Slashdot Mirror

Of-course I completely forgot to mention all of the service prices that are rising, from accounting, to lawyers, to court fees, to mailing, to education, to car repair, etc.

Did I forget to mention coffee and coffee shops?

Obviously water

They will talk about drought and bandits and weather and climate and every single excuse under the Sun except for the actual real cause of this nonsense: inflation.

Only two? What are you, simple, or just trolling?

Here's another one just earlier this year:

The basic defense from them is.. how ARE they liable?

Kickstarter's claim is that they're merely providing a platform, that they conditionally charge for the use of that platform, but that what it's actually used for is not really any of their concern. They also carefully word that backers aren't really investing, that they're basically just throwing money at a person at the hopes of getting something - while at the same time saying that getting that something is required, but that they're no party in it and that backers will just have to fall back to plain ol' contract law with the contract being between the backers and the project creators.
( Also keep in mind that recently they actually dropped a bunch of their rules - though that's more from pressure of other crowdfunding sites and all the bad press Kickstarter has gotten lately for actually policing their rules, than that they wanted to. )

I can think of 3 lawsuits that have happened that involved KickStarter in one way or another:

1. Hanfree - a sort of iPad stand, in which a backer who also happened to be an attorney sued on principle because the project creator burnt through the money (on what? no idea), stopped communicating, and then buggered off. I don't think Kickstarter was named as a defendant. If I recall correctly, that lawsuit also went nowhere fast because the project creator defaulted into bankruptcy.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01...

2. The WA AG's case (complaint handling) against a project creator. That's ongoing, but as far as I know Kickstarter hasn't been named a defendant there either.
http://www.pcworld.com/article...

3. The 3D Systems case. This was a patent case brought against Formlabs, but initially also named Kickstarter as a defendant because Kickstarter took a 5% cut and promoted the project through their site. Kickstarter was later dropped as a defendant, however.
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2...

So I'm afraid your 5-step program probably isn't going to work on account of Kickstarter absolving themselves from any responsibility, and apparently having the law on their side (until proven otherwise).

On the up side, your 5-step program really only needs to be 3 steps.
1. post not entirely obviously crap Kickstarter but just something that's popular.. like wallets, multitools, iThing covers, 3D printers, custom pens, etc. for which you already know there exists an eager audience.
2. make goal (helps setting it to a realistic level)
3. run off with the money aka profit!!!

Or even two steps, if you don't mind setting up a crowdfunding website and going head-to-head with Kickstarter/indiegogo/rockethub/etc.

"Which part of "up to a maximum of $500,000" did you not understand?"

What really makes this a joke is that sorting out and turning over the data could actually cost them almost as much.

What makes you think they even still have the data?
After all, this happened, how many years ago?
Google has already published its intent to destroy all of this data, and it has been ordered to do so in several countries already:
http://www.techhelpfox.com/tutorial/1283730/Australian-Government-Google-Must-Destroy-Street-View-Data,-Commit-To-Third-party-Audit
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/06/21/uk-regulator-orders-google-to-destroy-user-data-co
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/google-street-view-settlement/

The last one (the latest) is an order from the US Government, and Google being a US company, it was obligated to do so. The Brazilians are too late to the party. Google should not have any data left to Sort or to Turn over.

If you look around a little bit you find that the drug manufacturers cut a deal in non-US markets and they do not offer that deal in the US, under any circumstances.

No, there is no "deal" cut: in other countries, drugs that are protected by patents are also subject to price controls. If the manufacturer is unwilling to sell at the set price, then the government can simply license the drug to generic manufacturers, as India has done recently with a cancer drug.

This is likely to change in two years. Most companies will be dropping health insurance and pushing the employees onto the government plan.

What government plan?

Rough road coming, but ready-or-not here comes single payer in the US.

Believe me: I and a lot of other people wish this were true, but this really doesn't seem to be in the cards politically for the foreseeable future, except maybe if you live in Vermont.

This is more about the legal department making decisions

This is usually very much NOT the case. Legal departments in major corporations don't usually make these sorts of decisions. Or, when they do make the decisions, they're usually very conscious of the fact that lawsuits (and legal fees generally) are not viewed as revenue centers, but cost centers. Wins in any litigation are usually windfalls, not strategic investments.

There are exceptions, of course. Companies do exist with litigation as their business model. However, you might be surprised about how much strategic planning goes into that as well.

Are they going to decide "Let's not do any litigation!"? Of course not. They will always pick a choice that keeps them employed.

In-house lawyers don't view litigation as job security. Few companies staff litigation lawyers. That work is almost always moved to outside counsel. Those with litigators on staff don't usually do patent litigation. Litigation tends to detract from scarce corporate resources for legal services that are usually necessary to keep a business running.

For most companies, in-house counsel are concerned more about avoiding litigation and the expense of that litigation than they are with prolonging that litigation.

All of that said, it may come as a surprise to you that BUSINESS teams are usually more litigation happy than the lawyers especially if they see a competitive reason. In fact, at Apple, Steve Jobs famously said that he's willing to go "to thermonuclear war" with Google over Android: http://www.insidecounsel.com/2012/06/04/steve-jobs-quotes-allowed-in-apple-google-patent-t

In addition, business teams tend to be less calculating about their litigation risks than the lawyers they have on staff.

AC grandparent: they fired a guy for blogging

You're either a troll or newsworthy ... take your pick.

Can't it be both? This is from January with Mark Jen, now of Plaxo.