Magicjack Loses Legal Attack Against Boing Boing

An anonymous reader sends word that USB VOIP company Magicjack lost a lawsuit against Boing Boing when the judge declared the legal action a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation). Magicjack must pay more than $50,000 in legal costs. Boing Boing has posted a page linking and summarizing all the legal documents relating to the lawsuit.

Comments

Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[ScrewMaster]

convincing me to not buy their product. Too bad, I was considering getting hold of one to play around with it. But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[JoshuaZ]

According to the linked article:

After the dismissal of the lawsuit, MagicJack CEO Dan Borislow apologized and told us that his lawyers, Arnold & Porter, did not fully disclose to him the weaknesses in his case or properly analyze California law. During negotiations, we were surprised when MagicJack agreed to a settlement of our legal costs, then backed out. We would not agree to keep the actual legal dispute confidential under any circumstances. However, we offered not to publish details of our legal costs or their settlement if Borislow would donate $25,000 to charity. MagicJack, however, offered to pay our legal bill only if we'd agree to keep the whole dispute confidential; when we refused, Borislow wrote that he would 'see us in court.' Nonetheless, we're happy with the outcome. The irony for MagicJack is that the proceedings are public record, so the silence it sought was effectively worthless.

To some extent it looks like they weren't litigious pricks as much as having gotten very bad legal advice and then not backed out when they should have. So this may be more in the category of "too stubborn" more than anything else.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[Vellmont]

To some extent it looks like they weren't litigious pricks as much as having gotten very bad legal advice and then not backed out when they should have.

So the lawyer thought they could win and was wrong. That somehow excuses them from being pricks by suing in the first place? You make it sound like the lawyer somehow forced Magic Jack to sue.

  So this may be more in the category of "too stubborn" more than anything else.

I'd say stubborn pricks describes it quite well. Who sues someone for a factually accurate article that describes something the company publicly posted on their site, but hoped nobody would notice? I hadn't heard about the lawsuit or the spying behaviour of magic jack before. (Though I had heard of magic jack). You better believe I'll tell people that they reserve the right to spy on people based on who they call, then decide to sue people who tell anybody.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[Anonymous Coward]

convincing me to not buy their product. Too bad, I was considering getting hold of one to play around with it. But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.

I ordered two of them but when I tried to activate the service it dropped the web link midway through. I wound up stuck in a limbo of not being able to activate them. I tried to contact tech support but all they offered is that bloody chat support. Every time I do that I end up typing for a half hour to an hour to solve a five minute problem. They said that was the only option so I canceled the service and warned others. Crappy service cost them a customer. Add $20 to the price and high actual support people! Nice idea bad execution.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[moosesocks]

So the lawyer thought they could win and was wrong. That somehow excuses them from being pricks by suing in the first place? You make it sound like the lawyer somehow forced Magic Jack to sue.

Yes. A good lawyer should have told them they had no chance of winning the lawsuit. Prosecuting a libel case in the US is extremely difficult even when the plaintiff has a legitimate case to make.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[MichaelSmith]

So the lawyer thought they could win and was wrong. That somehow excuses them from being pricks by suing in the first place? You make it sound like the lawyer somehow forced Magic Jack to sue.

Yes. A good lawyer should have told them they had no chance of winning the lawsuit. Prosecuting a libel case in the US is extremely difficult even when the plaintiff has a legitimate case to make.

But that lawyer would have walked away with less money.

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[Anonymous Coward]

DO NOT EVER TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AWAY FROM THE MOVANT and PUT IT ON THEIR LAWYERS.

If you hire dicks to sue people, it means you hired dicks to sue people.

It makes me angry because I've been on the receiving end of such dickishness.

 

Re:Well, MagicJack succeeded in

[DragonWriter]

To some extent it looks like they weren't litigious pricks as much as having gotten very bad legal advice and then not backed out when they should have.

Or, their litigious pricks who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, and our now blaming their lawyers.

Soooo....

[Dexter Herbivore]

MagicJack SLAPPed a Boing Boing? Sounds dirty to me.

A little background please?

[dido]

The summary could have put in a word about how MagicJack sued for defamation after Boing Boing made a post highly critical of their EULA, before explaining how the judge shot their suit down as a SLAPP...

Great tech, shitty business

[bguiz]

Even BoingBoing agrees that MagicJack's hardware is great stuff... Too bad their marketing/management/legal department seems to think it can get away with shady practices like their crappy EULA.

This company is horrible

[gargeug]

So my boss bought these for our office, and as the tech guy I had to actually deal with them. The device itself is actually quite good, but their company is an abomination of a decent business. One of the jacks stopped working, and so I figured that it should be replaced with the option of transferring our old number to the new jack. Their customer service jerked me around for hours until one of them finally sent me a link to their terms and hung up on me. Basically, once they have your money they will jump through hoops to not help you at all. It is such a sleazy company and I hope nobody here gets fooled by them and actually buys it. Pay more for your service just to deal with a reputable company.

Ran their EULA through EULAlyzer...

[WidgetGuy]

...and it concluded: "The license agreement above has a high calculated interest ID. It's extremely long, and there were a high number of detected 'interesting' words or phrases." That means Eulalyzer thinks its a bad EULA. The interesting words or phrases are listed and can be viewed in context: (1) Advertising, (2) Emergency Calls or Services, (3) Third Party, (4) Web Site Address, and (5) Without Notice. I've never seen a EULA with that many "'interesting' words or phrases" called out by the program.

EULAlyzer is a free (download: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/downloads.html). If, like me, you don't have the time to read through the EULA's for software you're thinking of purchasing, this is just the program for you. At the very least, it will give you a "heads up" and point you to the 'interesting' parts of the EULA where you can, then, read as much "legalese" as you can stomach..