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USCG Sues Copyright Defense Lawyer
ESRB writes "The US Copyright Group has sued Graham Syfert, an attorney who created a packet of self-representation paperwork for individuals sued for P2P sharing of certain movies and moved to have sanctions placed against the defense attorney. Syfert sells these packets for $20, and the USCG claims the 19 individuals who have used it have cost them over $5000."
So, according to these USCG clowns, providing a working defence to the opposition is illegal?
Yes, because it threatens their business model of threatening to sue people even if they have no intention to ever do so. All the USCG wants is for the people it sends a threatening letter to pay up $2,500. Negotiating a settlement or heavens forbid an actual court case would drive up their lawyer costs and make their business model unprofitable. Hence them trying to take out this 'threat'. Of course, they're trying to take on a real attorney, not some Joe Shmuck without a clue about legal proceedings.
*settles back with some popcorn*
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
When the law is outlawed, only the criminals will know the law.
Wait, what?
So... they think defending yourself is against the law now, or something? Or informing other people on how to defend themselves?
That's right. This is a religious battle. Therefore, it's not a matter of conflicting interests or disagreement or dispute. Nope, it transcends all of that. Clearly anything that interferes with their sacred agenda is EVIL! It is their holy crusade, and probably the only purpose in their sad little lives.
Just a drop in a big, heavy, overflowing bucket of reasons why I refuse to purchase RIAA/MPAA entertainment. I'd consider it, if it didn't go to fund pathological bullshit like this. And if all current management were rendered jobless and penniless and all draconian copyright laws repealed, with the addition of penalties for the lobbies and politicians who pushed for them. Since that's not likely to happen due to this aversion towards justice that's currently all the rage, my purchasing decisions are rendered easier.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
USCG Sues Copyright Defense Lawyer
Am I the only one who read that headline and wondered why the United States Coast Guard was getting involved in copyright lawsuits?
~Idarubicin
Filing a suit against an attorney who is informing citizens of their Constitutional rights? Absolutely ridiculous. The attorney who filed this suit should be disbarred.
he should be sued. Instead of this thorn-in-my-side bloke being known to a handful of people, he now has the publicity to level up to a bloody damn nuisance. 14000 more xp and he'll level up to a rebel.
But seriously, you'd think that as much as the Streisand effect has come up recently (like once a month), certain organizations would take heed and just roll with the punches. But that would involve, you know, using common sense.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
...please explain. There is absolutely no way that this is actually what it looks like on the surface, its just way to ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure it involves a form of serfdom...
Their legal team and/or cases sucked so much that they got their asses handed to them by untrained defendants using boilerplate this guy wrote.
So now they want to sue him directly, after he already owned them by proxy, with a case that seems even more hilariously unjustified. What are they going to pin on him? Selling standard legal advice?
Yeah, good luck.
You point out the truthfulness of the situation. Let's look at the business model.
A) we have a LAWYER that has some courage and wants to defend people at a reasonable rate with a self help package provided in a PDF which is down-loadable.
a1) it targets a very specific business model ( USCG bulk lawsuits )
a2) the amount of USCG lawsuits is X
a3) he should be able to convert 3% to 8% of the lawsuits after some reasonable testing.
a4) so the amount of work he put into it might have been 60 hours ( 60 * $125 ) = nill, he was having a beer every time and relaxing doing it.
the best thing that ever happened is that he got sued by these people, now everyone knows about him.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Nah, I don't think they're anywhere near that emotionally invested. Remember, we're talking about the lawyers here, not the RIAA/MPAA themselves. For the lawyers, all they're probably interested in is the money. They're not pissed off because it gets in the way of their "holy crusade" because, the truth is, they'll probably still win most of these cases in the end. What they're so pissed off about is that he threw a wrench in their get rich quick scheme. Instead of being able to bully people into paying $2500 a pop with very little bill-able lawyer time, now they'll have to file their claims in a huge number of different courts across the country and will, likely, have to actually fight some of the cases. With all that interference, they might not be able to make the huge profit they were drooling over initially.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
The free advertising is great. That good old web.
Sadly, the litigation from USCG is going to cost him, so that $20/copy will hopefully cover his own costs, but I doubt it. USCG has every reason to press him as hard as they can, although I would hope that a decent judge would throw out the suit with prejudice. Sadly, that's unlikely to happen.
The free advertising exacerbates the problem as each of the other USCG litigants now has a $20 defense package available to them. Would USCG find an insane jury (possible, if it gets to trial) and some theory of law that multiplies the damages, then our courageous lawyer gets a multiplier to the damages for each $20 defense package sold.
The whole thing is fucking insane.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Yeah, I don't understand either.
The guy's a lawyer. He can sell legal services if he wants, for whatever amount he wants. Copyright law is Federal, so assuming he's able to appear in Federal court, he can give advice for things in those courts.
And the fact it's pre-packaged doesn't change things....pre-packages legal services with set fees happen all the time. It's how people do wills and stuff. You pay $50, you get a form to fill out, they provide two witnesses and keep a copy. Lawyers don't have to charge by the hour.
I'm a little baffled as to what he could be sued for.
His clients could sue him for all sorts of stuff if his advice was bad, and he could be arrested by the government if his advice was illegal (Which is not likely.), but I can't comprehend how some other legal consul can sue him for giving legal advice.
It seems a little bit idiotic our system is setup where people have to buy this, instead of the court handing it out for free, but $20 is pretty reasonable if they're actually useful.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"Sadly, the litigation from USCG is going to cost him"
Not one damned dime. It should take a matter of mere MINUTES to prove USCG's vexatious litigation and put an end to their business model permanently.
USCG's lawyers better backpedal quick before they get precedent set that cripples their business model.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The original duration of copyright in the USA was twelve years, at which point the work became public domain. This was back when movable type was the most efficient way to distribute copies of something. Now that we can distribute works far more efficiently, to reach a much larger audience, at a much lower expense, has that original twelve-year duration been reduced to reflect the advancement of the state-of-the-art? No, it hasn't. Instead, it's been increased to a maximum of 120 years.
Copyright is not a free gift granted to authors and artists. It's an exchange. It provides a temporary government-granted monopoly over a work -- that's the copyright holder's benefit. After a length of time, that monopoly expires and the work enriches the public domain -- that's society's benefit. Those two benefits are supposed to have a reasonable balance.
There is no longer even an attempt to create the appearance of a balance. The major copyright holders today want perpetual copyright and they nearly have it. They have collectively said "thank you USA Public for sponsoring our government-backed monopoly, that was mighty nice of you, but we don't really want to honor our half of this bargain so we refuse to ever give anything back to you." They are the very "thieves" they accuse copyright infringers of being.
Can you see why large numbers of people have lost respect for copyright law? There is a reason why "it's what the law says" fails to convince so many people. It's no wonder the lobbies keep pushing for harsher and more draconian enforcement of copyright. It's quite difficult to get millions of people to obey a law that has lost all respectability and completely destroyed any noble or useful purpose it once had.
If you actually want people to feel like they're doing something wrong when they download a movie, restore the balance and purpose that copyright law once represented. Otherwise, they're going to feel like they're retaliating against corporations that are screwing them over. Until that changes, the release date of the work is a distant secondary concern. As long as copyright is perpetually extended, it's also irrelevant.
While they may or may not agree with it, a wise person understands that. The lobbies and interests don't. They have a singleminded mentality that is very much like that of a religious zealot. I think their motto would be "laws we buy are like violence; if they don't work, use more". That's why they aren't trying to restore balance and respectability to copyright. Instead, they want more people to suffer more severely for breaking a law that is not respectable.
So yeah, a lot of people are breaking this law. You point that out but don't seem to appreciate why that might be. If anyone wants to fix it, what's happening now is the wrong approach. The way this is being handled risks eroding the respectability of not just copyright law, but law itself as an institution. How do you believe in concepts like the rule of law or the legitimacy of government when you can plainly see that a few powerful interests can bend both to their will?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Now with that out of the way, let's not forget that most, if not all, of the people being sued are, in fact, breaking the law.
First off, the "evidence" is pretty thin, and even the lawyers involved have admitted that they know that many of the people sent the settlement letters had not infringed copyright. So, no, you can't say "most" of those getting letters are infringing copyright.
Second, there are many possibilities where downloading a movie is not copyright infringement. As an example, I downloaded a copy of a movie because my just-purchased DVD was defective, and was the last one in the store. Sure, I could have dealt with trying to return an opened movie for store credit (which, I must note, is caused by the fact that the MPAA does not in any way stand behind the products they sell), but instead I just downloaded. Technically infringing, sure, but I'd love to see cases like it go to court. Heck, if you want to bankrupt the MPAA and RIAA, everyone should set up a torrent client and download every movie and music track they have already paid for.
Your numbers are sligthly off -- check em up, using wrong numbers risk offtracking the discussion, which would be a pity because your general point is very much valid.
There's 2 more reasons people have lost respect for copyright. One is that copying is today frequently a *private* act. It's one thing to ban copying of books and music, at a time when really, only people owning printing-presses are practically capable of copying a book anyway. The general public isn't giving up much, because giving up the right to do something you cannot practically do anyway, is a small sacrifice.
Today, however, giving your sister/friend/boyfriend/grandmother a copy of a song you like, is a trivial, routine, straigthforward act. Thus today the same rule directly interferes with peoples private lives. Some jurisdictions (Norway where I live for example) has recognized this as bollocks, and have made specific exceptions. Limited copying for private use is not a copyright-violation here. ("limited" is somewhat fuzzy offcourse, but a low number for close friends/relatives would certainly qualify)
That's one.
The second is that I am regularily being lied to. I dislike being lied to. I do not tend to respect people who regularily lie to me.
I respect it even less when the reason they're lying, is because they HOPE that I will believe it, essentially they're trying to trick me into believing I've got less rights than I do.
When a new DVD says "Any use outside the private home is illegal", that's a lie. When software claims I need a /license/ to run it, that's a lie. (in my jurisdiction it is!) When a game claims that lending or resale is illegal, that's a blatant lie - I break no law whatsoever by letting a friend borrow a game.
If someone wants my respect. Lying to me, is not a good first move.