to pay them the money even though they had no legal right to sue you in the first place.
Bingo!! Whenever there's a lawyer providing legal services on the cheap, there's bound to be a bar association somewhere that isn't happy about that fact. And it's not just the lawyers who would lie in opposition but also those that would potentially represent the person relying on legal forms as an alternative to a high-priced lawyer. Both see legal forms as having high potential to cause them loss of income. And which is why state bar associations aggressively prosecute any thing that even smells like the unauthorized practice of law within their jurisdictions. They're actually protecting their membership's economic interests -- although they'll usually give you a long song-and-dance about how they're just trying to look out for the public consumers of legal services.Twad said:
Not exactly. You're talking about standing, not personal jurisdiction.Grygor said:
Okay, you're right, to go before a judge you need standing of some sort. That is to say you need to be involved in the case in a direct way or represent someone who is doing so.
Personal Jurisdiction and Subject Matter Jurisdiction are related to standing sort of. Subject Matter Jurisdiction means the court has "standing" to judge the case. (I know that's not the technical term for it.) Personal means that the court has some authority over you.
Personal Jurisdiction becomes a major issue in international law when one of the parties is a citizen of another country. In that case it's usually enough to say you're in our country, we seized you, and now we can charge you. In the US, personal jurisdiction also applies to state residency, so the rulings of, say a New York court can't (normally) apply to a resident of Kentucky. They can extradite, or file to have the case brought in Kentucky on their behalf (if it is a criminal charge), or they can go there and file the case themselves (if it is civil), but they can't file against someone in another state at will.
Now there is a hell of a lot more detail than I'm going into here, but, that's the rundown of personal jurisdiction. And no offense intended to you, Grygor, you did give an excellent rundown of standing, but not personal jurisdiction.
I can understand to some degree. You have to pay for healthcare, so the price of 'accidents' has to come from someone's pocket, but when it gets to the extent were you can sue people for looking at you funny...Zachary Amaranth said:
Ok, this is just plain sick, and while I understand that they don't like people abusing copyright laws, the fact that they're trying to sue this lawyer is... A complete and utter perversion, and makes the legal system look like a sick joke.
You shouldn't need a small fortune to be able to mount a legal defense. That means, inevitably, that legal defense is a privilege of the wealthy, rather than something everyone has a right to...
Sick.
It turns innocent until proven guilty into Guilty until proven to have money.
You shouldn't need a small fortune to be able to mount a legal defense. That means, inevitably, that legal defense is a privilege of the wealthy, rather than something everyone has a right to...
Sick.
It turns innocent until proven guilty into Guilty until proven to have money.