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Court Renders $3 Judgment Against Spamhaus
www.sorehands.com writes "Back in 2006, e360Insight and David Linhardt obtained an $11.7M judgment against Spamhaus, an international anti-spam organization. The judgment was subsequently appealed and reduced to $27,002. That judgment was appealed yet again, and the appeals court has now vacated the earlier number and entered a judgment against Spamhaus in the amount of $3. (Yes, three dollars.) As you may recall, e360's oral arguments for the latest appeal were not well received by the court."
The ruling itself is a fairly entertaining diatribe about how e360 shot itself in the foot repeatedly and with enthusiasm throughout the case, and contains gems like this: "By failing to comply with its basic discovery obligations, a party can snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory."
These spammers are the people the ISPs should be going after for eating up bandwidth. How many people actually legitimately "opt-in" for spam? Probably pretty close to 0.
The spammers still won... Sure it's only 3 dollars.. But they still won. Instead of being burned at the stake like they deserve...
How is that justice or a good thing?
If they created a site where people could donate $3 to them, I wonder how many people would contribute?
Ok, I give up, why you?
I'd like to read the RTFA (or the ruling), but why on FSM's green earth do we, in 2011, have, instead of plain easy-to-read text, the image of text, rendered using fancy Javascript interface, using only about 30% of my 1280x800 screen? Where scrolling is "smooth" (i.e. laggy)?
Fuck this stupidity...
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
So even though Spamhaus was able to get the fine down, which is basically a slap in the face to e360 for their inadequate case, the following still happened
1) Spamhaus got a judgement against them
2) They had to pay an attorney to fight this for so long only to still receive a guilty verdict (yeah I know they didn't defend themselves at first)
3) They probably have to pay e360 attorney fees since they lost.
So again, the lawyers win. Everyone else loses. Go Justice System!
I would have awarded them three fiddy. :-)
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I know Spamhaus did not defend themselves initially which led to the guilty verdict for them, but after all of this they: a) Spent lots of money defending the allegations b) Got a judgement AGAINST them even though e360's case was flawed and got the smackdown by the court. c) Might/probably will have to pay e360's attorney fees. So the Lawyers win again. Everyone else loses. Rock on!
The initial victory in 2006 was in part due to the inability of the courts to grasp exactly what companies like 360 do for a living, and even less of an understanding how much they earn from their misdeeds. Everyone has a right to make cash, but to blame your entire shoddy organization's profits on a non-profits attempts to filter out noise is ludicrous to begin with and naive at best. Roll forward to 7 years since the suit was filed and you have a court that's at least partially educated and in some further sense, biased against spam operations. Cheers to Spamhaus for putting up the funds so the rest of us can enjoy a normal life.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The real question I see is why is Spamhaus accountable for their losses at all. They are effectively a boycott list of ip's that provide spam e-mails. Is a website that says to boycott Disney and all it's subsidiarity responsible for Disney s losses? Nope. So why is Spamhaus?
If the e360 beancounters are as inapt as their lawyers, they might cash it in and hence by willful act accept the judgment (well, at least if the US system works similar to what I'm used to).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I will actually turn all those things down in order to be not advertised to. The ringtones, mp3s, porn, or free food would probably count as advertisements themselves anyway. They'll give you burger buns and tell you to get their burger meat or condiments. They'll give you a ringtone that advertises a new album. They'll give you an MP3 of the new manufactured band they're trying to promote, and that single will already be played every 20 minutes on the radio anyway. The porn is already free, but the porn they give you will have watermarks that encourage you to go to their site for more.
The defendant made legal errors regarding personal jurisdiction, thus losing their opportunity to get the case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction AND their opportunity to argue the merits.
The plaintiff made legal errors regarding discovery, thus losing their opportunity to recover damages.
The trial judge made legal errors that twice resulted in the verdict being overturned.
In the end, the case was decided without any actual evidence on the merits being admitted.
Justice!
http://xkcd.com/756//
Spam is UNSOLICITED!
If people signed up for it, then it is not spam.
Fight Spammers!
That's disturbing. "By failing to comply with its basic discovery obligations, a party can snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory." That quote says that the judge thinks the core of the case had merit. So we can expect more spammers suing spamfighters, being smarter in court and winning.
I am an attorney, but this is not legal advice, and does not apply to your situation. If you want advice, pay my retainer.
Generally, responding at all confers jurisdiction, even if there was none to start with.
According to the opinion, spamhaus responded, and then changed it's mind.
Under traditional rules, all that could be done was contest jurisdiction, and any other act consented to jurisdiction (my civil procedure prof actually suggested using a letter rather than regular pleadings for good measure).
Under modern federal rules, and in most states, everything Canberra done at once--BUT you must deny Judie it croon in every pleading, or else.
hawk, Esq.
What I don't understand is how this is a "win". Yes, the court slapped SH on the wrist, but they still ruled against them. No beneficial precedent is set that I can see.
In this case the ruling clearly states that BOTH parties appealed the damages ruling. Spamhaus because they contended that the damages were for gross income not net income and e360 because the damages were too small. Who was at fault had already been determined and was not an issue.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
What I don't understand is how this is a "win". Yes, the court slapped SH on the wrist, but they still ruled against them. No beneficial precedent is set that I can see.
Precedent? In a civil suit? Stare Decisis is not operative in a civil suit, for good reason. Be illuminated.
Stare Decisis most definitely applies in civil cases. I think where you are getting confused, is the line that says:
The US is not a "civil law jurisdiction" -- it is a common law jurisdiction having derived its legal heritage from England. In contrast, France was (probably still is) a civil law jurisdiction and as I understand it, Louisiana is a civil law jurisdiction because of the substantial French history there (I could be wrong that it still is -- Quebec may also have a similar legal-system history).
Anyway, without a doubt, civil cases can be precedent. Of course, a trial court decision is not precedent as the term is usually thought of (it can be persuasive precedent, meaning other courts can follow it if they want to, or not follow it if they don't). So no matter what, this Spamhaus decision is not precedential in the usual sense, i.e., when people say "precedent" what they usually mean is mandatory precedent, meaning all courts below the deciding court must follow it. The most mandatory would be the US Supreme court decisions. As between two courts of appeals, the decision in one would be merely persuasive precedent in another court of appeals at the same level but in a different jurisdiction. The key is to think about the levels -- equivalent levels can decide the same issues differently if they want to. Precedent (mandatory) only applies to those courts below the deciding court. Nothing is below a trial court.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You're confusing a Civil Law regime with a Civil Suit. Precedent does indeed matter in civil matters. After all, Sony v. Universal (the betamax case) was a civil suit that made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The thing that means that there's no precedent is that Spamhaus didn't defend the complaint -- e360 won by default.
oops, now that I've gotten around to looking at the PDF of the decision, I see it is a Court of Appeals decision so it is precedential in 7th Circuit.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
In the original trial, Spamhaus skipped defending themselves in court and the original court entered a default judgement. Non-appellate courts, even with non-default judgments, don't make precedent.
This appeals process was not based on the existence of the award but on the amount of it.
A US judge trying to impose US law outside his jurisdiction and in another sovereign state. Nothing illegal about Spamhaus operations especially in Europe. Interestingly, in the UK there is an old law which puts that judge (and possibly the plaintiff's lawyers) at risk of jail time should they ever set foot on UK territory. Serve 'em right methinks.