Slashdot Mirror
Infinium Labs Countersues HardOCP
loftydog writes "Gamespot is reporting that our favorite console manufacturer has thrown down a gauntlet in Florida. Seems they didn't want to play in Texas with HardOCP. Turns out that SCO doesn't have a corner on the lawyer market after all, and we'll see something from Infinium, even if it is an overpaid suit."
I'd love to see the judge say "OK, Infinium.. Let's see your console that HardOCP has been blasting." It may be another SCOish "We'd love to but it's our proprietary product!"
Trolling is a art,
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, litigate."
(in reference to Infinium, not HardOCP, of course...)
"This? I can make a hat, I can make a brooch, I can make a pterodactyl..."
Infinium Labs Vs. HardOCP - Round 2
HardOCP Press Release
While insane judicial stuff HAS been known to go down in Florida it just seems less likely the Infinium people will somehow face the death penalty there. *sigh*
I just read the motion to dismiss and supporting brief relating to the Texas suit. Infinium is not going to have much of a fun time in this suit. Their counsel are incompetent. I've yet to read anything prepared by [H]'s lawyers, but it's got to be better than the inane dribble that Infinium has sent to the Tx District Court. Misspellings, wrong words, never mind the fact that they're plainly disrespectful in some places, and oh, flat out wrong in some, too.
Motion to dismiss:
here
Judge: "ok, show your console"
Infinium: "we can't do that as it would expose our business secrets"
Judge: "so you have no console?"
Infinium: "that IS the secret"
I plan to plan / Dutch course in The Hague
I was really looking forward to getting my hands on a Phantom game console, but now that Infinium labs are focusing on all this litigation, I guess I am going to have to wait some more!
Infinium sues HardOCP
[UPDATE] Phantom console maker makes good on its threats and initiates legal action in a Florida court.
Shacknews is reporting that Infinium Labs has finally made good on its threats to hardware site HardOCP and has initiated legal action. According to the report, the makers of the yet-to-be-launched Phantom PC game console filed suit in a Florida court this week over a corporate profile the hardware site ran last fall.
As of press time, calls to Infinium president Kevin Bachus had not been returned. However, HardOCP owner Kyle Bennett confirmed the company's legal action. "Yes, [but] I have not gotten all of the paper work yet," he told GameSpot. However, what Bennett has seen does not bode well for a short legal battle. "It seems as though Infinium Labs and [CEO] Tim Roberts personally have filed suit against us," he said.
The legal maneuvering started last month when Infinium sent HardOCP a letter saying they would sue the site for defamation if it did not retract the article, which painted a less-than-flattering portrait of several executives. HardOCP promptly refused, then filed a preemptive suit in a Texas court against Infinium.
GameSpot will have more information on this breaking story as it becomes available.
How am I able to make any kind of informed comment on slashdot without a prerequisite groklaw.net article?
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
...none of this would have happened if Infinium Labs had actually shipped a working product on time. Mudslinging or "legal relief" won't make them ship it quicker either. As far as I can tell, HardOCP has been more than reasonable with its assertions... more sites should have the guts to expose the true colors of the companies they cover.
However exciting the infinium technology allegedly is, I temper any enthusiasm for that product with the reality that they're entering a market full of big boys who don't like to share their toys. Whoever gave them venture money to go head-to-head with Sony, MS, and Nintendo should have their head examined.
Who cares if the product is interoperable, etc. As long as the big guys can sell their consoles below manufacturing cost via lucrative licensing deals, there is NO way that a small startup can compete. IMHO, the right thing to do in this case is Infinium giving what little cash they have left back to the investors and crawling back under the rock they cam from.
This is going to become all the more ridiculous as the 970-based next gen consoles come out. I just don't see a way to outperform that kind of horsepower...
"I heard Timothy Roberts, CEO of Infinium Labs, can't have an orgasm unless he kills a dog." -Tycho
Penny Arcade want to be sued too. I guess they'll have to try harder.
I have to give credit to HardOCP for not backing down in the face of ridiculous threats. They posted a factual article that painted an unflattering picture, because the fact's ARE unflattering. I know Florida is home to some of the worst judicial decions ever but here's hoping they get this one right.
Their website is gorgeous. Takes forever to load, but the eye-candy is sweet.
I'm not a cool-guy web designer, but they list a "Pentium III" as a site requirement. I can't recall seeing another site that listed a processing requirement. Is that legit?
Also interesting to note that, according to the Phantom.net branch of their site,
The Dalai Llama
constantly amazed at just how far people will go to get press...wait a minute, nobody visits my site, either. If you're reading this sig, expect to be contacted by my legal team.
My sig could be your sig!
They have $42 IN CASH!!
t ml
They have spent more money on legal fees than they've spent on development of the console.
See it all right here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/040322/iflb.ob8-k.h
In response to the HardOCP lawsuit (http://www.videogamestumpers.com/images/Infinium% 20Motion.pdf), IL claimed that they didn't have a corporate presence.
k .html
Check out the leases section of their 8K filing however:
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/040322/iflb.ob8-
"Infinium leases office space in Sarasota, Florida and Richardson, TEXAS under operating leases that expire in 2009 and 2007, respectively. Minimum future rental payments under these leases are as follows"
No, truth is NOT a defense to libel. There are many other factors involved. It is quite possible for a 100% true statement with absolute proof to still be libel. See a lawyer for more information.
"[H]opelessly
Altered
Results
Destroy
Overall
Credibility
Period."
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I caught on that the Phantom was a hoax and Infinium a scam the first time I came across information about them last year.
Why/how has it continued so long when it's obvious to even a dullard like me?
I really don't understand. It's SO OBVIOUS.
Classify this with SCO and Scientology in the "wtf!$?!$? It's SO OBVIOUS" category.
That's in Rhoad Island, where this suit will not be taking place, and further more the plantiff still must prove that the statement was made with malicious intent. Hardly, "quite possible." Technically possible, theoretically possible, not out of the realm of possibility. Sure.
Further more, there is the matter of being a public entity or figure, which requires a higher standard.
HardOCP has a number of true statements, presented as part of an opinion and asks their readers to draw their own conclusions, to their individual benefit, about a public corporation, and relatively public executives in it. They have this won barring any unforseen changes to our code of laws.
In short, yes, Infinium might win, but NASA also might have faked the moon landings with the help of the guys who faked the faking of the Loch Ness monster and Big Foot to divert people's attention away from their preparing to make OJ Simpson the first human on Mars, while arming him with only a powerbook to combate the vast alien hoards. Their chances are only slightly worse than a Sharpton and Keys joint ticket taking the White House.
Those links go to news from a month ago that was already on /.
Those figures are in thousands of dollars right?
But hey, $42 is $42. HardOCP could make better use of it than Infinium, that's for sure.
Courts have a specific jurisdiction. A court in New Jersey cannot litigate over someone who has never been there, for example. Imagine having to defend yourself in a place you have never been. This is just common sense and fair play.
However, nothing really is commonsense in the law. Rendering people immune from suits in a state they have never been makes sense. However, people started to structure their affairs so that they could only be sued in one state despite doing business in many. Eventually, courts adopted a common sense approach to guarantee "fair play". The case is International Shoe. Seriously. Heh.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Sue Nintendo, no one blinks an eye:
Sandwich Boy Sues Nintendo
Once again, the slashdot editors skew the debate by misstating the situation.
This isn't a "countersuit" because HardOCP DIDNT SUE infinium labs. They requested a declaratory judgement as a way of getting a judge to declare legal threats on infinium's part impotent.
It happens in a courtroom but it isn't "suing".
I bet this appears on thier website soon:
"our favorite console manufacturer" - Slashdot
Just wait. You'll see.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
No one takes you seriously.
Its absolutely true. In fact the response has thus far been somewhat overwhelming. With regard to the aforementioned documentation -- I find it wholly irresponsible to continue on along such a dark and foreboding path. All further correspondence will
But the Pentium III Makes the Internet a lot more fun!
Intel told me so!! Intel would'nt LIE would they???
If they ever do decide to release the Phantom (not likely), all this negative press is likely to harm sales similar to what happened with the N-Gage.
What contact does [H]ard|OCP have with Florida?
Before Infinium's threat letters, the only direct connection between these parties was the Internet.
Infinium has contact in Texas to no less extent than [H]ard|OCP has in Florida. Internet users in Florida have access to [H]ard|OCP's web site just as Internet users in Texsas have access to Infinium's web site.
Infinium also claims that that the Texas court lacks jurisdiction because Infinium has never done business in Texas. If the Florida court uses the same rule then it also lacks jurisdiction because Infinium has never done business anywhere.
Indeed, KB's report that Infinium in not a real business is the root source of this litigation.
In the USA, truth is a defense to libel. There is no tort if your printed stories are factually accurate.
In the UK, truth is no defense, you can still be sued if you print something that damages another person or company's else's reputation.
I've seen press releases that he is on the Infinium Labs advisory board. I've looked on his website and searched google, etc, but I can't find any information about what if anything he may have done there.
Does anyone know what the advisory board did, or knew about? Is that where some of the $350,000 in "advisory fees" went? That's about $50,000 each. I wonder what all that advising bought them.
"...this dude is a V.C. scammer looking for the next big dig...."
And what's so bad about a dude being a VC SCammer? What's wrong with scammers being scammed for once, eh?
Speaking as one who's been on the wrong end of VC shark's attention, I honestly don't give a flying fuck about them getting turned over once in a while.
My bitterness stems from myself and a friend's meetings with VC's in the late 90's, towards the end of the
All we got out of these meetings was a rule of thumb: If they meet you in the morning, they're semi-serious. If they meet you for lunch or in the afternoon, you're paying for the booze (GBP400 in one instance), and they think you're fools.
Fools? We certainly were...
T&K.
Political language
It seems to me that companies like SCO and Infinium are abusing the American legal system. They are playing silly buggers with the law in order to extract wealth from the economy without actually providing a service or product of value in return.
In the not-so-long run, this is damaging to innovation and fair competition which will in turn damage the economy.
It's probably time for Americans who are aware of the issue to start lobbying for new legislation to target this kind of behaviour - removing the financial rewards and administering punishment to the responsible individuals.
But hey, that's just me... I'm not even an American.
...before he was run out of St. Louis was always "Fake it till you make it."
There's nothing like bad publicity to get a vaporware product off the ground!
-R
A latest check of the docket shows that the Infinium Labs lawyers forgot to file a Certificate of Interested Persons with the court. It's just a list of people who a financial stake in the outcome of the case. When it is filed on Infinium's part, it could provide a look at the backers of Infinium and who else is financially involved with the company.
In other news, the court ordered a mediation meeting as part of the process to get the two sides to settle. This has to happen by April 23rd. It's intended to be a face-to-face meeting with all parties, but I expect Infinium to go pro se and do a telephone conference. If a settlement can't be reached, then both sides will file a report to the court explaining why.
Until the Certificate of Interested Persons is filed, the case won't progress much until the middle of next month. I've got the docs, but haven't uploaded them my site yet being as they are from the court and none of the parties. If there's a lot of interest, I'll post 'em.
Infinium Labs has retained the following legal council in Texas. This is public information from the court docket.
Baxter W Banowsky
Banowsky Betz & Levine
790 Coit Central Tower
12001 N Central Expwy
Dallas, TX 75243
214/871-1300
Fax : 214/871-0038 FAX
Email: bwb@bblpc.com
The latest info on the case can always be found at whereisphantom.com and the Hardforum.
Links to the essential court docket documents:
KB Networks Civil Cover Sheet.pdf
Infinium Summons
Infinium Motion to Dismiss
All right, here's some text.
-Rich
Fair Play & Substantial Justice + Minimum Contacts = Jurisdiction
This is the test that came out of cases like International Volkswagen, Asahi Metals and Burger King.
Pavlovich v. Superior Court, the CA Supreme Court ruled that the DVD Copy Control Association could not get a CA court to exercise personal jurisdiction over someone who posted the DeCSS code on an Indiana website because it was not reasonably forseeable that his actions MAY harm a CA plaintiff. Service of process was quashed and the defendant walked on this case, the fact that his website was not interactive and the fact that he derived no profit from the website appeared to me to be important factors. Note that this was a VERY close case and is therefore not SOLID law.
However, a few years earlier... the US Supreme Court in Calder v. Jones found that a newspaper in Florida had harmed a CA actress by publishing a defamatory story. Adopting an "effects test" they held that the COMMERCIAL publication of the story caused very real damages in CA. Therefore the US Supreme Court allowed CA courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants. Note that the court made no finding of fact as to the allegations.
This case reads more like Calder. While it is most likely that IL's case has no merit... it does appear that OCP's actions more closely resemble Calder. OCP maintains a commercial interactive website, derive a profit from FL subscribers and knew that there would be a substantial effect on the plaintiff in FL. Allow me to reiterate the fact that jurisdictional analysis does not presuppose to make any determination as to an issue of fact within the case, only whether asserting personal jurisdiction over a person or entity is consistent with traditional notions of fair play & substantial justice and/or the defendant has minimum contacts [purposeful availment] in the forum jurisdiction.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
I do appreciate that there are issues regarding journalism which must be defended, and it's great that HardOCP is standing up for its rights. But this isn't exactly the Pentagon Papers or 9/11 at stake here. When all is said and done, the only people to have gained anything will be the lawyers.
but of course... OCP's lawyers saw this coming and instituted legal proceedings in TX first. therefore the TX proceedings will likely take precedence over the FL proceedings... unless there some type of interlocutory appeal.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
The link to Gamespot in the article goes to gamepot, which is some sort of an ad site. Can someone fix the link?
paul reinheimer
Truth is a defense to libel in the USA, it isn't in the UK but on this side of the pond we have a constitutionally protected freedom of press that allows us to tell the ugly truth about matters of public concern. Infinium is a corporation that hopes to one day sell products to the public and has begun to advertise these products even before they are available. Such companies and their directors are public concerns for the purpose of libel.
Libel, vb. 1. To defame someone in a permanent medium, esp. in writing.
Defamation, n. 1. The act of harming the reputation of another by making a statement to a third person; if the alleged defamation involves a matter of public concern, the plaintiff is constitutionally required to prove both the statement's falsity and the defendant's fault.
And just for fun, lets look at slander:
Slander, n. 1. A false, defamatory statement expressed in a transitory form, esp. speech; unlike libel, damages from slander are not presumed and thus must be proved by the plaintiff (unless the defamation is slander per se). 2. vb. The act of making such a statement.
slander per se. Slander for which special damages need not be proved because it imputes to the plaintiff any one of the following: (1) a crime involving moral turpitude, (2) a loathsome disease, (3) conduct that would adversely affect one's business or profession, (4) unchasity (esp. of a woman.) If the defamation does not fall into one of these four categories, it is called slander per quod and the plaintiff must prove special damages.
It seems Groklaw will be able to (A)branch their website out into covering all stupid tech litigation or (B)spawn a sister site to cover this particular matter.
"No, truth is NOT a defense to libel."
Care to cite a reference in U.S. law for that? Everything I've read or heard from lawyers about American libel law says that truth is an affirmative defense.
0 1 - just my two bits
The Infinium Labs website, under "Special Events", says they were going to be at the Game Developers' Conference this week. I didn't see an Infinium booth there, and they're not on the exhibitor list or the booth map.
On infinium labs' website, they said they would be at the game developer conference Click here, then click on special events.. There was no sign of them anywhere... They didn't even give a keynote.. *shrug* Take this bit-of-info as you will.. =)
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Stuff like this is why gamers need a Daily Show, but for games. Or like Old Man Murray, but updated.
You don't know shit about legal procedures regarding libel in the UK, see: True Libel
Notably:
"Strictly, a libel is a defamatory statement to which there is no defence. A libel is, therefore, a narrower notion than a defamatory statement
Truth (justification) is a complete defence in defamation"
Best,
T&K.
Political language
This is the original "Phantom" game system:
- http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/nes/brazil/brazil.html
Circumcision is child abuse.
Hard OCP actually comes out on top of all of this, in my accounting. They get A: Slashdot traffic several times, B: Penny Arcade traffic several times, and perhaps most importantly C: an iron clad precedent if anybody else tries to muscle them into submission. HardOCP is going to come out of this as a force to be respected.
And for this, they have to hire an intelligent intelligible attorney who can argue that water is wet.
The ______ Agenda
From the Cambridge English Dictionary: phantom [Show phonetics] adjective [before noun] describes something that you imagine exists or that appears to exist, although in fact it does not: Although she had to have her leg amputated, she still feels as though she's got a phantom limb. They discovered it was a phantom organization set up for the processing of drug profits. UK Although she grew bigger and felt ill, she later discovered it was a phantom (US false) pregnancy. I think this aptly describes the Phantom concole. I wonder if Mr. Roberts is aware of the irony. Or did he chose this name for his "phantom" product knowingly, thinking it a good joke to play with other people's money? I just re-read the HardOCP article, and I can see why this guy is suing. He is hoping the threat of legal action will scare us all into quietude, and allow himn to continue parting people from their money with promises of rich rewards to be generated by his revolutionary technology. It reminds me of the old fable: The Emperor's New Clothes. LOL
...that isn't run by a bunch of jacka$$#$? Try the X Game Station. It's sufficiently obscure that it makes people think you're elite, and it's sufficiently vaporware that it will be a while before that's proven wrong.
JK. Actually, the developers post on their forums all of the time, and seem like normal nice guys not prone to knee-jerk reactions and faked photographs. It's also not really vaporware, as they have released an SDK and other things... it's just a bit late. (Money... Burning... Hole...) It's also a little underpowered as far as primary gaming machines go, but that's not what you buy an alternative console for anyway.
There are good alternative console developers out there. Even if the Phantom people are evil and the DIScovER people are ruthless jerks, some people are doing good things in the world of consoles.
The ______ Agenda
It's GAMESPOT.com,,,,not GAMEPOT.com
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
You might be interested in the XGameStation. It's a console that you build (ahem, assemble) yourself based upon an open specification. The design is entirely open, though open as in visible not open as in FSF. Hardware hacking is encouraged. You could probably build one yourself with the parts without calling down the wrath of the developers, though avoiding fumbling about for individual fuse suppliers and making your own breadboard would be worth the 100 or so dollars they will probably charge.
Good stuff. I'm looking forward to picking one up when they feel it is ready.
The ______ Agenda
"Keys"?
Alicia Keys?
Hell, I'd vote for her, but isn't she underage?
Advertising 45,691
Marketing 65,789
Travel and entertainment 106,523
Website development 41,558
Internet costs 26,518
Printing and reproduction 12,655
By my accounting principles, that should all be under "marketing," and that puts marketing at
299031, or just about equal to development costs.
And I know that running a business isn't free, but how can a company of about 4 people rack up thirty-one thousand dollars in telephone fees in the span of a year? This company is notorious for not returning phone calls.
The ______ Agenda
Say I've never been to DC, does that mean no court there can have sway over me?
Class action lawsuits can be based in a state where I don't live and neither does the company have it's headquarters there.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I got back from the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) last night, this is where us game makers go to learn the latest programming tricks & hardware. This is also where hardware makers go to gather support for their new products. Sony was there recruiting developers for PSP & PS3 as was Microsoft for Xbox 2, video card & peripheral makers show up to try to get people to support their titles, even Nintendo (who tends to snub the developer community) has a small booth. Yet one hardware company getting ready to roll out a major product was conspicuously absent from GDC this year. That's right Infinium was totally & completely missing; this absence really does indicate that this is just a vaporware product designed to scam investors out of their money.
"As feature on Slashdot"
Its better not to have it in that category, that way people are more likely to believe that the story was written to inform readers of the facts in the case rather than just another hysterical slashdot YRO "the black helicopters are coming for us" scare piece. I for one have stopped reading the emotional paraniod delusional YRO stories.
constitution, you're wrong. They make a specific exception for a truth told with malicious intent.
Now you might win once you got to the Supreme Court, but there you go.
Throughout the rest of the United States, in so far as I am aware, truth is an absolute defense, so long as it's not a partial truth crafted to defame someone.
Have a nice day.
One, Nokia *totally ignored* the complaints for at least a year. The technical issues with the N-Gage were raised-- and raised loudly-- from the very first report when media members were allowed to see prototypes, months and months before the thing hit store shelves. They did *nothing*. This makes it hard for me to have any sympathy for them.
Two, attempting to fix the problems with a fatally flawed product isn't "heroic". It's what you EXPECT COMPANIES TO DO. That's like saying "this year, George W. Bush gave a State of the Union address. This openness with the people is admirable bordering upon heroic.". Nokia is just doing what they're MORE OR LESS REQUIRED to do to stay in business. Moreover, this "sell what they have" bit you gloss over consists of a period of months and months where Nokia refused to acknowlege any problem with the Ngage and tried relentlessly to convince consumers to buy what had been repeatedly pointed out to them from every source was a problematic product, at the beginning charging $300. This is far from heroic. Heroic would have been something like biting the bullet, sending back the stock they'd put together, and delaying the launch until they had worked out the engineering problems.
Three, Nokia has only been reported to be solving the engineering/form factor problems with the Ngage. Whether they will be addressing the serious issues with the game platform itself has not been reported.
Four, Infinium, NOT Indrema-- the two are totally different.
We've heard an awful lot about the HardOCP/Phantom litigation, but there seems to be another story lurking. I direct your attention to the following section of Infinium Labs' now overly-linked-to 8-K financial form:
NOTE D - CONVERTIBLE PROMISSORY NOTE
At October 31, 2003, Infinium was involved in a legal dispute with a competitor. In January 2004 the Company, in conjunction with the settlement of litigation, issued a convertible promissory note in the amount of $100,000. The promissory note is non-interest bearing and must be paid or converted into common shares if Infinium has an anticipated merger with a corporation that has common stock trading on the over-the-counter or similar exchange within 241 days from the date of the note, or the liquidated damages total $150,000.
Now this makes less sense to me than most lawyerspeak. Could someone walk me through it?
The other interesting thing is that Infinium names at least one developer: Riverdeep, owner of Broderbund (that's how it's spelled on the site, folks. I know there's supposed to be an "o" in there, but they've changed).
It would be interesting to see if Riverdeep actually acknowledges such an agreement...
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Oh how I wish this would all go away (as many of us do) This site has some interesting information on the company that some might find amusing: http://www.whereisphantom.com/ Here is a link to the companies legal representation in Texas: http://www.bblfirm.com/banowsky.html And here is a link to the companies most recent 8K filing which clearly states that they have a measly $42 in cash on hand and over 2 million in debt already. http://biz.yahoo.com/e/040322/iflb.ob8-k.html Read and enjoy a good laugh!
I know the pictures are just fake renderings, but it seems like the guy making the renderings doesn't even know what's going on. This Phantom thing has a "DSL in" and a coax "Cable Modem In" like someone would actually use this box for a DSL modem or cable modem. I won't even get started about how many ways that doesn't make sense.
This just in: Infinium Labs sues Penny Arcade, accuses them of being "miserable fat unfunny cunts"
The Phantom "Built by gamers for gamers."
From the Interplay site:
Interplay, the Interplay logo, and ?By Gamers. For Gamers.? are trademarks of Interplay Entertainment Corp.
Maybe somebody should wake up the Interplay lawyers. ;)
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
That is some exclusive company you're in.
untill the legal action starts down in florida and somehow Infiniumlabs got more votes than HardOCP - that is Florida for you.
Because Timothy Roberts, CEO of Infinium Labs, REALLY can't have an orgasm unless he kills a dog.
You mean Rhode Island, right? I'm not even a yank and I can spell that.
How does a company like Infinium Labs make a profit, clearly their is no product, and I doubt their will be, but how do the founders turn a profit on a company that has vaporware as a product or is this is, sue people on stupid claims?