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Pro Bono Lawyer Fights C&D With Humor
Zordak writes "When Jake Freivald received a questionable Cease and Desist letter from a big-firm attorney, demanding that he immediately relinquish rights to his website http://westorage.info, his pro-bono lawyer decided to treat the letter like the joke that it was. In a three-page missive, the lawyer points out the legal, constitutional, and ethical problems with the letter that led him to conclude that the letter was a joke. He concludes, in a postscript, with an unsubstantiated demand for $28,000 in overpaid property taxes, and offers to lease the city the domain name 'westorange.gov' in exchange."
It's westorange.info, not westorage.info. The editing is ridiculous.
an appropriate response to an asshat. Not living un the US I have no opinion or idea how this will be received, but a good story nevertheless.
The county lawyer has a typo on his bio page about his latest work
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence if his underlings can't even spell check.
Why bother the appropriate response is:
------------
Re: Cease and Desist Order
No.
Regards
xxxx
They wouldn't feel nearly as stupid without biting sarcasm...biting them.
Why bother the appropriate response is:
No.
I would have used two words, but, hey, that's just me.
No sig today...
"No, sir."?
Considering they seriously sent this C&D letter, chances of them understanding sarcasm are slim to none. Simply put, you can't bite coprolite.
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
I would have used
"I refer you to the reply in arkell vs. pressdram"
You can if you're a coprophage, which is most people's opinion of lawyers...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Kind regards?
Junk filter.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Ah, one of those overachieving types putting forward twice the effort, are we?
... and fight fire with fire, both legal vs legal and humour vs humour.
A wonderful response. Points to the Pro Bono lawyer Mr Kaplitt.
The world needs more like him.
Letter to Warner Brothers: A Night in Casablanca
Groucho Marx
Abstract: While preparing to film a movie entitled A Night in Casablanca, the Marx brothers received a letter from Warner Bros. threatening legal action if they did not change the film’s title. Warner Bros. deemed the film’s title too similar to their own Casablanca, released almost five years earlier in 1942, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In response Groucho Marx dispatched the following letter to the studio’s legal department:
Dear Warner Brothers,
Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.
It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.
I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.
You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor’s eye, and even before there had been other brothers—the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (This was originally “Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?” but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one, and whittled it down to “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”)
Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well it’s not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks—Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.
As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. I can think of two Harrys that preceded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn’t too well-known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.
Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such confused and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.
This is pure conjecture, of course, but who knows—perhaps Burbank’s survivors aren’t too happy with the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures on a quota settled in their town, appropriated Burbank’s name and uses it as a front for their films. It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that your studio emerged “Casablanca” or even “Gold Diggers of 1931.
There's more going on here than a city semi-reasonably fighting a domain squatter.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
This letter is a fine piece of legal writing. The only other bits of legal writing I've seen during my legal research when I went to court "in pro per" (that's Legalese for "I did it by myself") over a trifling First Amendment issue that were as funny were a couple of SCOTUS opinions written by the two acknowledged legal hacks of the court, Scalia and Thomas. The original of Scalia's was written in blood; Thomas' original was written in crayon.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Or a crypto-Phalangist.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I find it ironic curious visitors are doing what the West Orange County failed to do.
You Mr. Kaplitt, just made my day better :)
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward."
Yup, found plenty of dirt here, no idea how true all this is but it seems to be some bad blood involved.
It does seem unusual that the town council is messing around with their own PR committee.
Plus, Freivald is/was pretty active politically so that might be where he ruffled some feathers.
Hell no! is two words.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Disagree. The correct response is:
With regards to your recent letter, we refer you to the reply given in the case Arkell v. Pressdram.
so does that make me "Anti-Bono"?
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
"Fuck no" is two better words under the cirsumstances.
Hell, no.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Secret... fingerer?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I imagine that's why he also sent an 'example' response to a serious letter.
The second word would be "off"; the first left to the imagination.
Even stupider, when they realize their efforts are being paraded for the amusement of thousands on the internet.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
How politically correct of you not to say shit-eating-corpse-screwing-thief-of-orphans-candy-shyster.
That's not only legal but actually a job description? Wow, the times sure are a'changing!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Paging Mrs. Streisand for effect...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do they have to be kind? I'd give them something in kind, but it sure as hell would not be kind. At best, it would be "kindisch". Ahh, the wonders of how German and English often use the same word for very different meanings...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
“I'm seated in the smallest room in the house. Your letter is before me. Soon it will be behind me.” — Voltaire
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
As someone that's just had to write a long missive to my old car insurance company, I have to wonder why such things are even allowed to get that far without someone stepping in and saying "Hold on, that's just going to cause trouble". In legal cases, there should surely be some penalty for a false representation such as the C&D letter.
My own frustration stemmed from the fact that my insurance company changed something on my policy that I agreed to. Then the next thing I know, they've cancelled the policy because I didn't pay the difference for the change. News to me, given that I actually had two letters that said my next regular payment had been adjusted accordingly for EXACTLY that payment, and that I didn't need to do anything.
It was also quite interesting in that the envelope that the notice of cancellation was received in only arrived on my doorstep the DAY AFTER the insurance was cancelled. Pretty sure that no matter what you do there, I have a came for "untimely service" or some such.
None of that matters, though, as I can prove it all if required. What really annoyed me was the letter demanding the missing payment (the one that you didn't ask for, that you told me would be taken from my regular payments, and that you cancelled the contract - I would assert illegally - before that payment ever came due?) with threat of court action.
Needless to say my reply was significantly less polite, and less humorous than this, but probably contained a lot more legalese. I'm waiting for the 60-day offer I gave them to resolve the situation (which includes £100 payment back to myself because - even if we take that debt as valid - they incurred costs for myself by cancelling the contract illegally and in an untimely manner) before I do anything else. I think that's pretty reasonable, personally, given that I had already assumed the matter was settled without either side paying the other. My next step will be to claim for the lost day at work that it cost me, though, and that's when it gets so expensive I'm hoping they have the brains to not force me to employ the services of a lawyer or the courts to get that from them.
I did once write one of my suppliers a song, though. They'd taken forever to supply the school I worked for with a Microsoft licence, and I was literally seconds away from cancelling the order after much messing about (which, apparently, including Microsoft manually typing in my email address and not being able to spell "administrator", which is worrying in so many ways).
The school were in the middle of being closed because of the snow at the time, which gave me time to write it, and it felt quite Christmassy being in a school in the snow, so it's to the tune of "The Night Before Christmas":
-------
'Twas the week after purchase and all through the school,
Not a computer was stirring, not even a "machine, virtual".
The machines were hung on blue screens in their lair,
In the hopes that new Windows soon would be there,
The children nestled all snug in their homes,
While snow-days were debated and staff manned the phones,
And hoped that everyone were all travelling well,
While wishing that Microsoft had at last learned to spell.
When out in the ICT suite there arose such a clatter,
And all came running to see what was the matter.
'Twas the IT Manager with eyes full of wrath,
Melting down old Windows disks to de-ice the path.
"Don't worry," he cried as he stoked up the flames,
"A Linux disk I have, and some educational games."
Needless to say, my licence was sorted within the hour.
I think this is the ideal case to reply using "mille sabords".
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
I wonder if the pro bono lawyer was alluding to something in the final paragraph. Like for example, the hired gun lawyer was representing someone other than the city/municipality?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Left-to-the-imagination off?
That doesn't make much sense.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I think he was doing great until the last P.P.S., when he casually suggested that he could buy westorange.gov, and then sell or license it to the city for over $28,000. If the city ever decided to go through ICANN arbitration, the impression of domain squatting specifically for commercial profit with no evidence of personal use isn't looked on favorably. Considering that the rest of the letter was satire, surely this paragraph is too. But it would be easier not to have to convince an arbitration judge of that fact.
I would have directed the lawyer to the response given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Ah, in which case you're referring him to the answer given in Arkell v. Pressdram.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
...to kill all the lawyers, I think we should make an exception for Mr, Kaplitt.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
While legally correct, the short response does not provide anything for the public good, while the long response provided me with a few good laughs, which is definitelty good.
The second word would be "off"; the first left to the imagination.
No.... off?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
No, "anti-Bono" means you oppose the unbounded extension of the copyright term.
Amusing, but still not as awesome as Jack Daniel's overly polite C&D letter.
No it isn't. It shows you can't use your brain to think of anything original, cleaver and/or meaningful.
It means you aren't thinking.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would have simply sent back a Dr Zoidberg meme photo of him saying "your C&D is bad and you should feel bad." That would certainly imply how seriously I was taking it. In fact, I'd print it on our low quality color inkjet too instead of our nice laser one.
Raise your hand if you just went to your favorite domain registrar and tried to get westorange.org, com, net, etc.
*raises*
(btw, westorange.xxx is available, but that's a bit much for me for just a prank)
As a general rule of thumb, it is not a wise idea to piss off or humiliate people in positions of power (even if they are petty positions like a local board). Remember that the political class has a different moral nature than the rest of us (apparently). They get to use the guns of the state to do whatever they want, including levy taxes, arrest those who they portray as dissidents, and generally harass the citizenry when they get uppity (as seen here). I can't help but think that this will backfire on this lawyer in terrible, unseen ways.
Can someone post the content of the gawker site letter? blocked by corp firewall....
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
There are two types of people you should never piss off if you can help it, and that's both security specialists and lawyers with a sense of humor.
The humorless types are boring, and will follow process. The once with a sense of humor are wholly unpredictable and can throw you a curve ball just for the fun of it. That's why having a lawyer on YOUR side with a sense of humor is worth it.
This letter would put this guy in my "preferred" list if I lived near that area.
lost badly. I should sue the lawyer for conflict of interest.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Or possibly fimicolous.
I can see the fnords!
it's like a stilleto between the ribs at your expense. were you get billed for both the hit and the knife
He's using lawyer-speak - you're not supposed to understand...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
at all is TOTALLY WRONG! The law on this matter should be that the first person that registers a domain name owns it forever if they so choose, and NO ONE can even try to take it away for any reason!
I disagree. Swearing isn't because you couldn't come up with something clever or meaningful. This is just something people say that don't like swearing, and want to have an "I'm rubber you're glue" response to being insulted. Swearing can be concise and to the point. Maybe you don't care to explain yourself further, or waste extra breath on someone or something. Maybe the person you are talking to parses your words and comes up with different meanings to what you actually meant. Maybe, just maybe they abhore swearing and you want the shock value.
"Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin." --Teddy Roosevelt
Because even a pro bono lawyer is conditioned though years of legal practice to make things longer than they need to be in order to inflate the billable hours.
I need to use that more :3 (if i had mod points, i would)