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.

Comments

Organized crime?

[myowntrueself]

So how, exactly, is this *not* organized crime?

Re:Organized crime?

[Dare nMc]

Yes, they can report it over and over, too.

No, they cannot.

I can tell you based on my Sears Master card history.
      1) I disputed, a charge added after I closed the account, I continue to get bills.
      2) goes on the Credit report once.
      3) turned over to collection, goes on the report (this is the second entry.)
      4) once I notified this agency, they could no longer contact me, so they turn it over to another agency.
      5) second agency puts a mark on my credit (third entry for same debt.)
      6) I notify experian directly all marks are removed within a week.
The 7 year thing is extended by this also, the collection agency was reported as a "new" debt, so unless challenged it won't automatically be removed, it will likely be revolved between collection agency's and kept fresh, until the consumer points this out.

Now the second entry (I am told) was in process of being removed when debt was transfered to the next agency, so that may have been a temporary "glitch."

Isn't this what we always complain about?

[speaker of the truth]

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? And yet we have another clear example of it and hail it as if it were the best thing to ever happen, simply by misappropriating the term "organized crime." Isn't that something else we complain about as well (after pirates don't steal, they simply infringe).

I guess the end truly does justify the means. At least here at /.

Re:Isn't this what we always complain about?

[PPH]

RICO was created to go after organizations who engage in patterns of racketeering. The problem with our legal system is that we must enforce laws equally. I think the actual phrase is 'equal protection under the law'.

The problem is that we can't differentiate between the activities of some corporations and the classic Mafia. Unlike the example you posited, basing enforcement on the profit motive, often mainstream corporations derive much more profit from their activities than the Mob ever did. So that's not an effective test.

The problem with defining 'organized crime' is that there is no way to define it to fit our stereotype of a bunch of thugs of a certain ethnic persuasion and have it pass the smell test constitutionally.

Re:Isn't this what we always complain about?

[shaitand]

'If a team I'm on creates an icon like Mickey Mouse, I wouldn't want others to use said icon without my consent.'

Of course you wouldn't. There are lots of things I wouldn't want or would want, unfortunately, not every call is mine to make.

'If they did, they could destroy the value of the icon.'

The icon has innate value, we are discussing the artificial value that is given in the form of copyright.

'If you think that a copyright holder is acting too much in their self-interest in terms of profits, then just boycott them.'

Or I could recognize that there is no particular reason to grant them a copyright in the first place.

'Remember, just because something's out there doesn't mean you have to have it.'

Remember just because you had an idea doesn't mean you own it or have the right to prevent anyone else from having it.

You do not have a RIGHT to your ideas or to prevent others from benefiting from them. Ideas are not property, copying is the building block that defines life and occurs at every level of life and nature. In a world without copying you couldn't produce new skin cells, a baby couldn't inherit its mother's eyes, and only one family would live in houses. Ideas are also not unique, in fact all ideas are the inevitable result of given input. No matter who you assassinated a printing press type device would be have been created, operating systems would have been developed, a pointing and selection device, languages developed, etc. There is nothing natural about copyright, copyright and patent is not needed for development to occur and the world won't grind to a halt without them. It is natural and good for me to look around me, see what is good and try to duplicate that good in my own life, it doesn't stop being natural and right when technology allows me to duplicate those good things perfectly and effortlessly.

It is not selfish to see good things and want them if I can have them without taking from others (as opposed to stealing which deprives others of their things). It is selfish to try to control others by preventing access to ideas that benefit us all.

Re:something fishy...

[Goldberg's Pants]

Never fails. Anti-Microsoft story... Ridiculous porn troll in first few comments.

Bet the IP address resolves to the Redmond area.

i call bullshit on you

[bennini]

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.

As a previous employee at Circuit City, I can attest that this sort of thing is generally encouraged by store managers. Most of the time employees of these sorts of stores (Best Buy and CC) no longer make commision on sales of extended warranties and the ilk (they did in the past) but they are still strongly pushed to get people to sign up for these crappy deals. Now, you may never be directly told "get X people to sign up each month or you will be fired", but you will definitely notice when your hours get cut or your manager starts breathing down your neck each time you're talking to a customer.

I disagree with your comment about this not being a "giant corporate scam". The top execs at companies like CC and BestBuy are the ones that design, implement and sign the contracts that enable these worthless "offers." They do so strictly because of money and they in turn push their demands down onto regional managers which then breath down the store manager's throats. Its one big chain reaction of pressure to sell what isn't needed and in the end the customer suffers. The employees that push this crap don't give a shit if the person actually needs it or not.

I remember some of my buddies laughing about how they tricked old grandmas into buying all sorts of useless, overpriced peripherals for digital cameras. Their managers loved it cuz it helped them reach their sales target (and in turn get bigger bonuses).
 
Its a huge scam. The companies involved know it, the employees of the companies know it...and finally, now, the customers are starting to know it as well.

ps. i simply installed stereos in peoples cars so i never had to deal with managers' bullshit, thank god..but it was quite sad watching it go down.

They caught ne with this one

[aegl]

I bought a 19" LCD monitor from Best Buy while they were running this scam and they signed me up for msn.com just the way the article says. No disclosure to me beyond telling me that there was a free 6 month subscription CD in the box. I recycled the CD as I had no interest in the MSN subscription. Six months later the first monthly charge appeared on my credit card bill.

I called MSN and asked what was going on. They said that I'd signed up at Best Buy. I said "oh no I didn't". After a couple of iterations of this the guy on the phone agreed to cancel the subscription and refund my money.

Assuming the lawyers take $30M of the $100M judgement, and assuming that there were 100,000 customers (complete random guess ... the article only says "thousands of customers"), then my share ought to be $700. That would actually be quite cool. But I bet that I'll just end up with a $10 coupon good for discounts on Microsoft Vista :-(

Not really

[SmallFurryCreature]

This is a case of the current administation NOT wanting the law to be applied to their cronies.

When a law is introduced it should be applied equally to everyone. If you introduce a speeding law then police cars too can be ticketed for speeding (although the police do have the right to speed without lights or sirens but only when necesarry for their work) and if the state then refuses to prosecute police officers who speed, they are wrong.

The RICO act is meant to be used against the organisation of crime (most crime is a one person affair) and that includes crimes that the powers that be might not consider to be crimes.

In a way what is happening here is that what happened in america when crimes against blacks were not prosecuted.

If this case holds up in court, and so far it has, then you should really ask why this case was not brought by the public prosecutor.

But this is not an unjust application of the law. This is exactly what the law was created for, just that some people don't want it to be used this way because they are guilty of it, or bought by the people guilty of it.

Ask yourselve what the term organized crime means, it ain't hard. Now do you think that the companies involved may have committed a crime? Did they organize it? Bingo. Organized crime. Stop watching mafia movies and join the real world. The biggest criminals don't need guns.

Triple damages aren't even enough

[kingsack]

One of the fundamental problems with the American justice system is the extreme weighting in favor of the econmomicly advantaged party. This allows parties such as Microsoft, Best Buy and innumerable others to intentionally break the law, knowing that the price to pursue a legal remedy not to mention the time required will bankrupt any ordinary citizen. The system really needs to be revised to compensate such litigants for not only damages and court costs but also lost wages, travel expenses, attorney's fees, costs for expert witnesses, ie.. any and every expense related to pursuing such cases where they prevail. This should be the absolute minimum judgement with triple and punative damages in addition where willful wrongdoing can be shown. In conjunction with this the penalties for mailicious prosecution (ie. filing baseless lawsuits) needs to be equally severe. Litigants such as the RIAA, MPAA, etc... as well as anyone who engages in such behavior should be unable to just "drop the complaint" without paying any and all such costs and once again being exposed to severe damage awards. Frankly I am intrigued by the Swedish system that imposes penalties based on the affluence of the convicted party. If the penalty to a corporation for engaging in such behavior was the loss of say 10% of gross revinue they would pay alot more attention to complying with the law and engaging in such scams would become indcredibly risky to them.