Slashdot Mirror
RICO Suit Filed Against Skype Founders
Stitch_Surfs writes "Defendant Skype Technologies S A, Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, Kazaa, Bluemoon Ou and a slew of others have been named in a Rico Suit Filed by StreamCast Networks, of Houston, Texas. StreamCast is the company credited with the development of the Peer to Peer Technology called Morpheus. From the little information the courts have released, StreamCast is claiming that the group engaged in corrupt business practices."
So that's what RICO stands for...
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It's quite scary that a group named Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization is allowed to fill suit against honest companies!
Can anyone with a Pacer account get the complaint full text ?
Is it possible that SteamCast is a surrogate for a larger organization or consortium?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
But now RICO gets used and abused for many other things. It is used to go after political groups (anti-abortion groups is one case I'm aware of). In this case it sounds like it is being used in a business dispute.
I swear, if Congress keeps on passing laws that inadvertently (or otherwise) lets law enforcement get involved in what are civil business disputes, this country will be ruined. I was talking with an attorney a while ago who said that these days anyone who is a business leader should have a crim. def. attorney retained or available. There's no way law enforcement can help achieve a fair resolution of a business dispute by getting involved in it.
------------
Contact management, calendar mangement, multiple timezones, sales automation
Exactly right, it was originally intended to recover $$$ salted away in mob compounds on Long Island.
Now they'll use it against kids opening a lemonade stand if they feel like it.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Suave!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm not sure that qualifies as abuse of the act. An organized group of people (Operation Rescue) attempting to extort legal businesses (abortion clinics) into either changing or closing entirely through threats (see what is on some of their websites), intimidation (in-your-face confrontations directly in front of clinics), and violence (bombings and beatings tacitly accepted as part of the struggle), simply because their view isn't your view (First Amendment issue of everyone, including clinics have rights to free speech and association and freedom from religion)...
Yeah, IANAL, but I'd call that a valid RICO case.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is interesting. Also listed as defendants are other companies that seem to have nothing to do with each other, ie Kazaa, Brilliant Digital Entertainment, etc. Anyone?
Anyone who runs is V.C. Anyone who stands still is well-disciplined V.C.
Door Gunner, Full Metal Jacket
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization
Wow! I didn't know that.
Can't this Act be used against the RIAA? Protection rackets seem to be exactly what RICO is about.
1) Violence is NOT tacitly accepted. That is a complete and utter distortion. There have been many more acts of violence committed by environmental groups for their cause. Yet noone is charging Greenpeace and PETA with RICO suits. Not to mention unions, who have a history of being linked with violence and ironically the mob.
2) If in-your-face confrontations were "illegal" you would pretty much ban most union strikes as well as any other demonstration outside of a company that attempted to get a company to "change". Martin Luther King Jr would have been arrested for Racketeering.
3) Clinics have the right to free speech and association, but they don't have the right to limit others' free speech and association rights. Of course, private property rights do exist and protesters should be arrested if they violate these.
4) Threats, if real and physical should lead to arrests. REAL arrests, not RICO suits. But telling someone they are evil and going to hell for supporting abortion is not a real threat.
I stopped reading it after the old man died and it turned into a mouthpiece for Steve's celebration of unearned wealth.
If it's been turned around again into a real magazine, that would be wonderful. It would have been a shame to see a great magazine run into the ground by a giant douchebag like Steve Forbes.
Here's your better link. From info in TFA and here, it looks like Streamcast is alleging that Skype(and others) did one(or more) of many things:
a. use an enterprise to launder money generated by a pattern of racketeering activity
b. a victim business owner cannot make payments to a loan shark; upon default, the loan shark says: "you're either going to die or you're going to give me your business." Given the threat to this life, the victim transfers control of his business to the loan shark. Usually, the victim business owner remains the owner on paper but the loan shark controls the business and receives all income from the business. Thus, the loan shark has acquired and maintained interest or control over an enterprise (i.e. the business) through a pattern of racketeering (i.e., loan sharking and extortion).
c. [Streamcast] has been injured by reason of the defendants' investment of the proceeds of racketeering activity / (1) a defendant person[Skype] (2) was employed by or associated with an enterprise (3) that engaged in or affected interstate commerce and that (4) the defendant person operated or managed the enterprise (5) through a pattern (6) of racketeering activity, and (7) the plaintiff[Streamcast] was injured in its business or property by reason of the pattern of racketeering activity.
A good way to determine if your argument is logically sound is to replace the subject with something you personally feel differently about. Let's try that, switching anti-abortion with, say, environmentalism:
"I'm not sure that qualifies as abuse of the act. An organized group of people (Greenpeace) attempting to extort legal businesses (oil companies) into either changing or closing entirely through threats (see what is on some of their websites), intimidation (in-your-face confrontations directly in front of oil refineries), and violence (bombings and beatings tacitly accepted as part of the struggle),"
Or entertainment:
"I'm not sure that qualifies as abuse of the act. An organized group of people (slashdot) attempting to extort legal businesses (record companies) into either changing or closing entirely through threats (see what is on some of their websites), intimidation (in-your-face confrontations directly in front of court houses), and violence (bombings and beatings tacitly accepted as part of the struggle),"
Aside from the violence bit in the latter, I'd say this fails the test pretty miserably.
simply because their view isn't your view (First Amendment issue of everyone, including clinics have rights to free speech and association and freedom from religion)...
Companies, including clinics, don't have First Amendment rights (aside from a limited subset given to "artificial persons"). One cannot on the one hand declare that corporations are evil and aren't entitled to any of the protections provided to people, then on the other hand claim a company's rights exceed individuals' rights when you happen to disagree with the individuals protesting. "I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it" means what it says. Once you start picking and choosing who qualifies for those rights, you're no longer operating on priciple, you're operating on political opinion.
What's the point of the RICO statutes if it's randomly enforced?
The Catholic Church knowingly traffiked paedophiles interstate and internationally. Why wasn't it invoked then?
To add to this, RICO is designed to go after organizations that have IRS filings, be they corporate or NPO. So the users of Slashdot would not constitute a RICO act, because we are merely a loose affiliation of (possible) confederates. And since Slashdot site owners are pretty much hands-off on any sort of endorsements of activity on the site, they will never be charged with RICO for encouraging piracy or civil disobedience or what have you.
If the PETA officially sanctioned or condoned civil disobedience (or outright wanton criminal activity), they would be charged under the RICO. But the official front of PETA is very much just "don't you feel sorry for the animals?", and rarely extends into the "do something about it" beyond "stop buying the following companies' products." They never suggest that illegal activities which result in increased animal freedom or animal rights are a good thing. They never applaud ALF (officially and publicly), because to do so would constitute a RICO violation.
Whereas Operation Rescue actively promotes civil disobedience and the illegal protests of abortion clinics (and uses funds to do so, in the form of printing literature and maintaining websites), so they are a RICO violator. End of discussion.
Skype would have to do the same thing under an official front. There would have to be evidence that the corporate officers - acting as such (and not as rogue agents) - encouraged some illegal activity and that Skype, directly or indirectly, provided the money to do so through corporate channels, and that this activity directly hurts StreamCast's business ventures.
My guess here is that Skype will be able to demonstate enough plausible deniability to avoid a RICO conviction. With most criminal RICO stuff, the money trails and the linking evidence (phone calls, emails, meetings) are all recorded and filed under valid search warrants, and the cases are usually very clear-cut before they go to trial. With civil RICO, you are essentially accusing first based on gut instinct (and perhaps you "know" that they did it, but you don't know the gory details), and then attempting through legal discovery to prove it. Which, needless to say, is hard to do.
Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
The founders of Skype previously set up Kazaa, and ran it until they sold it to Sharman Networks.
Streamcast started life as the largest alternative Napster network. When that was shut down by the courts, they launched a rebranded version of Kazaa.
Kazaa a bit later on released a non-compatible version of their software which had the effect of kicking them off the network. Apparently they hadn't paid their bills for the use of the software, but Streamcast deny this.
They then relaunched as a spyware infested version of Gnucleus, a Gnutella client, and subsequently as some other gnutella client which now supports other p2p networks as well.
They have always denied that the advertising features in their software are spyware, but most people disagree with that.