|
Authored by: joef on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 02:26 PM EDT |
Or, maybe it should be a Newspicks item:
LINK. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
Authored by: DieterWasDriving on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 03:11 PM EDT |
If you have been following the Prenda Law soap opera, there was a shockingly
short episode today.
For a second time, the main players were ordered to show up in a L.A. courtroom
and explain themselves. This time they did show, and all plead the fifth.
Since there was already indications and evidence that they were committing
"a fraud upon the court", I think we can take the following as true:
Prenda devised a scheme to extort money by claiming that people were downloading
porn, and threatening to file lawsuits with their name unless they paid money.
To run this scheme, the law firm set up several shell corporations. Some were
located overseas, both as a tax dodge and to hide the true control.
The shell corporations supposedly purchased rights to a handful of obscure porn
movies. (There is no contract or money trail, and sometimes claim to have paid
$0.)
Soon after the shell corporations were set up, the movies were seeded to a
torrent through the same anonymizer service that the Prenda lawyers previously
and subsequently used.
From Prenda lawyers own statements, their efforts resulted in millions of
dollars in settlement fees.
Several previous cases have had judges that refused to allow discovery on the
true owners behind the shell corporation.
A recent case did allow a deposition, and the Prenda lawyer being deposed was
evasive, inconsistent and flatly refused to answer most questions about the
shell corporations.
The judge started smelling something rotten.
Hilarity ensued.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 06:40 PM EDT |
It’s a great business model.
Step one: buy a software
patent. There are millions of them, and they’re all quite vague and impossible
to understand.
Step two: FedEx a carefully crafted letter to a few
thousand small software companies, iPhone app developers, and Internet startups.
This is where it gets a tiny bit tricky, because the recipients of the letter
need to think that it’s a threat to sue if they don’t pay up, but in court, the
letter has to look like an invitation to license some exciting new technology.
In other words it has to be just on this side of extortion.
Step
three: wait patiently while a few thousand small software companies call their
lawyers, and learn that it’s probably better just
to pay off the troll, because even beginning to fight the thing using the legal
system is going to cost a million dollars.
Step four:
Profit!
Joel on Software[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
Authored by: JamesK on Wednesday, April 03 2013 @ 12:02 PM EDT |
Samuel Ting's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
data gives hints but no conclusive proof of dark matter, the next big mystery in
physics
Maybe they'll finally find Blepp's suitcase.
;-)
--- The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
- OnSwipe - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 03 2013 @ 01:19 PM EDT
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 03 2013 @ 12:29 PM EDT |
Geist, the legal commentator, speculated that universities had long
treated the relatively affordable Access Copyright licences as a type of
insurance policy. With students footing the bill through coursepacks and
tuition, the licence was a small cost to pay for protection against a litigious
organization like Access Copyright. But when Access Copyright sought to
massively change the terms of its agreement with universities, charging the
schools exponentially more in fees, administrators started to more carefully
examine whether they needed the licences.
“I think if I’d looked at it in
detail six years ago, I would have come to the same conclusion,” Farrar
admitted. “But it took Access Copyright trying to redefine their rights and
really raise the cost of [the deal] to force me to do that.”
Armed with
the example of their peers in higher education, the recent Supreme Court cases
and Bill C-11, the universities that did renew licences with Access Copyright
may not keep them for long.
“My sense is many of the institutions that
signed on will seek to leave Access Copyright at their earliest opportunity,”
Geist said.
Arno Rosenfeld, The Ubyssey[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 03 2013 @ 01:14 PM EDT |
Enjoy. Preferably with beverages...
Help Desk
Waynehttp://madhatter.ca [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|