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$74k Judgment Against Craigslist Prankster
jamie points out an update in the case of Jason Fortuny, the Craigslist prankster who was sued last year for publicly posting responses to a fake personal ad. The Citizen Media Law Project's summary of his case now includes a recently entered default judgment (PDF), fining Fortuny "... in the amount of $35,001.00 in statutory damages for Count I, violation of the Copyright Act; $5,000 in compensatory damages for Count II, Public Disclosure of Private Facts, and Count III, Intrusion Upon Seclusion." He has also been ordered to pay more than $34,000 in attorney and court fees.
These are actually real laws?!?!?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Now I can send my naked pictures with no fear...
Intrusion upon seclusion.
This is exactly what I thought would happen, a large civil judgement, as I predicted in the original linked /. thread. Repeat after me: I do not own the content of letters I receive.. Letters you are sent are exactly like books you buy; you can keep them forever and read them all you want and even loan them to your friends, but you cannot publish them. This is an entirely non-controversial no-brainer in legal circles, no matter how silly you think it is, and it's why the guy got slammed. The extra helping of privacy violation is just icing on the copyright cake, and of course he gets the bill for feeding the lawyers too.
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A reasonable expectation of privacy replying to a message in a public message board?
Should've posted them on 4chan. The Public Disclosure of Private Facts thingy has been done on /b/ more than once, but as far as I know nobody has been sued yet. Also, there would have been even more 'epic lulz', from doing it.
Don't get me wrong though. I think he got what he deserved. He should be happy for not doing jail time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a Default Judgement, which means the plaintiff did not show. That is why he lost, not because there was a thorough review of the matter at hand.
Somehow I doubt this will be valid as a precedent in future lawsuits.
Because the guy went entirely too far. If he had posted anonymous copies of comments they had sent etc then it probably would have been tolerable as an 'experiment'. However, he posted photos, names, emails etc. - which is fairly brutal when shared on the net
On the over hand though, regardless of the false pretense, these people gave their data to him, and took a calculated risk as to whether the ad was genuine or not. It's not as if the data was stolen or anything. So it's a bit iffy, but overall, I'd say a good judgement
I can find no evidence of this "fishoil" case. I think the parent post is pulling your leg.
My freshman soc prof told us how _not_ to do research if we wanted to get published. I think the book was called the Lavender Tea Room if I remember. Guy hung out at public restrooms, took down license plates, got their address and then went door-to-door surveying. "Hello, sir. Wife? Kids? Occupation?" Discovered that a surprising number of regular family guys will stop by the restroom for a quick blow on the way to work. Sociologically interesting but no way that book was going to get distributed even without releasing subject names.
Good.
This little turd is only starting starting to get what he deserves.
Personally, I am impressed that the individual wronged took him to court. If I had his name and address, I would have probably been a lot less gentle. People have been taking advantage of the anonymity of the internet to get away with completely unacceptable behavior for too long.
Human beings are social creatures and the defective ones need to be corrected or weeded out.
I can't say I sympathise with that bloke much. He posted an ad, and the people who responded to it did so under the assumption that it would be confidential. Not the smartest assumption, but a reasonable one nontheless.
Then, he posts the responses, including names. While this doesn't hurt him much, it can easily lead to great embarrassment and potential destruction of reputation for those men.
Regardless of what one thinks of the activities the guys thought they were responding to (sounded weird to me, but I'm a bit of a boring prude), the guy who posted people's identities is an asshat, and I can't say I feel much, or really any sympathy for him. He sounds like little more than an asshat.
On a related note, I hope the asses who post those "feel free to come and take all my stuff" ads on Craigslist, that result in people's houses being stripped down to nothingness, also get sued. Those who respond to them and steal the poor bastard's items, too.
where anonymous law and other prof school students regularly post humiliating comments about fellow students, potentially jeopardizing the targets' chances at landing good jobs or internships.
And of course the site owner chimes in "We are not responsible for the content of these posts." It's just business.
I think that practice is pretty disgusting, but not sure that these kinds of laws are the right way to address the situation.
As a general rule, taking trolling into real life and then going 'LOL I TROLL U IRL' after you act like a jackass will get you hit by the real life equivalent of a ban.
There's a strange subculture that validates this kind of douchebaggery in the name of 'epic win', and I'm unsure if any of them are past the mental age of 15.
4Chan's /b/tards must be lawyering up right now. Or posting image macros, one or the other.
I don't think I'm very happy. I always fall asleep to the sound of my own screams.
First of all what he did was show just how nutty some people out there are. If you are stupid enough to give your name, picture, email address ect.. to a complete stranger over the internet on Craigslist no less..you deserve to be called out it.
2 Mistakes:
1. He could have performed this experiment completely anonymously and no one would have known he was behind it. Of course this probably goes to his personality of craving attention, his blog site sure shows him enjoying the attention.
2. I read over the PDF's of the court documents, had he gotten a lawyer I think this would have been dismissed.
Either way the dude is a loser, along with the 170+ people who responded to the ad. Does he deserve to get sued over what he did? Nah not in my book? Being a dick is an American right.
You need to read the posts above here. Intrusion Upon Seclusion. Intrusion upon seclusion occurs where there is an invasion, through conduct offensive to an ordinary person, of an individual's information in which she has a "reasonable expectation of privacy." Amy Boyer's estate argues that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy in her address and social security number, and that Docusearch's action in indiscriminately releasing this information was reasonably offensive. So basically private information of yours that nobody has any right to should never be published openly unless you can show a public interest angle. That's totally reasonable in my book.
Does this mean that people who get nasty cease-and-desist letters from lawyers are in the wrong for posting them publicly?
Why is the page and info still up on encyclopedia dramatica? Should it not be removed?
Default judgments are frighteningly common in civil cases, which is why people love to file them out of state. Most people cannot afford to travel, let alone litigate against them, and a default judgment can destroy you fiscally. It's subject to collections and credit ratings effects in most jurisdictions, so are used by corporations and individuals to enact "revenge" via them.
Obviously if he had a damn clue he would've also said he was an exhibitionist.
Totally fool-proof defense.
Except that it's not.
I went to one of those sites that publishes information about my previous and current addresses and phone numbers and it really had my history down to the point I found it disturbing. These types of sites need to be closed.
The Nick Ives cite is about the "disclosure of private information" angle. That could have held up even if the coypright weren't an angle, and vice-versa. If I tell even one person, and it's the wrong person, about your jello and titties fetish I could have a problem with the first charge. But if you email me your perfectly innocent clown drawings I could safely show them to my friends, as long as my circle of friends isn't large enough to qualify as a "public." But even though they're not private information of yours I would not have the right to widely distribute them, either free or for money.
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Someone tell me why this is different than a police sting operation looking for johns or pedophiles?
The police never get in trouble for this exact behavior.
Perhaps the "perp" could call it a citizen sting operation.
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document, suitable for court presentation and you can share that with anyone you feel like.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Here. (Note: NSFW)
It looks like a pretty juvenile experiment. Nothing in there is really very defaming, or even interesting. I skimmed through about a dozen responses before closing the tab.
Now can someone explain why this is cause for so much outrage? I just don't see it. In fact, the media circulation and lawsuits seem to be the only things that drew attention to it.
34K on a default judgment? Default judgment means he lost because he never showed up. How did you spend this much against a guy who never showed up to defend himself?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Naked pics of a slashdotter. Might just rip the internet straight from my wall and torch the local datacenter, just to be sure.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Because there is a court judgement all that information that was seen as private before has now became a matter of public record. So you can now freely report all the details as a matter of news.
Can someone explain to me how this case was even allowed to go ahead if the plaintiff was allowed to files as DOE?? It just doesn't seem fair to sue for anything if your not going to show up in court. But then when did law and common since make any?? lol
Jack of all trades,master of none
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can someone comment on any relation this situation has to employers searching Facebook for information about you?
For example, say that all my online profiles are securely private, but that one of my friends posts (less securely, or in a secure profile that the employer has access to) a compromising picture or bit of information about me. If an employer is digging for information about me and finds it, do my friend or employer share any liability under similar laws as were applicable here?
...who has a problem with statutory damages being awarded when the law requires registration of the "literary work" to have this form of "protection". Copyright is extended automatically upon the creation of any "literary work", but registration with the Office of Copyright is still required to claim statutory damages. To claim such damages in the face of not having an actual registration does not seem kosher to me.
I would believe that the plaintiff would have had to claim actual damages, unless he has proof for the judge that he indeed is entitled to statutory damages. The damages are the judge's responsibility to determine the legality of. The judge is not to simply give the plaintiff everything he/she prays for, even in a judgment of default.
Hehehehe "to use a telecommunication devise with the intent to annoy..." Heck, you can nab half of /. for that ;-)