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Racketeering Trial of MS and Best Buy Can Proceed
mcgrew (sm62704) writes with news that the Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Microsoft and a unit of Best Buy to dismiss a lawsuit alleging violation of racketeering laws. This means the class-action complaint can go to trial. The case was filed in civil court and the companies, with the US Chamber of Commerce behind them, wanted the Supreme Court to put the brakes on the expanding use of RICO laws in civil filings. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to fight organized crime, but in recent years more than 100 times as many civil as federal RICO cases have been filed.
The companies systematically and intentionally look for any advantage, and push the grey area as far as it can go, even into the dark side. Some of this may be "rogue" employees, but their are so many tiers of approval in major companies I find those theories suspect.
I tend to think that if the law fits...
On another note, I'm sure the RIAA was watching this one closely, as they are not looking forward to the RICO suit that was filed against them. Let's hope this is just another decision closer to the destruction of their methods.
"Sounds like stupid college students working at Best Buy getting a monthly prize for signing people up for MSN. Doesn't sound like a giant corporate scam. It also doesn't sound like this involves Microsoft at all. I've read the same story online, but replace Microsoft with Comcast (Cable or HSI) or DirecTV"
I haven't bought much from Best Buy lately but a few years back my roomates and I pitched in for a DirectTV setup and the Best Buy rep was hounding us to sign up for what I believe was AOL. I can't remember exactly what the service was but my point is that he was pushing it really hard to the point that the corporation was most likely hounding him to do it. Even if they aren't pushing it too hard, if they have a bonus system in place and their employees do it, they are still liable for anything their employees do. It doesn't really matter if it's coming the top or not.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to fight organized crime, but in recent years more than 100 times as many civil as federal RICO cases have been filed.
Well, if the feds can't be bothered to prosecute most things that they should... that's how the numbers end up, right?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
The organizations that we consider true organized crime- the Sicilian mafia, the Russian mob, Colombian drug cartels, or the Yakuza, all have one thing in common. That's the use of violence and the threat of violence to coerce people. So you can be organized and be criminal- say, get a bunch of corrupt accountants together and embezzle a bunch of money- but nobody would accuse you of really being "organized crime" until your accountants start beating people over the head with their adding machines. Likewise, unless Microsoft execs starting making death threats, and literal ones, not Ballmer's "fucking kill" tirade, I wouldn't consider them organized crime.
A long time ago, prosecutors realized that organized crime tried to use legitimate business faces to sustain and grow itself. When various business interests, controlled by a common hand, unite to box their victim into an alley where they can be persuaded to "donate" their money to a cause also controlled by those same business interests, that's a serious threat to civilization. If each participant could only be prosecuted for disturbing the peace, the mugging would continue unchecked.
The real shame is that private citizens have to leverage civil courts for relief. If their are 100 times as many civil RICO actions as there are criminal RICO actions, it is most likely because prosecutors are not doing their jobs. A mugging is still a crime. Just because it is performed by people in suits doesn't make it less of a crime. And when the suit in the corporate office is orchestrating the systemic muggings of all their customers... it is a crime. An organized crime.
'Isn't creating a law with the purpose of using it for one thing (going after commercial pirates) and then using it for something else (going after people who pirate for no money and instead personal uses) something we hate here at slashdot?'
First of all this has nothing to do with piracy. Second, the law was designed to go after those who use an organizational structure to pursue crime. It might have been the mob who was in the sights of the government when passing these laws but there are more so called 'legitimate' corporate conspiracies than 'illegitimate' and the 'legitimate' crime syndicates need to be brought to justice just as the organized crime of old.
Although the whole piracy reference was a nice plea to emotion I think you'll find that Slashdotters don't feel those laws are being used inappropriately but instead feel that laws which create a class of users that could be called pirates are bad regardless of how they are applied. Copyright and Patent laws have outlived their usefulness, anything that supports that archaic and obsolete system or its enforcement is bad.
The IRS gets its cut.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So even if we stick solely with your definition, the only difference in their behavior is the use of violence. If you replace the threat of physical violence with a threat of legal and financial ruin, they are virtually identical.
Use violence to coerce people? Organized crime!
Use lawyers to coerce people? Just shrewd business!
I think you watch too many movies, personally. The coercion part is what makes it "organized crime", not the means and methods.
=Smidge=
If it's common enough for a class-action suit, I'd tend to suspect that they're at the very least strongly encouraging (entirely informally, of course) their employees to do this. I mean, scamming people, at your personal risk but for no benefit to yourself, can't be *that* attractive a form of entertainment for the store employees.
What you may be missing is that despite the fact that Microsoft's actions are part of a business plan, they're still organized and criminal. The term has not been misappropriated at all.
Just because the RICO statutes were conceived with the idea of fighting mafia families does not mean they don't apply to all organized criminals.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"Microsoft does not comment about pending litigation?"
This means Balmer's linux patent threats contain no litigation that is pending?
I live in a giant bucket.
Hm, why isn't agressively suing people organized crime? Gee, I don't know... maybe because it's not, you know, criminal to sue people? One might even go so far as to say that using lawyers is legal. Using the law does not necessarily make something right and moral (for instance, the RIAA), but pretty much by definition if you're working through the legitimate processes of the legal system, it's not organized crime.
RICO covers a whole slate of acts, not just coercion. Among them is (tada!) wire fraud, which, if true, Microsoft and Best Buy did participate in, since this guy never authorized MSN to charge his card.
OTOH, if you really want to look at it from a coercion angle, do you know what happens if you fail to pay a credit card charge, authorized or not? They report it to the credit card companies. The more they report it to the credit card companies, the more 'black' marks on your credit. Yes, they can report it over and over, too. Ever try to buy a house, or a car with a bad credit rating and no co-signer? It's damn near fscking impossible in this country, let me tell you.
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Which, on the surface sounds like a "Beautiful Thing".
:-)
If you can't tell the difference between "a bunch of nicely dressed gentlemen of a certain ethnic persuasion"
doing X
and
legal, licensed, nicely dressed (albeit with bad brutally bad haircuts) officers of a public company
doing X
I think that finally affirmative action is working
It really shouldn't matter how bad your haircut is. A crook is a crook!
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
The deal between MS and Best Buy was not illegal, unless giving the credit card numbers used to purchase computers at Best Buy to MS was part of it (and then only if not getting customer consent was part of the deal too). The suit is over Best Buy supposedly giving a customers credit card number to MS without informing/getting the customers permission. That is what is illegal. The fact of the deal is what makes the crime subject to RICO. I agree with the Chamber of Commerce that RICO has become overly broad in its application, although I'm not sure which side of the line this particular suit is. On the one hand, the RICO laws were clearly not intended to apply to cases like this (I remember the situations that led to the laws being passed, it had to do with efforts by big time drug dealers to turn drug money into legitimate businesses). On the other hand, without the threat of treble damages, the kind of profit that a big company can make off of most people's inertia is too much for most companies to resist.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to fight organized crime, but in recent years more than 100 times as many civil as federal RICO cases have been filed.
This is why the Patriot Act and other 9/11-influenced laws make me nervous. Unchecked, the government has historically ended up abusing such powers.
Table-ized A.I.
I am afraid you are very very wrong, and you should think a slashdot reader would know better. Copyright infringement is frequently called organized crime, people who make fake products are said to be organized crime, despite the fact that these "criminals" rarely if ever deal with violence.
The only qualifier for organized crime is in the words itself. Organized and crime. Yes the Rico act is meant to deal with more then just a handfull of bruglers and a fence who decide to operate together but make no mistake if you set up a group of people to commit a crime, you are organized and will be called as such by everyone in the legal proffesions except your lawyer.
Think about it like this. Blackmail, what really is the difference between forcing you to give me money through threathening your life or ruining your life to the point that you may commit suicide?
The idea that organized crime is just thugs who go around beating up people for money is just ridiculous. It really just is nothing more then criminals who organize.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Just shows that we need to be VERY careful in what laws are allowed to pass....and that that should be written in a very narrow way.
If not...the Govt. always will start using them in ways they were not meant to be used. This is just one example.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
> RICO has become overly broad in its application
Well, it's not a bad thing that the Evil Industries learned that too-broad laws can be used against them as much as against us. DMCA, anyone ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.