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Site Says 'Go Away!'; Federal Court Says No
CaptainEbo writes "Michael Snow was the webmaster of Stop Corporate Extortion, a private support group website for 'individuals who have been, are being, or will be sued by any Corporate entity.' In order to access his site, users were required to register a username and password, and agree to a statement saying they were not associated with DirecTV, Inc. Several defendants in suits brought by DirecTV would discuss their cases on Snow's site. When DirecTV's employees and lawyers ignored Snow's user agreement and accessed his site anyway, Snow sued, claiming they violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA) by accessing his site without authorization. In an unanimous opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected Snow's suit."
Well, interesting story. There once was this website called ThePirateBay.org, that had a whole lot of things readily accessable to the general public, but uh ... not so popular with los federales. In fact, they claim that many people accessed their stored communications without authorization!
Seriously though, this seems so vaguely worded that I think it's almost useless as a precedent. "Readily accessible" is pretty subjective to a given individuals knowledge (I happen to find whois queries readily accessible, but I don't think everyone wouuld), and what people feel like using at that time, in that place.
They lied, they cheated, they broke and entered in the digital sphere. Let's just hope Mr. Snow doesn't get counter-sued if they happened to fall through a skylight and break their leg on the trip through.
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
You mean like how they do it at frat parties with a couple of signs thrown up by the bar saying you must be 21 to consume alcohol? Of course that is equally ineffectual...
I can also think of examples where a posting is intended to be read. Areas with posted no tresspassing signs come to mind.
Bottles.
No trespassing signs serve to put you on notice that you may be violating someone else's property rights. It does not effect a "screening" necessary to make a "private club" or a "secured" website for SCA protection.
Also, FYI: In states where intent to disposess is required in adverse posession (subjective test states), the PRESENCE of a "no trespassing sign" will allow the adverse posessor to sustain his claim of open, notorious and HOSTILE as a result of the sign. (Whereas without a no trespassing sign, in the same jurisdiction, the claim for quiet title would have failed.)
Your analogy has absolutely nothing at all to do with the 11th circuit's holding.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
This changes absolutely nothing. This has nothing to do with contracts, but "public" vs "private." Basically, in order for something NOT to be considered "public" you must have meaningful screening. Consider a "private club" that allows anyone to join -- it is no longer a private club according to the LEGAL definition of such. Step-Saver, Gateway and the traditional e-Commerce contracts cases (Box-top and clickwrap EULAs) are completely untouched by this.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Yeah, this was a federal question but regardless, the plaintiff could have raised the contract claim under supplimental jurisdiction. Unless he or his lawyers know something I don't, it sounds like a nice malpractice claim to me. That is, if Snow's still feeling litigous -- the malpractice claim would mark his 3rd court battle. The contract claim seems much stronger than the SCA claim. Any other legal hobbyists care to tell me why they didn't pursue it?
Whatever happened to freedom of association? A private entity---i.e., anything that is *not* the government---should be able to discriminate on any basis it chooses.
Even if you agree with the legality of civil rights laws, the employees of a particular company are not a protected group under that legislation.
[ home ]
Tell that to Richard Dinon, the Florida man charged with a felony after using an open wireless access point. Or how about the Register.com versus Verio case ? The court ruled that Verio scraping a publically available whois database was illegal, because Register.com put a notice in there that repeated automated access was not permitted. That precendent almost contradicts this one (there's the distinction of how versus who).
For what it's worth, I agree with the court's ruling. What I don't agree with is the tendency for people, companies, government agencies, police, and yes, occasionally the courts, to presume that citizens need permission for everything that they do. If it doesn't violate a law, we don't need permission.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Property owners that shoot trespassers will end up going to jail for attempted murder in virtually any US jurisdiction, unless you're talking "breaking and entering my home in the middle of the night." I can't tell if you're trying to bait me or asking a serious question. If the latter, post some contact info and I'll explain the state of the law to your heart's content. I was merely discussing adverse posession. I can assure you, the use of force to combat civil conversion of property is a crime anywhere in the united states, no matter what you have posted. [If someone trespasses on your SHOOTING RANGE and you have a sign posted that says "trespassers will be shot" and they get shot, you're probably screwed. If you have a sign up that says "THIS IS A SHOOTING RANGE, YOU MAY BE IN DANGER" and you tell the cops that you intentionally shot him, you're also screwed. You cannot post a sign that says "trespassers may be shot." Signs that say "beware of dog" are akin to the signs that say "this is a shooting range." If you *intentionally* "release the hounds" (i.e. an attack dog) on a trespasser you will go to jail.)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Does this mean I as a man can now go into woman's bathrooms and showers and such? There is just a sign! There is no real screening process! Woot!
This does have a parallel with another recent case, though - specifically:
5 58200
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/1
'My intention was never to disrupt security. The fact that I logged on and there were no passwords means that there was no security,' McKinnon said, outside the hearing at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court.
Who faces 5 years and $250k in fines.
Reading that thread, there is a general consensus that McKinnon deserved it - the ease of entry didn't matter, so long as he was aware that he was tresspassing.
And if the Supremes uphold the 11th Circuit, then every SCA conviction so far should be overturned pronto!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The money you pay is your consideration.
In the case of boxed software the consideration is made to the retailer for a piece of physical property, not to the rights holder for the license.
And a license is not a contract. A license is a grant of limited rights. A license may be a valid license without being a contract at all, as most commercial EULAs are not.
They are often worded in doublespeak as if they were asking you to give something up, such as saying that you cannot copy the program to more than one computer, but this is actually a grant to copy to one computer. You are not giving up the right to copy to more than one computer because you never had that right in the first place.
EULAs are very carefully worded to give the impression that they are contracts without ever actually including any legally enforceable (certain commercial obligations of the licensee and rights held by the licensor cannot be altered by contract, they are a matter of law) contractual terms.
The GPL, oddly enough, is both a valid license and a contract, because it fully spells out the articles of consideration by both parties, the permanent assignment of what would otherwise be exlusive rights of distribution.
KFG
if not, then what would have happened if Snow had put this agreement up as a EULA in more fancy legalese and claimed for violation of contract?
* lon3st4r *
The email address is an item of value, given up in the registration process.
Ask any spammer that pays for bulk lists containing these items.
Although, on it's own, it is of negligible value, it is still a quantifiable amount with real market value, thus, a consideration.
It's Finland, not America. There they can't sue you for harm to themselves that comes about of their own actions.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Click-through for access to allow pubilc the access to x-rated websites "if you are an adult and porn is not illegal in your juristiction" (like anywhere south of the mason-dixon line)? Seems like the same logic should apply here.
Every time you go to a website and don't read the 10 pages of fine print, you would risk committing a federal offense.
People, this is not a contract issue. If it were, he would probably have won.
He was trying to use the biggest weapon available and he screwed up, because he does not use anything to keep people out.
The court made the only interpretation of the statute that would be reasonable.
DirectTV employees misrepresented themselves when registering for an account. Is this acceptible?
What if I apply for a credit card and claim that I make $200,000 per year, when really I'm unemployed? Where is it we cross the line of being "just a formality" and being fraud? Clicking a check box? Entering a number into a text field? Or is it just when it costs a big corporation some money?
Then court should also think this is totally stupid and shouldn't protect porn sites from liability, if that is the case. After all, it's only click away from kids to access porn. I can hear that "for the Children" antic coming up.
Some judges need a lesson on how internet works. Probably most judges think internet runs on some magnetic tapes and flashing light bulbs with occational "beep.. beep" noise.
pr0n for everyone!
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
And again, all these statutes do is create a statutory affirmative defense. People on slashdot love to just horribly butcher the law. Someone with a legal education reading slashdot feels the way most slashdot readers do when we read things about CYBERTECHNOHACKERS in pop-culture magazines discussing the 14 year old kid who logged into a linksys router with the password set to "admin"...
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
"OK, you as the owner might like to keep other people from walking in your forest, but that's just stupid. It's a forest, why would anyone sane care about someone walking in there, especially since they aren't allowed to leave traces of their passage? The forests in Finland cover huge areas. If you walk around your own forest all day, and get lucky, you just might even meet up with the "trespasser" and shout at them to make you feel better, but your chances of finding anyone are pretty slim to begin with."
The issue is that, while causing damage may be illegal, that doesn't mean it won't happen. And if, as you assert, the "trespassers" are so difficult to find, there is a potential of a large amount of damage being done without anyone being held accountable. Now the landowner is left holding the bag for repairs and lost economic gain.
The Finnish land law, as you describe it, sounds quite a bit like teh state of Internet law. Until relatively recently, the internet was a lassez-faire (SP?) place, but people have been taking advantage of it, so now laws must change or be reinterpreted.
It sounds like Finland may be something similar, but...
"In recent years, we've however had some businessmen import seasonal workers from low-wage countries such as Thailand to pick berries. The businessmen are making a living, and it might be possible that the law with respect to berries might change, if berry-picking turns out to be profitable this way. On the other hand, our social democratic overlords see that kind of business as exploiting the poor, and there's no evidence of huge profits being made there, so we'll likely keep our laws for the foreseeable future."
In my opinion, you are whistling in the dark. Someone ALWAYS manages to spoil a good thing.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
If you'd like, I will pull the opinion off Lexis-Nexis and send it to you. Does this change your opinion at all?
Key Excerpts:
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I worked at a Tim Hortons (big Canadian Coffee chain for those who dont know); and our coffee was brewed at about 190 degrees (the Tea is just under 200).
I saw a pot break while one of my staff members was about to pour a coffee, and got nearly a full pot down the inside of her upper thighs resulting in 3rd degree burns.
With that said though, at one time, one of our warmers was broken and the coffee was served at about 160 degrees - you wouldnt believe the number of complaints about the coffee being too cold..
I guess people need to actually read more about the case before making a judgement. I also used to believe that the the lawsuit was bogus and needed to be thrown out. However, after reading the details, I believe the jury made the correct decision.
. htm
The 81 year old had serious 3rd degree burns and she was treated at a hospital for $47,000. McDonald's initially tried to buy her off with $800 like they did with the 700 other previous victums. They spent $500,000 doing so already. They even settled a prior case for $27,500. So, they knew the coffee caused burns at 20 degrees higher than any other coffee shop's coffees.
McDonalds agreed to mediation, but decided not to pay the $225,000 mediation amount, so it went to court. The jury made a legitimate damage award of $160,000, reduced by 20% from $200,000 since she was partly to blame for the spill. They then awarded a high punitive judgement of $2.4 million for willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct, but it was eventually reduced to $470,000 by the judge and even further reduced afterwards.
The punitive award is justified. The corporation tried to solve the problem by buying off their victums. This victum was seriously injured and McDonald's tried to worm its way out.
Here's one version of that story: http://www.vanosteen.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit