Anti-Piracy Lawyers 'Knew Letters Hit Innocents'

nk497 writes "A UK legal watchdog has claimed lawyers who sent out letters demanding settlement payments from alleged file-sharers knew they would end up hitting innocent people. The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.' The SRA also said the two lawyers lost their independence because they convinced right holders to allow them to act on their behalf by waiving hourly fees and instead taking a cut of the settlements. The pair earned £150,000 of the £370,000 collected from alleged file-sharers. Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed."

Comments

I think Shakespear had it right

[DragonFodder]

Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos.

And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[AnonymousClown]

Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos. And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.

No, no,no. That's like hitting all your dogs on the nose when one pisses on the rug.

Just shoot the assholes like these and let the other animals learn from that. And if Britain is creating lawyers half as fast as the US is, there will plenty of lawyers to fill in the gap.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it kinda was...

http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

No, there are good lawyers, but bad lawyers like these give the other 1% a bad name.

List of good lawyers I know of:
Lawrence Lessig
NYCL
My divorce attorney
My bankrupcy attorney

Yeah, it's a short list, but still...

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, lawyers are good when they're on your side.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Drakkenmensch]

There was one Justice League episode that had the ultimate answer to prevent scumball lawyers - all lawyers share the sentence of their clients.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, whenever you need a lawyer don't you want to have the meanest bastard you can find to drag the other guy through the coals and then spit on him to add insult?

its about winning, not justice.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[cdrudge]

Just shoot the assholes like these and let the other animals learn from that.

The death penalty hasn't worked to deter extremely violent crimes. If it doesn't work for the scum of the earth, why do you think it would work for an even lower life form?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mwvdlee]

Yes yes, we all know not ALL lawyers are evil.
But a court case requires atleast two lawyers, so what good is it to kill all but the good one?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[tdc_vga]

And that's why people dislike lawyers -- they think it's about winning not justice. A good lawyer knows it's about justice, not simply winning.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[O('_')O_Bush]

The death penalty wasn't designed to deter extremely violent crimes. The death penalty was designed to remove extremely violent persons from our society. The same way killing lawyers is about removing those that are so corrupt that it is believed they cannot be rehabilitated.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[strength_of_10_men]

I'm not defending these lawyers, but isn't this "kill all lawyers"-kinda indiscriminate punishment very much akin to what these lawyers are doing and what we're all railing against in the first place?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps his wife plunged him into ruinous debt and then decided to leave him to have sex with an unemployed young man.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[slick7]

Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos. And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.

Pirates and sharks, how apropos.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[slick7]

There was one Justice League episode that had the ultimate answer to prevent scumball lawyers - all lawyers share the sentence of their clients.

And how would that work for O. J.?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[slick7]

I'm not defending these lawyers, but isn't this "kill all lawyers"-kinda indiscriminate punishment very much akin to what these lawyers are doing and what we're all railing against in the first place?

Aren't most of the politicians in Washington, lawyers? There, fixed that for ya.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[HalAtWork]

That's when the fight is personal. But this fight isn't, it's just about fighting over crap music and crap movies.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[modecx]

And how many years do we wait to execute death row inmates? I read something recently that indicated it's over ten years on average. Some have been detained over 30 years, and a quarter of the executionees die of natural causes! When we do finally get around to execution time, we often treat them better than our pets (giving them anesthetic before the lethal dose)--in a quiet setting.

And then we talk about it's lack of deterrent effect. I say give them one appeal in a court distant from their original trial to help weed out miscarriage of justice, and then get on with it, and make it public and make it bloody.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[SuricouRaven]

It's the lawyer's job to be on the side of their client, regardless of who they might personally judge is in the right morally. Like mercinaries.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[SuricouRaven]

And a successful lawyer knows that winning will define justice.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[eknagy]

If you needed a bankrupcy attorney then maybe your divorce attorney wasn't so good.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Nadaka]

Hahaha, you just wrote a page out of my life right there. Only I was smart enough to not marry her, still lost 8 years of my life to a childish slut though.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Kjella]

No matter how poor a solution is, you have to come up with a better solution. No courts? Let alleged victims do the prosecution? Force everyone to represent themselves? And how about every organization, how should they get representation? Or maybe immunity? Drag the CEO into every small claims court?

No matter if you remove "lawyer" as a profession, there will always be trained legal experts. People will come to them for advice on what they can do and can't do and how contracts should be set up and whatever. Even if they're not in the court room people will repeat their arguments by proxy. And you can't get rid of criminal lawyers unless you want to violate a few human rights.

All you are likely to do is make all the corporations have people on staff that are almost but entirely unlike te... lawyers. While the people who actually ought to get a lawyer because they're completely unqualified to represent themselves will have trouble. You will never match ignorance with ignorance since corporations will have specialists to deal with such things.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Threni]

> And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play,
> but it sure does seem correct now.

It definitely wasn't correct; in the play it was suggested that that was what you'd need to do to cause chaos.

But yes, I recall a guy in Japan who mailed hundreds of random people with "I know what you did - pay £1000 or I go to the police". He got loads of money! He also got convicted of blackmail. I don't see a great deal of difference between him and the lawyers...

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[c 0xFF]

List of good lawyers I know of: ...
My divorce attorney

I have a feeling your ex would disagree.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[sorak]

So in other words, lawyers are good when they're on your side.

If you're on the right side, yes.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[sconeu]

What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

What do you call 100 lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand.

What's yellow and black and makes you laugh and cry at the same time? A schoolbus almost full of lawyers burning. You're crying because of the empty seats.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

She was a serial adultress, and I could no longer endure the pain. SHE left me and my children before I filed for divorce. She'd been the one who paid the bills (mostly out of my paycheck), and hadn't been paying them for a couple of months, saving up to leave. Bankruptcy was my only recourse after the house was foreclosed and the van was repossessed the banks wanted me to pay for the house and car that they had already taken back.

Shit happens. Pray it doesn't happen to you. Pray that if it does, some ignorant dufus doesn't condemn you without any knowledge of the situation whatever.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[sconeu]

Maybe the need for the BK attorney came first, leading to the need for the divorce attorney.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[debrain]

Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos.

Sir —

Indeed, if you wish to give the rich even greater arbitrary and unfettered powers. Please allow me to present some choice quotes:

"Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely."

From: http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html

"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.

– and –

As the famous remark by the plotter of treachery in Shakespeare's King Henry VI shows - "The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers," - the surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking.

From: http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html

Who do you think sets up any framework for regulatory consequences or enactment of discipline of the stooges for the RIAA?

What exactly do you think would happen in the absence of any such a framework or discipline?

And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.

With respect, to quote "First kill all the lawyers" as an argument that being rid of lawyers will result in fewer 'bullies' like the RIAA taking advantage of the poor is absurd and ignorant, not insightful.

Indeed, to quote the article, "The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said last year it would take action against the pair, and has now laid out its case, claiming Gore and Miller were fully aware that the IP data they used to identify accused file-sharers was flawed."

So you propose that we disban and disburse the SRA right at the moment they intend to engage in a process of rectification? You would instead prefer that all the lawyers and the rule of law be disbanded? What punishment then - if any - would you propose to eke out for these defendant lawyers, and on what basis would you make such punishment? How would you bring about a fair process and consistent judgments? Whom do you propose is fit to evaluate the facts and fairness of any punishment, and what limits - if any - do you propose? Should we chop off their heads? How about stoning them? What about their family, children, secretaries, barbers? They all benefitted from the defendants actions. Should we not punish them, too? What about their neighbours, they're probably lawyers too. Why not burn all their houses down?

Or, here's a thought: Why don't we set up a transparent system for evaluating wrongful conduct that's evaluated by impartial individuals with experience in the resolution of disputes and knowledge and insight into a proper measure of punishment. Oh, wait, that's what's happening.

I would think this is exactly the opposite of the time when getting rid of lawyers seems appropriate; it is lawyers who have identified the ill treatment of the public by the accused, lawyers who will pursue a case to bring about justice, and lawyers who will evaluate the wrong and determine the appropriateness of a remedy against them. What judge, jury and executioner do you propose replace all these lawyers?

You can be rid of the bastions of knowledge and reason – lawyers – only at the peril of the concept of principle itself.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

When I need a lawyer, I want one the knows the law and can council me on what and what not to do, negotiate with other lawyers, and skillfully represent me in court if court if necessary.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, it's just some of the lawyers in the world a giving the other 3 a bad name.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[eknagy]

Maybe ... or maybe whoosh?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[freeweed]

Slashdot needs a +1, Irony mod.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[hairyfeet]

Because the criminal knows EXACTLY what crimes get the death penalty and then can base his "decision" on what he thinks his odds are. Now imagine if you just broadcast 'We just executed a lawyer for being VERY naughty. Any lawyer who is likewise naughty in a similar fashion will also be executed. Have a nice day." Then the lawyers would be forced to go "Fuck, HOW was he naughty? If it is the same dirty underhanded BS I've been pulling I could get fucking shot! WTF!?!?" Which would certainly be a deterrent for dirty underhanded shit by lawyers.

As for TFA, is anyone surprised? the courts in the past have accepted the most pathetic excuses for "evidence" in these types of cases and someone figured out how to turn that into $$$. These cases have all had the classic extortion feeling to me, and it looks like this bunch just turned legal extortion into a profitable venture. I wonder how much they'll clear after the fines? If it is like the USA the max they'll lose is like 25% of the crimes profits, which means it was still a profitable venture.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[LiquidLink57]

I see all of your points, but I have to say I'm against the death penalty. I have many reasons for this, but I'll tell you the main one.

Many convicted people on death row have been later found innocent and exonerated due to newly found evidence, or after discovering prosecutorial misconduct or whatever. These are innocent people that all of us, as members of this club called the United States, who allow the death penalty, would have murdered. If we haven't done this already, which we almost certainly have, we will, at some point, know for a fact that we murdered an innocent person. At that point, we are all murders. And we, in turn, deserve to die.

That's the paradox of the death penalty. Lock the murderers up forever, definitely. But if we kill people that we're "pretty sure" killed someone else, even if the evidence seems terribly conclusive and emotions run high, it remains an incredibly dangerous legal environment. And if you don't think it happens, it does: http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/innocent-north-carolina-man-exonerated-after-14-years-death-row

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Thud457]

I didn't say "kill all lawyers", I said "kill all sleazy lawyers"...

And does the concept of barratry apply to groups ?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[internewt]

Honestly, what are the odds that a violent criminal will get the death penalty? Serial rapists can't unless they murder someone. A criminal who cuts off all the limbs of his victims can't get the death penalty unless one of the victims dies.

The Supreme Court found in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the victim must die for the death penalty to be an option. Basically you can rape and brutalize millions of women (and children!) knowing full well that the U.S. government cannot execute you kill one of the victims.

That, to me, is a tragedy.

To me, you are an immense hypocrite - like all the self-righteous who advocate the death penalty.

What you are saying is that to demonstrate it is wrong to kill someone, we should should kill people. Hmmm. And you go a step further saying that extreme violence should be dealt with with greater violence.

Way to build respect for the justice system! Though perhaps those that like to punish, rather than try to rehabilitate, want a disrespected justice system so that people are more likely to break laws, and so the punisher gets to punish? Fucking bullies.

Of course I will be modded down for this. I have had conversations with people from my country who think we should have the death penalty (usually justified with "think of the children"-type rhetoric, or other appeals to emotion), and when the hypocrisy of capital punishment is pointed out they tend to get irrationally pissed off. On /., this manifests itself as -1, Troll, or similar.

Even if you don't give a shit about other human beings (ie are a psychopath yourself) then the financial costs of building and maintaining an execution facility, the extra legwork necessary to prove undoubtedly that the accused is a killer (I hope you do that), the payouts necessary for when the innocent get killed, etc. are probably very similar to the costs of just locking the seriously fucked-up for life. Actually, I have no idea. I'm not going to look into it either, as an economic argument could never justify human lives to me.

Shit, murderers can contribute to the slave labour that US prisoners are used for too. You can't want to deny struggling international corporations some extra profit by killing killers? What are you, a commie?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[TheLink]

Many extremely violent crimes are done by people who don't think very well (insane, stupid), or get caught up by emotions (anger, desperation etc).

Whereas psychopathic and sociopathic lawyers are often very good at dispassionately figuring things out and deciding what the optimum action should be for them (even if it means harming innocent people).

If lawyers who do such stuff start getting executed regularly, they will certainly stop doing it.

I'm not saying this is the right thing to do of course (to me throwing them in prison for _fraud_ and/or abuse of the legal system could be deterrent enough too).

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Jiro]

If we haven't done this already, which we almost certainly have, we will, at some point, know for a fact that we murdered an innocent person. At that point, we are all murders. And we, in turn, deserve to die.

By that reasoning, we know that there are innocent people in jail. We even know that there are innocent people in jail who will never get exonerated (because only a percentage of them ever get exonerated). Therefore we're all kidnappers and deserve to rot in jail forever.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Anthony Mouse]

No matter if you remove "lawyer" as a profession, there will always be trained legal experts.

True, but much of what draws sociopaths to the profession is that it is lucrative. And it is lucrative because supply is artificially scarce due to unnecessarily difficult licensing requirements (which, in turn, involve unnecessarily high education requirements). And that is half the problem, because you get a settlement letter demanding $5000 and it would cost $25,000+ in attorneys' fees to make it go away if you're innocent, which leads to these extortion mills because being innocent and paying the settlement is five times cheaper than being innocent and winning in court.

Make it so any paralegal can compete with the people with $100,000+ in student loans and the cost of hiring one will be less than it costs to get your sink to stop leaking.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[cpghost]

IMHO, good lawyers are those who win more cases than bad lawyers. Of course, hiring a good lawyer (by that metric) isn't so easy, because where are the "lawyer benchmarks"? I've yet to see a law firm advertising going like this: "65,032 cases handled: 65% won, 30% settled out of court, 5% cases lost".

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[scubamage]

One problem though; most death row inmates are not people with violent histories. Most of them are people who "snapped" at one point in time. It's also (as of the last time I had a prison studies class) the only portion of the prison strata where whites are more common than other races.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[lakeland]

Well yes, but you only have to look at other countries to see an alternative - e.g. Japan a few years ago or China now.

In the US contracts are long and complicated because the cost of a mistake is high. The other side is likely to also go through them with a fine toothed comb for loopholes, and legal recourse is expensive, slow and unpredictable. In other countries, businesses will not do business with you if you have a bad reputation so there is a strong disincentive from exploiting loopholes - meaning that the contracts can usually be reduced to a few pages or less and what's written there does not need to be triple checked for loopholes. Similarly other countries court systems are much cheaper so that a day in court will cost you hundreds of dollars.

So no, I don't think you could eliminate the profession, but I think the US has elevated it to a place that is unhealthy for the rest of the economy, and lowering them down a few pegs would have many more benefits than costs.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Stregano]

So Lawyers are screwing people over to get paid? Really? When did they start doing that?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Myopic]

Court cases don't require lawyers at all, unless you count the judge.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Myopic]

Yeah, except we're kidding, but for them it's a daily activity. Thus, they are douchebags and we are just internet bloviators.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Why don't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy.
What is the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a scum sucking bottom feeder, and the other is a fish.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

Than you've been lucky.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[girlintraining]

You have a very persuasive argument, except you neglect one minor detail: You assume people will take the moral high ground when money is involved. They usually don't. Lawyers aren't any different than Joe Q. Public on the street, excepting that they dress better, make somewhat more money, and (hopefully) are somewhat better trained for their professional field than most.

Additionally, your argument loses a lot of its intellectual purity and moral superiority when you make the reductio ad absurdum argument in paragraph two. Your post would have gone better without that.

Lastly, there is no transparency in the legal system and you're being intellectually dishonest to state otherwise: The legal system is incredibly complex and largely unavailable to the poor. When you have a system that necessitates the use of lawyers and attorneys in every legal preceding, to the point that attempting to advance a case pro se is laughed at by every judge and legal professional -- what then can we honestly say about transparency in the system? If the system requires experts that are licensed through the state to interpret or apply its rules, then the system is not transparent. In fact, it is utterly impervious to external examination, and any protests against it are swiftly dismissed as "uneducated" or rogue. The system is self-contradictory: Practicing law without a license is a criminal offense, but yet ignorance from the law is no excuse for breaking it.

You can be rid of the bastions of knowledge and reason – lawyers – only at the peril of the concept of principle itself.

This conclusion is fallacious. There are systems of justice for which lawyers and attorneys are forbidden from entry, and serve only their original role as counselors: Unable to act in any way on behalf of their clients or to have any direct influence over legal proceedings. These systems do not simply cease to function without oxford-educated people in expensive suits, and these systems generally avoid overly dense and burdensome legal texts because the participants are unable to interpret or use them in any meaningful capacity.

Lawyers should be optional, not a requirement, in the judicial process. Our system has become broken when it requires people charging several hundred or thousand dollars an hour to act as an "advocate" for their clients, and in the process creating a closed system for which money funnels in, and justice is an occasional byproduct of it, happening as much by coincidence as by design.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

No, actually her lawyer sucked BAD. The only thing she got was what Illinois law insisted on, and not even all of that (I wound up with most of our posessions).

In fact, from my point of viw, every time her lawyer did something that inconvienienced me, she was even more inconvinienced by it (like his not showing up for hearings).

And she paid her lawyer twice what I paid mine.

She's not too good at hiring professionals. I told her about my eye surgeon (this was a few years after the divorce) and she hired a different one because someone said they'd heard bad things about mine.

So now my previously 20/400 vision is 20/16 at all distances, and she's wearing bifocals. Her lawyer was even worse than her eye surgeon.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[rolfwind]

I and many of my friends had PLENTY of shitty lawyers on our side throughout our lives that we ended wishing we hadn't. Note: it wasn't whether we won or lost, but like all things, what value we got for our money.

Some will just hoover any cash out of you pockets while giving the most goddamn awful or self-serving (making sure they have continued work) advice known to man.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Your.Master]

I'm also opposed to the death penalty, but I don't think the GP was actually inconsistent. You're showing an unusual preconception by declaring that execution of a single person is greater violence than serial rape and dismemberment. I think you might be able to make that argument, maybe, if there's only one victim, but I think cutting off the arms and legs of 100 people without killing them is easily more violent than killing one person.

You know it's wrong to kidnap people and lock them into cages, even though the main alternative to execution is to kidnap the criminal and lock them in a cage. For many, many years. With murderers and rapists. There's really nothing inconsistent about executing criminals, and I think it's hypocrisy to complain about killing people to demonstrate it's wrong to kill when we imprison people against their will to demonstrate that it's wrong to imprison people against their will.

I think the death penalty is wrong because we have a flawed justice system, because I believe in attempting rehabilitation, and because I think that even if the person is guilty and a lost cause, I think locking them in a cage forever -- with the option of suicide -- is sufficient to protect everybody since they are now removed from the pool of people that can commit crimes relatively easily. I do not consider the revenge motive, sufficient cause to kill somebody, even if it gives comfort to the victims; I'm invested in the justice system to protect everyone, not for vengeance. This is, I believe, a non-hypocritical position against the death penalty.

Also, you got a flamebait because you flamebaited, not because people just disagree. You called the GP these things:

1. Immense hypocrite (to be fair, I also called your argument hypocritical here, lest I be accused of hypocrisy).
2. Fucking bully.
3. Irrational.
4. Psychopath.
5. Commie (that one might have been a joke).

When really he only pointed out what appeared to him to be an inversion of severity.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[tburkhol]

When I need a lawyer, I want one the knows the law and can council me on what and what not to do, negotiate with other lawyers, and skillfully represent me in court if court if necessary.

Sounds like a lawyer is only good to the extent that he keeps other lawyers away from you. If you get rid of all the lawyers, then there's no need for a defensive lawyer-shield lawyer.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[jonbryce]

In the UK, none of these cases has ever been contested in court. There were a few default judgements where people didn't turn up. If it looks like you plan to turn up at court and submit a defence, they drop the case.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[scot4875]

The main difference is, if someone is exonerated while serving their sentence, we can still let them go and say "oops, our bad."

If they're dead, you can't un-kill them. Death is a little more permanent of a punishment.

--Jeremy

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[uncanny]

what's the difference?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[amRadioHed]

It is well known that, due to the extensive appeals process, the cost of carrying out a death penalty is far more expensive then the cost of holding someone in prison for life. So there you have it. But you're right, even if it was cheaper to execute people it would still be morally unjustifiable.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[HaZardman27]

Not letting your people know the repercussions of their actions?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[debrain]

Sir –

You have a very persuasive argument, except you neglect one minor detail: You assume people will take the moral high ground when money is involved. They usually don't. Lawyers aren't any different than Joe Q. Public on the street, excepting that they dress better, make somewhat more money, and (hopefully) are somewhat better trained for their professional field than most.

It is true, and the theme of your post is pursuasive. There are numerous arbitrary and high barriers to entry to effective legal persuasion, not least of which is the need for a lawyer to effectively engage the system.

That being said, in my experience, even after explanation the vast majority of the population lack the ability to understand issues and form concise, sensible arguments on one side or the other of the issues (concise is important because the general response to a failure to understand issues is to verbose verbiage).

To most lawyers, the messes created by the self-represented are often impermeable to the discourse that leads to efficient resolution. That doesn't take away from the access to justice argument you put forward - the law should be clearer and easier to access - but at the same time it's often cheaper and more effective for people to pay a lawyer than self-represent (and that's why most educated people do). I think legal aid is a reasonable solution in many cases - but it has its drawbacks as well (it discourages early settlement, for example).

Finally, it's a central point of economics that specialization creates wealth. Having lawyers allows for more efficient use of the available time and energy of the population; it'd be absurdly inefficient for police, doctors, engineers, janitors, miners, etc., to spend the extraordinary amount of effort necessary to understand every facet of every issue of every dispute that occurs in their lives. Furthermore, the cost to the taxpayer of having the uneducated aggrieved senselessly stand in front of judges for hours bantering about irrelevant points is an enormous cost to society; I find myself regularly reducing well intentioned but misdirected efforts of clients down to the salient points. It's better that a client pay me to do this than the taxpayer, otherwise we create a moral hazard.

Additionally, your argument loses a lot of its intellectual purity and moral superiority when you make the reductio ad absurdum argument in paragraph two. Your post would have gone better without that.

I'm not sure it was absurd. You can see from those links what happens in the absence of a rule-of-law dispute resolution procedure: Violence. It's not absurd, it's not even hyperbole, it's the natural consequence of the demand for justice (in some form, to someone) and the absence of the supply of "justice" (or the appearance of justice, or a justice-like substitute).

Lastly, there is no transparency in the legal system and you're being intellectually dishonest to state otherwise: The legal system is incredibly complex and largely unavailable to the poor. When you have a system that necessitates the use of lawyers and attorneys in every legal preceding, to the point that attempting to advance a case pro se is laughed at by every judge and legal professional -- what then can we honestly say about transparency in the system? If the system requires experts that are licensed through the state to interpret or apply its rules, then the system is not transparent. In fact, it is utterly impervious to external examination, and any protests against it are swiftly dismissed as "uneducated" or rogue. The system is self-contradictory: Pract

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[amRadioHed]

No, that is not the same reasoning at all. You seriously don't see the difference between a wrongful imprisonment and a wrongful execution?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[leonardluen]

Judges are supposed to oversee that justice is being served and that all due process and such proceeded fairly for all involved.

Lawyers don't care about justice at all, their job is simply to serve their clients and get the best outcome possible for them...their entire purpose is to win, it doesn't matter if justice was served or not. they aren't being paid to serve justice by anyone, they are being paid to have their clients interests upheld.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Dracophile]

But that seems to be the language they understand.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[leonardluen]

so in other words you aren't in it for justice either, you are only in it to win...or rather at least not to lose.

I don't think this is a bad thing and don't blame the lawyers for it, but justice has never been in the job description for a lawyer. their entire purpose it to serve their clients...occasionally their clients happen to be in the wrong, but that lawyer still has to advise them and represent them to the best of his ability.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

so in other words you aren't in it for justice either, you are only in it to win...or rather at least not to lose.

Unlike a corporation, if I'm hiring a lawyer it's because someone has wronged me or is threatening to wrong me. I'm not going to hore a lawyer to commit an injustice.

justice has never been in the job description for a lawyer

Entirely true.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Fulcrum of Evil]

And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.

You could read the play and know it damn well wasn't. Taking advice from drunken idiots is never a good idea.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[leonardluen]

Unlike a corporation, if I'm hiring a lawyer it's because someone has wronged me or is threatening to wrong me. I'm not going to hore a lawyer to commit an injustice.

As much as we hate them, I don't think the RIAA's intent is to commit injustice either. They view very strongly that they have been wronged. and potentially rightly so because people are downloading their copyrighted materials without permission, and they even have the law on their side stating that this is illegal. It seems the RIAA are well within their moral rights to hire a lawyer to fight this.

However are their lawyers a bit overzealous in representing them? most of us here would probably say they are. Is the RIAA out of touch and need to learn to adapt to the modern world? Most likely yes.

Are the laws too severe for the crime? Most would agree. But until they are changed, the RIAA isn't doing anything that isn't within their rights and considered justice by the law.

So...really you are very much like the RIAA in this...both of you are hiring lawyers because you view someone has wronged you. I don't blame either of you. In the RIAA case i blame an out of touch congress making stupid laws.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[noidentity]

Kill the bad laws that threaten property law (real property, physical things you can hold), not the lawyers.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Dan541]

Dead people don't commit crimes. The death penalty has allot going for it.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[RockDoctor]

Dead people don't commit crimes. The death penalty has allot going for it.

... but not as much as compulsory sterilisation of all potential parents at ... well there's no need to specify an age, as long as it's done in utero. That way, once the inevitable changes have worked through the system, nobody commits any crimes any more, plus the people who demand and implement the policy alway know that they've injured no one.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[girlintraining]

If there were some better alternative, I'd be interested in reading about it.

Whenever a system is policed only by itself, and accessible only to itself, the answer is simple, though difficult to gain acceptance:

Establishing oversight from a group outside the community in question, with the power to levy changes and punishment on it, and which by mandate must remain neutral and apart from outside political interests. It is preferable, though not always practical, for these to be elected positions.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Eivind Eklund]

What evidence I've seen is that use of the death penalty increases illegal violence in the jurisdiction; possibly because it increase the legitimacy of using violence to solve problems.

My arguments against death penalty are pretty simple:

• I don't accept the government murdering innocent people when there is an alternative. Since there is no justice system known to man that is able to weed out false positives, I don't accept the death penalty for civil crimes.
• There seems to be a positive correlation where the death penalty leads to more (unrelated) victims of violence in society; I don't accept that cost to have people get their sense of revenge tickled.
• The death penalty as implemented in the USA is horribly costly; it's much cheaper to keep people locked up for life, and this avoids the two problems above.

The introduction of DNA testing showed how horribly unreliable the justice system is - there were lots of death row inmates that were let go on the basis of DNA evidence, and if the system had avoided taking innocent people, there would have been none. There is little reason to believe that the system including DNA tests is so much more reliable that there now aren't innocent people there.

So, the question to any person in favor of the death penalty is: How many innocent people are you willing to have executed?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[mcgrew]

I don't think the RIAA's intent is to commit injustice either. They view very strongly that they have been wronged. and potentially rightly so because people are downloading their copyrighted materials without permission

I don't believe it for a minute. I don't believe that they actually think downloads hurt them. I think their war against P2P is a war against their competetion, the indies. And they don't care who they hurt, or how bad they hurt them.

The RIAA is, IMO, pure evil. Their actions certainly are evil. The labels they represent are evil, and from what I've read always have been.

Sony-BMG went to the point of deliberately installing malware on music CDs, infecting their paying customers; I was a victim when my daughter (who worked at a record store at the time) installed it, never dreaming that a company like Sony would do a thing like that. If I rooted Sony's computers, how long would I be in prison? But it's ok for them to root mine.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[debrain]

Whenever a system is policed only by itself, and accessible only to itself, the answer is simple, though difficult to gain acceptance:

Establishing oversight from a group outside the community in question, with the power to levy changes and punishment on it, and which by mandate must remain neutral and apart from outside political interests. It is preferable, though not always practical, for these to be elected positions.

You've described the rationale behind the common law judicial system. It's a good rationale, but it's not an alternative to what we have.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[girlintraining]

The rationale, yes. But I think we could do better. Of course, discussing how would take many, many books... and it's early on a monday.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[debrain]

The rationale, yes. But I think we could do better. Of course, discussing how would take many, many books... and it's early on a monday.

A wise man once told me: You must master a system before you can change it.

You should write these books, but consider bearing that in mind.

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[girlintraining]

I've spent more time in a courtroom than I care to admit, as plaintiff, defendant, and counsel. And this was before I turned 18. Really... I know enough about how the system works. It's why there's a knot in my stomach right now. A big one.

I thought...

[snookerhog]

I thought this kind of shit only happens in the US.

I am looking forward to the lawyer bubble popping.

Re:I thought...

[Shrike82]

Don't hold your breath, I highly doubt that the entire legal profession will disappear overnight. Even less likely that the profession will stop attracting assholes who are ready to do anything at all for money, including victimising innocent people like these two and their compatriots at ACS:Law.

Re:I thought...

[sorak]

I thought this kind of shit only happens in the US.

I am looking forward to the lawyer bubble popping.

Why? When did a business ever fail due to unethical behavior? Look at the Catholic church*. Ethical behavior is supposed to be their product, but, somehow they seem to be weathering the child molestation scandal rather well. If the guy who's job is to tell you how to be good can get away with unethical behavior, then what mechanism would shoot down the guy whose job is to help you make money?

* Sorry for making this about religion, but it seems like too good a counter-example.

Re:I thought...

[mosb1000]

I highly doubt that the entire legal profession will disappear overnight.

Actually, that's exactly how it will happen if things keep going the way they are now. There's too much dead weight, and there's more and more every day. Eventually the whole thing will be overspent and it will collapse into civil unrest. That is, unless we all pull our heads out of our asses and stop engaging in this kind of nonsense.

I see

[Pojut]

Can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs?

"Screw the omlette. Can't go skeet shooting without breaking a few lawyers." -My wife's uncle

Re:I see

[sorak]

Can i subscribe to http://twitter.com/shitmywifesunclesays ?

Re:I see

[T.E.D.]

Dick Cheney tried that and failed.

Trash

[symes]

So the accepted method of dealing with letters such as these of filing them in the trash is justified. IANAL, but surely there is a case here, perhaps class action, to go after these guys for harassment? Or perhaps ask if that infamous pizzeria at /b/ might be interested in dropping some snacks off?

Re:Trash

[natehoy]

So the accepted method of dealing with letters such as these of filing them in the trash is justified.

It all depends. A second or third letter might prompt your ISP to cut your connection, so if you've received one of these letters "in error" (1) it's probably best to contact your ISP immediately and ensure that they know you did nothing, and have them check your usage logs to make sure there's no evidence your connection might have been used, in case it was without your consent. Might also help to change your WiFi password and make sure you're running WPA2/AES as a precaution.

If you actually are pirating materials, then please do go ahead and throw the letter away. In fact, you should return it with a death threat just to be sure they are aware of your contempt for them. I hate the current state of copyright law as much as pirates do, but I also see pirates as part of the problem and not part of the solution. So, please, be as blatantly self-righteous about it as possible. The more actual pirates we can kick off the Internet, the more likely it is that the grown-ups can have rational discussions about reasonable copyright laws and reasonable enforcement.

(1) I use the term "in error" loosely since knowingly sending letters to people who have obviously not engaged in piracy is pretty far from an "error"

Re:Trash

[click2005]

I'm not sure if the UK has class action lawsuits.

Re:Trash

[Shrike82]

Or perhaps ask if that infamous pizzeria at /b/ might be interested in dropping some snacks off?

They already went after ACS:Law who were doing the same thing, so I'm sure their brightest and best (almost an oxymoron given the context) are firing up their harassment engines as we speak.

Re:Trash

[somersault]

A couple of seconds typing "class action uk" into google gave me this: http://www.contactlaw.co.uk/class-action-lawyers.html

Re:Trash

[augustw]

Class actions don't exist in England, or Scotland. Group actions do, but they are strictly for the benefit those who are direct parties to the action. Unlike class actions, once a judgement is made, it only applies to those who were parties to the action, and not all those affected by the original wrong. Those who were originally wronged, but were not party to the successful group action, must raise a fresh action, and cannot gain anything from a previous group action. So, very different from US class actions.

Re:Trash

[powerlord]

A couple of seconds typing "class action uk" into google gave me this: http://www.contactlaw.co.uk/class-action-lawyers.html

But will they work on contingency?

Re:Trash

[sjames]

How about extortion and racketeering? They threatened a group of people they knew to be innocent with a large harm (huge legal bills etc) and offered to make it go away if they made a lesser payment.

Re:Trash

[augustw]

"Racketeering" isn't a crime known to English law.

Re:Trash

[newcastlejon]

Surely being different is a good thing? I'd be pretty annoyed if a suit was won without my involvement, which prevented me from seeking recompense for myself and resulted in a judgement whereby most of the award ended up in the hands of those who weren't actually injured, viz. the blood-sucking lawyers.

Not legit

[digitaldc]

Is this some type of new corporate phishing scheme?

Things like this tarnish the sparkling reputation of lawyers everywhere!

Re:Not legit

[mcgrew]

Things like this tarnish the sparkling reputation of lawyers everywhere!

I think you misspelled "sparking", as in "overloaded circut".

"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..."

[John Hasler]

The clients were publishers, not ordinary working people, weren't they? Implying that they were swindled by fast-talking lawyers seems rather naive.

Re:"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..."

[king neckbeard]

Perhaps the publishers have some more fast-talking lawyers of their own to limit their liability

Re:"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..."

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm assuming that this is some legal analog of that trope from just about every special operations/spy themed violence drama ever made: "We are sending you to do something dangerous and illegal and highly advantageous to us. If it goes well, congratulations all around and we weren't involved. If it goes poorly, we've never heard of you before, and if we had than you must have gone rogue and been acting without authorization and we have nothing to do with it..."

Re:"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..."

[Scrameustache]

The clients were publishers, not ordinary working people, weren't they? Implying that they were swindled by fast-talking lawyers seems rather naive.

I don't think /. is saying they were swindled, I think they mean to say that the publishers weren't as fucking blindly stupid as they seemed to be: It's not that they couldn't imagine this shit being a bad move, they just fell into their own greedy lawyer-trap.

Re:"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..."

[delinear]

In this case it's not even that drastic. If it goes well, you'll make a ton of money and we'll nuke a few file sharers off the internet, if it goes badly you'll make a ton of money and probably get a slap on the wrist for your part in it.

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[king neckbeard]

We all knew it, but it seems that now, somebody in a position to do something about it is doing something about it..

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[oldspewey]

doing something about it

Exactly. These lawyers are in real danger of receiving a sternly-worded rebuke.

Re:Ahem...

[splutty]

I don't think "Pay up now, or we remove all your teeth" is considered a dental plan by most people.

But then again, we know all about those dentists being in cahoots with the mafia, don't we!

Can they be sued for malpractice?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

May be they should be sued for malpractice and made to pay triple damages. A taste of their own medicine might do a whole lot of good in this case.

Re:Can they be sued for malpractice?

[whoever57]

I believe the correct for for this type of action is extortion and they should face criminal charges.

Re:Can they be sued for malpractice?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The innocents who were sued by these lawyers, could counter sue them for extortion. But the copyright owners, the alleged clients of the lawyers, could sue their own lawyers for malpractice.

Re:Can they be sued for malpractice?

[nahdude812]

Or since a $0.99 song being shared causes $62,500 in damages, they (and the industry they represent) should be charged $62,500 * (falsely accused recipient) * (average requested settlement amount).

Re:Can they be sued for malpractice?

[sorak]

May be they should be sued for malpractice and made to pay triple damages. A taste of their own medicine might do a whole lot of good in this case.

This is the kind of thing tort laws were made for. They looked at the law and the penalty for violating it. They calculated that they could make more money by violating the law and paying up when they occasionally got caught, and the "punishment" should be high enough to ensure they don't do it again. I'm talking McDonald's hot coffee money levels. Abuse of the legal system hurts everybody, not just the few people who get nasty letters.

Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[IBBoard]

The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.'

(My highlighting)

"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...which makes you wonder how they can ever be trusted to know what they're doing with these legal threats. Oh, yes, that's right, the whole things is a bit dodgy anyway - that explains the lack of technical awareness.

I guess it was all sold to managers without a clue by lawyers without a clue, just a scent of blood (or money, whichever pays better).

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[babyrat]

"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...which makes you wonder how they can ever be trusted to know what they're doing with these legal threats. Oh, yes, that's right, the whole things is a bit dodgy anyway - that explains the lack of technical awareness.

Right - the Solicitors Regulatory Authority are a bit dodgy - oh wait - they were the ones who used the IP Numeric term, not the lawyers who sent out the notices.

But let's not let facts get in the way of our comments.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[Tim C]

News flash - people skilled in one field sometimes make a mess of jargon used in a different field. Film at 11.

Also, you realise that you're quoting the criticism of the lawyers, not the lawyers themselves, yes? The terms may not be quite right, but the concept - that just because an IP address was identified as being involved in the copyright infringement doesn't prove that the person paying for the connection is the infringer - is bang on.

But you go ahead and castigate the people trying to curb this sort of scatter-gun approach to suing for messing up some of the technical terms.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[ArundelCastle]

The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.'

(My highlighting)

"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...

I believe they are just mixing acronyms poorly, and that it should be read as 'Intellectual Property holders (ie. possessors) whose Internet Protocol numeric (ie. number) had been used...'
So in legalese that just means, "people that did possess and did share copyrighted files, identified by computer logs".

Legalese is a lot older than techie speak. You're about 400 years too late for the 'can't speak English' joke. :) The lingo ain't gonna change to suit the way you think it should sound.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[Sockatume]

It's perfectly comprehensible - "numeric" parses as "numeric address" which pretty adequately sums up an IP address, while "IP holder" is pretty unambiguously "the person holding a particular IP address". Given that it's written for the legal trade it's completely understandable that they'd write it in their style. I wouldn't rip into a mathematician for saying I expand a wavefunction in a basis of gaussian functions instead of the proper jargon basis set.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[SuricouRaven]

It makes more sense if you read 'IP holder' as 'Intellectual property holder' - the person who was in posession of and distributing the client's intellectual property without authorisation.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[Sockatume]

Ah, in that case it's much more ambiguous than I had assumed.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[canajin56]

People in England talk differently. Instead of asking for your "numbers" they'll ask for your "numerics". Technically not correct English since "numeric" is an adjective. But we say lots of incorrect things. "I should have!" is only the short form for "I should have done!" (Expressing regret) instead of "I should have it!" (Expressing belief that you possess something, or probably possess something, or that if things were proper/fair/just/etc you WOULD posses something) by CONVENTION, but by explicit meaning. But, it's fine, because that's how people talk, they leave things implied. In England you can say "numeric" leaving it implied as "numeric data" or "numeric value" or, in this case "numeric label" which is the textbook definition of an IP Address.

An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label

As for "IP Holder, a holder, legally (and these are LAWYERS in case you forgot), is "one that holds or occupies the property of another by agreement and esp. under a lease". Guess what the DHCP calls it when a client has been assigned an IP address? A lease! Looks like holder is probably the best way to refer to somebody who has been assigned a particular IP address. Because, regardless of what computer got assigned that address, and what person or persons were using that computer, the ISP's client is the one who is "holding" that address. That is to say, they are the one assigned the legal right to use that particular address under the conditions of their signed service agreement. I therefore suggest that "IP Holder" is more correct than any term you would think to use for it, and certainly more succinct.

It's like laughing at that Senator for saying the internet is tubes, like, "It's pipes, not tubes!"

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[IBBoard]

People in England talk differently.

I'd kinda know that, what with being British and all ;)

Instead of asking for your "numbers" they'll ask for your "numerics".

You know some weird-arse Brits, then! I've never heard anyone say "numerics". You can say "it was numeric", since "it was numbers" makes you sound stupid.

IP addresses are numeric in as much as they are made of numbers, but that is a description of the format of the IP address and not an alternative word to be used in place of "address". Alternatively you'd say "a numeric IP address", but given that you can't have "a textual IP address" then it is a bit redundant (you can have hex encoding, but that's just a different numeric base).

"IP holder" was partly a confusion in the context about IP - they're talking about copyright, so "IP holder" normally means "Intellectual Property owner", or "the litigious bugger who would rather sue than modernise his ways" - but also just an oddity in the language - there is no property for you to hold or lease. You can be a leasee or assignee of an IP address, but "IP holder" just jarred a bit.

Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English!

[cheekyjohnson]

"acknowledge that piracy was a bad thing"

The non-existent theft is what makes it bad! Even though no one is deprived of anything that they owned, it's theft!

Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[wvmarle]

The typical problem of lawyers working on "no cure, no pay" basis. It is very close to police officers being allowed to keep (part of) the fines they hand out to people. They lose their integrity.

Lawyers have a very bad name on /., I believe that has a lot to do with those stupid lawsuits in the US, typical medical related (person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"). Suits that are primarily started by "no cure no pay" type lawyers.

In many country that whole practice is outlawed, for good reason. Lawyers have an important role to fulfil in our society, but those kind of actions gives them a very bad name.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

And what do poor people do if they need legal representation?

There are many lawyers doing good work for a cut of the settlement, because that's the only way many many people could get someone to pay attention to them.

"Sir, a doctor took my left leg off when I went in for a vasectomy."
"Very good, that sounds like a solid case. Based on similar cases I've argued, it will take around 2 years and cost approximately $60,000. I'll expect 20% up front and I will provide you invoices for services rendered until we're done. Payment details will be on the invoices."
"Oh, I only make $36,000 a year. I can't afford that. Can I pay you once we win the case?"
"Good luck with that stumpy, that's illegal. GTFO so I can find a paying client."

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[TurinX]

Conversely though, lawyers often charge extortionate hourly fees and then take their sweet time doing seemingly simple tasks.... I've been billed 3 hours time for 3 emails and proof reading a 1 page document... all at an eye watering rate.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't think that blaming contingency-basis laywers as a general institution is all that accurate(and their lack can be positively harmful).

Because contingency-basis lawyers have to win cases in order to get paid, they arguably have to hew to a more selective standard than do standard per-hour lawyers. If I'm getting my hourly rate, I'll pretty much do whatever legal faffing you want, as long as it won't get me disbarred or otherwise open me to trouble that isn't worth it. If I get absolutely nothing until I win, I'm going to give the winnability(note, this is not identical with merit) of your case a very good look....

Now, the fact that winnability and merit are not identical, either because(as in this case) they are simply engaging in extortion outside the courtroom, or because(as in some malpractice cases) juries are simple emotional saps is a problem, and contingency-basis lawyers will(as a body that acts roughly value-rationally on average) be willing to take winnable cases whether or not they are justly winnable; but so will standard-fee lawyers(who will also be willing to take unwinnable cases, just or unjust, or harassment cases).

Plus, contingency-basis laywers are, in many cases, the only thing preventing access to justice(particularly civil justice) from being even more ludicrously lopsided than it already is. Criminal defendants have a right to an(often mediocre, horribly overworked) laywer, shockingly "law and order" plays better than "pay more public defenders"... People who have been wronged civilly have to get their own. Since lawyers aren't cheap, this pretty much means that civil justice for anybody who isn't at least upper-middle-class(or sticking strictly to small claims court) is available through a contingency-fee lawyer or not at all. Given the frequency with which civil wrongs are committed down the economic totem pole, "not at all" seems like a pretty lousy option...

The fact that it is possible to win unjust cases, and sometimes simply extort people, is a problem that needs to be addressed. The fact that there are lawyers who are willing to share their client's fate is, if anything, more conducive to justice than the alternative. Contingency-fee lawyers may be like cops who get a cut of the fine(if we consider fines that have to be demonstrated in court, not that "asset forfeiture" crap); in that they will swarm like flies over anything winnable in court; but hourly laywers are like mercenaries, in that they will do the bidding of whoever is paying them, without regard for winnability, much less justice, excepting only actions likely to make them liable to more punishment than is worth it.

If I were going to forbid a type of lawyer-payment arrangement, I'd actually say that justice would be better served by forbidding non-contingency lawyers(except in criminal cases, since a great many of those involve no money, only jail time, changing hands). A contingency-lawyer has to do the best job he can, on the best cases he can, or starve. A fee-based lawyer has to do the best job he can, on whatever his client is paying him to do, or starve. One will necessarily hew to winnability(whose relationship to justice is something that can be controlled by public policy), while the other will be a freelance heavy in the service of his client's economic interests...

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[srussia]

Conversely though, lawyers often charge extortionate hourly fees and then take their sweet time doing seemingly simple tasks.... I've been billed 3 hours time for 3 emails and proof reading a 1 page document... all at an eye watering rate.

There's a middle ground between contingency-based and hourly-based fees: claim value-based fees. If a claim is worth x, lawyer get paid f(x) based on a preset formula, win or lose; losing party pays; reputation matters.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[delinear]

Actually, in the UK we have legal aid to help people on low incomes with legal fees. It doesn't cover all cases (libel and personal injury aren't covered - the latter attracting most of the contingency "no win, no fee" law firms), but it would certainly cover something like the above.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[delinear]

It might appear that way, but even something as simple as proof reading a one page document can be time consuming when it involves carrying out additional research external to that document to ensure it doesn't land you in trouble elsewhere. Essentially you're paying the lawyer for being thorough, and he's guaranteeing that the document is free of encumbrances that might land you in hot water. Would you really want to go with someone who skim reads and charges you less? Of course, that's not to say some lawyers don't skim read anyway, but at least if it's their screw up you'll be covered by their negligence insurance.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[sjames]

Part of the problem is that contingency-fee lawyers create an imbalance. It just doesn't work when you're a defendant. As a defendant you either cough up a huge amount for a lawyer and take time off from work (probably unpaid) and risk getting socked with a huge judgment (just or not), go in pro se and take an even bigger risk of a huge judgment, or pay a fraction of that in extortion money to make it all go away.

Of course, the absence of contingency-fee lawyers wouldn't remove the imbalance in all cases and would further deny some people justice for the reasons you stated.

The upshot is that justice has simply become too expensive and unfortunately, on the defendant side participation is necessarily compulsory. Public defenders for civil cases would be a step in the right direction if and only if we reform the public defender system to make the representation meaningful (for both criminal and civil cases, somehow I don't think a public defender with too many cases to remember the client's name for the duration of the arraignment is quite what the founding fathers had in mind).

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I get the impression that, even in nearly open-and-shut cases, contingency-fee lawyers have a quite logical disinterest in relatively poor defendants.

Since the contingency-fee guys aren't merely paid only if they win, they are paid only out of the winnings, their effective hourly rate is going to suck unless the defendant is relatively wealthy and relatively guilty(or extremely quick to knock over, as in these mass-mail extortion cases, which are probably incredibly cheap per-"case" to process, though, of course, setting up a mass-extortion operation could and has been, done with conventional fee and flat fee lawyers as well).

It is the case that the procedural costs and delays of justice are just too high, so all solutions will be imperfect; but the idea that contingency fee lawyers are a menace to relatively poor defendants, outside of reasonably rare cases, just seems economically implausible.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

Arguably not for much longer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/16/legal-aid-cuts-law-access

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[c.r.o.c.o]

What you are saying about contingency fee lawyers is mostly true. They do not get paid until the case is settled in favour of their client. In most people's conception this means "My case settled for $100 000, the lawyer gets between 20-30% and I get the other 70-80%.

However at least in Canada the is one HUGE issue. The matter of fees and disbursements. Things that fall under this category can range from photocopies (25 cents each), courier fees ($50-100 each), travel expenses (hundreds of dollars) to medical reports (thousands of dollars).

In some cases the lawyer can negotiate a deal where their fees and disbursements are paid by the defendant. If the case is very strong, that is what usually happens, because the settlement is large enough that it doesn't matter anyway. What is an extra $30,000 to an insurance company that will pay $500,000 or $1mil anyway?

However, if the case is weak or the damage is not as extensive, these fees and disbursements come out of the client's pocket AFTER the layer took their cut already. So in the first example, the case settles for $100,000, the lawyer gets 30% PLUS up to $20-30,000, and the client only ends up with $40-50,000. Not nearly as rosy as most people think.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[sjames]

The thing is, there's a wide gulf between too poor to cough up $2500 if you have to and being able to blow $100,000 in court costs. There are plenty of lawyers who will take that action by telling the client they will negotiate a settlement on contingency but require payment if it actually goes to trial. That probably should be illegal.

And, as I said, doing away with contingency-fee lawyers wouldn't solve the whole problem and would introduce others.

Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers

[scot4875]

person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"

Yeah, I remember hearing about these *all* the time. Such a huge rash of them.

Oh wait, no I don't -- care to clue me in on something besides the McDonald's coffee suit (they deserved to lose and lost) and Nintendo's seizure suit (they deserved to win and lost, and now we have health and safety warnings as part of every start-up screen on a Nintendo system). Or is this just hyperbole ranting about "irresponsible people"?

--Jeremy

Re:Ahem...

[IBBoard]

At least the mafia offered a dental plan.

Is that the free tooth extractions with pliers, or the other dental plan where they help your teeth stay in your mouth (the one done by not hitting you in it if you pay up)?

Allegedly

[Drakkenmensch]

Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed

Implausible deniability. Everyone knows that lawyers are so careful, so crafty with the details of the law that they would never be so careless unless their clients specifically instructed them to act this way.

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[causality]

We all knew it, but it seems that now, somebody in a position to do something about it is doing something about it..

(emphasis added)

That's supposed to be us. Clearly you can see the problem...

This is nothing

[Aceticon]

Once the three-strikes law comes into effect and they become able to legally blackmail people, all kinds of slease-bags (lawyers or not) will be coming out of the woodwork.

In fact, the smart sleasy lawyers will be making a killing by selling "Kits" and giving "Courses" on "Using the 3-Strikes Legislation to protect your IP":
- Considering that everybody is an IP producer and it's easy to publish your IP on the Net (in fact, this post is an example of both), everybody can go around accusing everybody else of stealing their IP, collect the "settlements" (or "drop the case" when confronted with with somebody that actually fights back) without spending a cent in courts and lawyers beyond the standard notice templates and such from the "Kits".

There being no punishment for wrongfully accusing somebody of IP "theft" and no due process before somebody's connection is cut, a whole new class of easy, cheap and profitable scams will be born.

Re:This is nothing

[heathen_01]

Do I have to attend the Course to get the Kit?

Re:This is nothing

[Sockatume]

If a corporation is a legal person, and a corporation violates my IP, does the whole corporation lose its right to connect to the internet on the third strike? I'm going to assume "no". Reminded of that equal/egalitarian distinction someone made recently.

Re:This is nothing

[Chowderbags]

Nah, someone will post a torrent.

I have a cat

[AnonymousClown]

And I didn't use a cat analogy on purpose because....

the cat will shit on the rug, piss on the couch and when you discipline it, it looks at you with a look of "What the fuck is your problem?!" and goes off and does it again.

Re:I have a cat

[Anonymous Coward]

After which it looks at you contemptuously and commands: "Now bring the food tribute due to me, slave."

Re:I have a cat

[mwvdlee]

My cat is looking at me with disdain for reading your post. I'm sure by the end of this reply he'll claw me away from the keybo

Re:I have a cat

[Schadrach]

One of the reasons I like my cat -- he's got a better attitude then that. Most he does is go somewhere visible and start knocking things over when he doesn't get the attention he wants (he literally finds the nearest place a few feet off the ground that someone is looking at and starts pushing stuff off the edge to make a mess as a bid for attention)...so he's more like a teenaged girl than anything, just with less cutting. =p

Thankfully most of the attention he asks for is of the "I want to sleep somewhere soft and warm, I demand your lap" variety.

Re:I have a cat

[Nadaka]

At least you cat didn't sit on your keybolnaagakslgne333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Re:I have a cat

[Nadaka]

My cat doe the same thing, except his preferred target is any glass with fluid in it, only after he has knocked over every accessible drink will he go for things like mail and keys.

Re:I have a cat

[HaZardman27]

I have a very weird cat; he doesn't ever do anything to get him in trouble, and he follows me around everywhere. If I even step outside for a cigarette, I can hear him yowling as he checks all the windows to see where I'm at. My wife tells me that when I leave the house, he'll do that for at least five minutes. He was two years old when we got him, had been abandoned, and had spent one of those years in the humane society basically sharing a box with windows with another cat. I think that may have something to do with his attachment to me. He does like knocking things off the table, but that's just because he likes watching things fall. When we lived in an apartment with stairs, he'd roll all his toys down the stairs to watch them bounce. Around Christmas time we'd have to fetch tree ornaments daily from the bottom of the stairs and replace them on the tree.

Re:I have a cat

[amRadioHed]

Glad to know it's not only my cat who does that. It took her about half a dozen shattered glasses before she had me properly trained never to leave a glass on the kitchen counter.

Re:I have a cat

[Schadrach]

Mine used to do that kind of thing when he was a kitten. He also used to sleep on or around my head every night. I kind of miss the latter -- having a fuzzy purring earmuff was kind of nice, though not so much when he'd lay across my airways.

Re:I have a cat

[Wolvey]

On the plus side your cat was kind enough to submit that post for you.

Re:I have a cat

[shutdown -p now]

He wanted the puny humans to know what happens when they fall behind in their duties towards the catkind.

Re:I have a cat

[Fnord666]

Just remember, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Having completed several anatomy classes in college, I can verify this statement.

Re:I have a cat

[Thing 1]

Sounds like you and your cat are now in everlasting peace?

Mod parent up.

[srussia]

"No cure no pay" is illegal in most civil law countries. Oh, and most of them are also "loser pays court and attorney fees" jurisdictions.

Re:Mod parent up.

[wvmarle]

The loser pays winners fees is not a given: that's in most if not all jurisdictions on a case by case basis.

Re:RICO??

[babyrat]

Wouldn't this be where RICO laws come into play

No.

To explain further, RICO is a law in the United States, and this occurred in the UK.

Re:The letter has no more legal weight than any ot

[IBBoard]

Having being on the end of what I felt was a hugely over-stretch request to stop using a trademark (others in the community got a full C&D, I got a "friendly" warning from the company boss - read: barely veiled threat of lawyers) then people change their behaviour because they can't afford not to.

Yeah, I could have risked it and said "you're in the US, I'm in the UK, and I think your argument is tenuous at best given that your trademark is a noun and an agent noun that I am using in a descriptive manner for a similar product, so lets see what you do next", but a) I can't afford to fight it if the lawyers were subsequently drafted in and b) even if I could have fought it, I don't have enough faith in the legal system that I'd win - after all, in this case then the generic term had already been allowed as a trademark.

Moral indignation and protestation is all well and good, but at the end of the day then it is usually "he with most money doth win the contest".

"The Economist" and "Viz" view of the UK

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I read these two UK periodicals to get a full spectrum of folks in the UK. From these two, one can conclude that UK citizens (née, subjects) are a highly intelligent, diplomatic and genteel folk, who will punch your fucking teeth out, if you spill their pint. "A pint and a fight, a great British night!"

So it boggles me a bit that UK folks would just pay up on this scam without resistance. It's a good thing that Darl Charles McBride doesn't know about this. Everyone in the UK would be sent a bill for $699 for running Linux on their refrigerators. "Oi! Are yee linuxing up oor lass?"

Re:"The Economist" and "Viz" view of the UK

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

I read these two UK periodicals to get a full spectrum of folks in the UK

And not the Daily Mail? Shurely Shome Mishtake!

You have it all wrong.

[Benfea]

We're not supposed to complain when lawyers are hired by large corporations to sue peasants, only when peasants hire lawyers to sue large corporations. Now go back to North Korea you damned collectivist! [/rightwingstrawman]

A Better Idea For Online Music Distribution

[imyy4u3]

Better idea - make all music/mp3s free - however - either add advertisements for like 5 seconds at the beginning of each song (annoying but doable), OR, somehow incorporate a url or a link or an option into mp3 players and computers so that if you "like" a song you've downloaded, you can choose to contribute $1 or some amount to the artist. I think artists would make much more money this way, I mean I would certainly contribute for songs I liked, and it would ALL go to the artist and not the stupid record companies. Plus it would encourage artists to make every song good, rather than coming up with "filler" songs to fill a CD. Then again, of course record companies would never do this, as they'd go out of business...but would they really be missed?

Re:A Better Idea For Online Music Distribution

[SuricouRaven]

A song with a big advertising machine behind it will sell far better than one without the machine, no matter their comparative quality. It's not really how good a song is that makes it popular - it's all in the marketing. Getting it on the radio, getting the artist giving interviews on TV, that sort of thing.

The death penalty is designed to prevent

[crovira]

recidivism.

You can be absolutely SURE there won't be repeat offenders.

Unfortunately psychopaths, sociopaths and gummints feel justified in the heinous acts they perpetrate and there are always more of those being born every minute.

Okay gummints not so much because they're harder to get rid of than a SOC7 error at 11:00 at night.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe in evolution, regularly killing psychopaths and sociopaths will either reduce the percentage in future generations, or make them harder to detect (which might not be so bad if it means they behave better).

Of course this is probably the way some psychopaths/sociopaths think. Hence that's why it's better to post this anonymously :).

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Myopic]

The death penalty wasn't really ever designed, it is just a continuation of a very old practice of justice. But, its function today is not to prevent recidivism, but rather to make victims and the rest of society feel good that the bad guy has been killed. Some people think that's barbaric, but I disagree with those people, I think public catharsis is sufficient justification for killing terrible criminals. Nevertheless, as a matter of policy I think we should reserve it for crimes more terrible than those for which it is currently reserved.

PS we're about to get a new government in southern Sudan, so watch for how long it takes that government to start killing people.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Myopic]

Only if psychopathy is genetic. It could be epigenegic, or behavioral. I don't actually know either way, though.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[amRadioHed]

If the point of the death penalty was only to prevent recidivism then we wouldn't use it. Life in prison is just as effective and much cheaper.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Peeteriz]

Life in prison is much more expensive and harming to the person than a quick death, IMHO. Let's just agree to disagree.

And skip the extremely violent types - there are cases of gunpoint-muggers, rapists and robbers going back to their ways after coming out of their x-th jail term at the age of 50 - death penalty for recidivists with 3-4 repeated convictions would solve the problem; otherwise any system & judge that lets him out after x years is just as guilty for any harm done to the next victim as the perpetrator himself.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[toriver]

So you are constructing justifications for killing. How is that any different from non-government-approved killers who also justify their killings? Should Mafia hitmen perhaps be treated as "privete enterprise executioners"?

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[toriver]

Life in an institution is more expensive and harming to the permanently crippled elderly than euthanasia.

Not everything civilized society does is measured against cost. Tolkien said it well:

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Myopic]

Are those honest questions, or rhetorical questions? Do you mean to imply that governments should be constrained to actions which individual citizens are permitted to perform? Golly that would make tax collection really hard.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[amRadioHed]

I'm not sure what you want to agree to disagree about. It's a fact that life in prison is cheaper then the death penalty, I didn't express any opinions in my previous comment.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Peeteriz]

The cost of carrying out the sentence is about twice less in case of death penalty.

The same studies that look at these costs (http://www.ccfaj.org/rr-dp-official.html http://www.kslegislature.org/postaudit/audits_perform/04pa03a.pdf etc) give the reason why it is "more expensive" - the trial+appeal costs come out as far larger than the actual sentencing ($1m vs. $350t in one study).

The specially added due process criteria increase the appeals length and the court costs. And death sentence costs there include not only the final sentence, but keeping people for 10+ years average in deathrow, that's why the cost is even comparable, otherwise it would be completely insignificant compared to the court costs.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[toriver]

If the Government taxes you by mistake, it can give you back the money.

If it kill you by mistake - well, you get the picture I hope.

Re:The death penalty is designed to prevent

[Myopic]

Oh, okay, great so you do recognize the government has the prerogative to do things that normal individuals do not. Thanks. I accept your apology. Have a good one. I don't have any problem with opponents of the death penalty, by the way, and I would be fine if it were abandoned. So we don't need to argue about that.

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[delinear]

It's not even extortion, it's marketing. They want to keep this in the news. Even if the news is "these idiots are suing the wrong people" they don't care, because enough of the "right" people will hear about it, and the "wrong" ones might still put pressure on their friends and relatives. They essentially want to make sharing an activity that society shuns, and they don't care who they have to harm to do it - even these stories probably help their cause, so long as they don't suffer any real repercussions for their actions.

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[SuricouRaven]

It is about piracy. The idea is to scare people into not pirating.

Re:in forgiving mood I see...

[shentino]

Exactly why I'll settle for the strongest remedy that remains legal.

Knowingly sending frivolous legal threats is a serious offense.

Not really true

[phorm]

It might be a closer concept to say that "a lawyer is good when he/she shares (and practices) your ideals"

There are plenty of people who have a lawyer "on their side" yet are still not exactly enamoured with them, especially those who have no choice but to pay for their own ridiculous attorney fees in order to avoid even more ridiculous costs of losing a case.

But, there ARE lawyers with a conscience. My own dealings with that particular profession have been - thankfully - rather limited, but I've met both sides. Both had fairly steep rates. One had actually send for me a notice to an insurance company, which - when they played fairly and I decided to try for a settlement without nailing them with a lawyer - he actually declined to accept payment for.

It's the same for lawyers, cops, and even IT "professionals." There are those that are out to do good in the world, and there are those that are out to do good for themselves. Unfortunately for the good lawyers, the bad ones are one of the most highly visible and widely reaching professions out there...

Re:Ahem...

[pjt33]

Don't worry, Arthur Lemming will save the day.

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[cpghost]

It is about piracy. The idea is to scare people into not pirating.

Or isn't the idea rather to educate people to get smarter and not be caught (i.e. to use more obfuscation methods)?

not any more

[fireylord]

Tory Dave and his buddies in the ConDem national coalition have decided to screw over the poor by axing legal aid in the vast majority of cases

Should never have got this far but...

[jamlam]

This is actually a good result. Having worked at a UK solicitors (IANAL, I was in IT, this is Slashdot after all...) I know that pretty much the only thing they are scared of is the SRA. Every practising legal firm in the UK requires a license from these guys, no license = no firm, and hopefully this is what will result here.

Uh, what makes they waited?

[crovira]

The sad fact is that Bakunin was right.

To paraphrase: "Any government, no matter how benign it may currently be, is fundamentally criminal."

From Hitler, who went after anyone perceived as "other," to Franco, to Lenin, Stalin, Mao Ze Dong, Pol Pot and Senior General Than Shwe, the list does go on and on, all governments USE an official secrets act to cover up their own sins rather than to protect their own citizenry.

Because...

[backganon]

They're horny basterds.

Each year in prison costs us $50,000

[crovira]

How is that cheaper than the Chinese expenditure of a bullet to the back of the head?

If you want to save money and cut down on recidivism the Chinese have the right idea.

Personally, I'd want to keep them around until they die of old age still in prison, but I'm a lot crueler than most people.

Re:Each year in prison costs us $50,000

[Golddess]

Well if you're going to compare US life in prison with Chinese execution, no, it probably isn't cheaper. But if you compare US life in prison with US execution, life in prison is cheaper because of all the red tape that needs to be followed in order to get a death sentence and to follow through with it.

At least that's what I'm told. I have other reasons to oppose the current death penalty (though not the concept, just the implementation).

I think you missed the joke

[rundgong]

First:

My divorce attorney

30 minutes later:

My bankrupcy attorney

Re:Haven't we known this all along?

[toriver]

Sooo... should we start sending speeding tickets to random car owners to discourage speeding?

Re:This whole internet file sharing thing...

[cheekyjohnson]

"and it sends a message to would-be stealers"

Thieves? You can't really steal something by downloading something over the internet, as doing so deprives no one of anything.