Dozens of Suspicious Court Cases Aim At Getting Web Pages Taken Down Or Deindexed (washingtonpost.com)

schwit1 quotes a report written by Eugene Volokh via Washington Post: There are about 25 court cases throughout the country that have a suspicious profile:

• All involve allegedly self-represented plaintiffs, yet they have similar snippets of legalese that suggest a common organization behind them. (A few others, having a slightly different profile, involve actual lawyers.)
• All the ostensible defendants ostensibly agreed to injunctions being issued against them, which often leads to a very quick court order (in some cases, less than a week).
• Of these 25-odd cases, 15 give the addresses of the defendants -- but a private investigator (Giles Miller of Lynx Insights and Investigations) couldn't find a single one of the ostensible defendants at the ostensible address.

Now, you might ask, what's the point of suing a fake defendant (to the extent that some of these defendants are indeed fake)? How can anyone get any real money from a fake defendant? How can anyone order a fake defendant to obey a real injunction? The answer is that Google and various other Internet platforms have a policy: They won't take down material (or, in Google's case, remove it from Google indexes) just because someone says it's defamatory. Understandable -- why would these companies want to adjudicate such factual disputes? But if they see a court order that declares that some material is defamatory, they tend to take down or deindex the material, relying on the court's decision. Yet the trouble is that these Internet platforms can't really know if the injunction was issued against the actual author of the supposed defamation -- or against a real person at all.

Comments

Re:What's your point?

[overnight_failure]

Because it's easy to win if the defendant admits it is? Presumably then establishing a precedent that Google would then follow without doing their own determination because they are relying on the rule of law (i.e. the court's decision).

Or maybe this just proves that

[Black Parrot]

our universe is a simulation, and the just-in-time content creation algorithm is buggy.

simple solution

[nimbius]

online "reputation protection" firms that guarantee their ability to take down negative reviews and content were pretty lucrative 10 years ago, until hosting companies started pushing back against what was widely understood to be strong arm tactics designed to silence dissent. hosting companies began requiring a legal order. for content, they had the DMCA. for negative reviews, reputation protection firms quietly took ghosts to court hoping no one would notice, and with good reason. frankly its easy to get a contempt charge in court for pulling this sort of stunt.

Kudos to Giles for exposing this practice. now lets hope Yelp and others are keen to push back against what is clearly an abuse of the courts.

Silly humans

[BigBuckHunter]

~15% of all humans will willingly abuse their position, violate laws, break rules, etc, for their own benefit. Judges, cops, lawyers, BLM, fast food workers, auto workers, toll booth operators, priests, tax collectors... The group is quite arbitrary. Does anyone have suggestions on how to deal with this portion of the population that doesn't simply recreate the problem? For example, exterminating them will simply create a new ~15%.

Re:Silly humans

[Anonymous Coward]

~15% of all humans will willingly abuse their position, violate laws, break rules, etc, for their own benefit.

Do you have a link to that study? I'm wondering because I would guess the value is much higher than that. But it could also be lower. So I try my best not to simply pull number out of my ass whenever commenting online.

Re:Silly humans

[Oswald McWeany]

I'm also sure it depends on what laws are being broken and the reward for breaking it. I'm sure much less than 15% would be willing to kill a man if the reward were a circus-peanut. I'm sure much more than 15% would be willing to break the speed limit delivering a package if the reward were a $1000 bonus.

Re:Silly humans

[Holi]

Got any support for that number you seem to have pulled out of your ass.

Re: Silly humans

[bestweasel]

Laws, oversight and openness.

The group is a quite arbitrary list of jobs but what's BLM doing there?

Re:Silly humans

[mrchaotica]

I think "legal" and "ethical" are being conflated here. I get the impression that the OP was talking about sociopaths acting unethically, not about people in general acting illegally (which requires evaluation of the law as well as the person breaking it).

In other words, I think the difference between murdering someone for a peanut and speeding for $1000 is not due the difference between the penalties and rewards, but rather due to the fact that murder is unethical and speeding (considered abstractly) is not.

Re:Silly humans

[Pinky's Brain]

Homogeneity of population and disallowance of secret societies.

Simply having no organized group with a cultural justification for treating out-groups within a nation as people which can be "morally" scammed helps a lot.

Immoral people will still collude, but they won't get a ready made culture and structure for collusion ready at birth and taught to them while growing up.

Re:Silly humans

[Archangel Michael]

Speeding is not typically a criminal activity. It has its own classification. Because it is "other than criminal" activity, it typically does not show up on a Criminal record as a crime. Murder, is a crime and a felony. Shoplifting is a minor crime, and is more akin to something that would have made a better comparison, because stealing, even something small, many (most??) people wouldn't do, even if the reward was substantial. Unless there is a riot going on nearby.

Re:Silly humans

[pnutjam]

Hey, you don't know how educated his ass is.

Re:Silly humans

[BigBuckHunter]

Will try to find it. IIRC, It was released shortly after the "Stanford Prison Experiment" when everyone was cashing in on the fed funding for behavioral sciences. The crux was that 15% of humans will willingly abuse any power you give them, 15% will always do right, and 70% will go along with whatever their superiors and/or peers are doing.

Re: Silly humans

[BigBuckHunter]

Laws, oversight and openness.

The group is a quite arbitrary list of jobs but what's BLM doing there?

Any population. I simply felt that references to the Free Masons, DARE, Boy Scouts, or Lions Club would fall on young deaf ears. When you see BLM on the news, you usually are confronted with the 15% I'm talking about. When you see cops on the news, you're usually seeing the 15%. When you see debt collectors on the news, you're seeing the 15%.

Re:Silly humans

[parkinglot777]

Speeding is not typically a criminal activity.

That's because it depends on how and where, in the U.S., you got the ticket from (1st paragraph of United States section). It could be a criminal activity in Arizona state...

Re:Silly humans

[MooseTick]

"because stealing, even something small, many (most??) people wouldn't do"

I'd argue if I offered the average person a million dollars to steal a pen from someone, they would do it. Or better yet, a million for something not as small like a mailbox. They may say they would buy their victim a new mailbox after they were paid, but they would be stealing (taking property that wasn't their without permission) nonetheless.

Re:Silly humans

[Opportunist]

Legality is objective, morality subjective. People will always heed their morals (their real ones, not the fake bullshit they put up for show for the other idiots to show off what "morally integer" person they are), whether they heed laws depends on the old "reward vs risk*punishment".

Re:Silly humans

[AmiMoJo]

The only thing you can do is try to reduce the 15% to some lower proportion through early intervention (i.e. at school) and by creating a fairer society where there is less incentive to cheat and more to work within the system.

The former can be difficult because some people don't want schools to teach morality or right and wrong, they prefer to use their own definition (often based on religion as it happens). The latter is difficult because people with power tend to oppose things that make it easier for others to also get power or increase their costs (i.e. wages).

Re: Silly humans

[mink]

With the Bundy thing earlier this year I am never sure if people are talking about Black Lives Matter or Bureau of Land Management unless the context is quite clear.

Re:Silly humans

[unrtst]

85% of all statistics are made up. I don't know why you'd expect a link to such a well known figure, but here ya go: http://tinyurl.com/YasdzxID

Re:Silly humans

[Mashiki]

Do you have a link to that study? I'm wondering because I would guess the value is much higher than that. But it could also be lower. So I try my best not to simply pull number out of my ass whenever commenting online.

Lot of studies on it, sometimes it's higher sometimes lower. There's another rule that's used in policing and with internal theft investigators called the 30/40/30 rule when dealing with internal theft. 30% of people will steal no matter what, 40% will steal if no one is watching and they're sure they'll be able to get away with it. 30% will never steal even if they're starving. The percentages vary, usually between 5-15% again depending on the study. Most police forces/services and private security that deal only with internal theft have their own policy book on this as well. It's also been covered in every criminology textbook I've ever read.

People by nature are covetous creatures, it's the small number who will never steal, and those who are put off from stealing by basic deterent methods that you want to hire for example. If you want to have some fun, make buddies with the security or management at your nearest big box store. Then start asking them about their internal theft(employees) vs external theft(customers) numbers. In I'd say 80% of the cases were I've been able to find out, internal theft usually outstrips internal by 10-20:1 in value of items stolen. A buddy of mine operates an internal theft investigative company, at his last contract a employee had stolen nearly $32m worth of merchandise(from sporting goods to TV's to baby formula). The yearly loss from external theft was around $2.2m. Baby formula is one of the biggies though, because it's used to cut street drugs and even being sold at 50% of market value it's a huge earner for people who get their hands on it in large quantities.

Fake *anonymous* defendant

[Anonymous Coward]

Person 'A' posts a comment that is anonymous and damaging again a company or organization. The post is plausible or true enough to carry weight so that it cannot simply be ignored.

Company asks a 'reputation management' company to fix it.

'Reputation management' company sets up a fake company, which sues 'John Doe' in court.

Anonymous 'John Doe' is quickly found, but its their fake agent, in cahoots with the reputation management company. Not the person who really posted the comment.

Fake John Doe, admits it was his comment, admits it was defamation and agrees to withdraw it.

Reputation Management company goes back to court, to settle the case, and get the court to issue a takedown notice.

Google and the ISPs take down the content, because the court has ruled they must.

--------

This is fraud and perjury, and after several of these cases, judges became wise to it. They noticed the companies filing the lawsuits were often setup the same day and it was the same lawyers. Lawyers were sanctioned for suspected complicity.

So now the instant company is discarded and a fake individual is put forward as the person suing. So the setup of the company is no longer obvious to the Judge.

What's happening here is fraud and perjury and its organized, making it organized racketeering. This is for the FBI to investigate.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats wrong with perjury under oath?

In the US you can do that and become president and never be charged. Not seeing what the issue with doing this is.
The FBI probably can't find any reasonable prosecutor that would take this to court anyways.

You may think this is sarcasm, but it is not. I am actually being serious. If the laws are not enforced on some, why would they be on others?

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. Somehow reminds of this Voodoo practice: build a puppet representing your enemy and torture the shit out of it (typically with the help of needles).

Only that in this modern world, this stunt seems to actually *work*. Disgusting.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[Archangel Michael]

Have you watched the Clintons? "I can't recall" would be the best answer, but check with them first.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[DutchUncle]

Heck, you can already BE president and get away with it. That was Republicans, though, so you left that out.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[budgenator]

Bill Clinton perjured himself under oath and was the second US President to be impeached, although he wasn't convicted; that was a big part of why he settled out of court for $850,000 with Paula Jones, in a Sexual harassment/indecent exposure law suit, to avoid having to testify under oath again.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[bigpat]

What's happening here is fraud and perjury and its organized, making it organized racketeering. This is for the FBI to investigate.

And it really undermines the rule of law to have some lawyers conspiring to fundamentally defraud the courts in a systematic way. They are harming third parties right to free speech, probably without those individuals even being aware.

Re:Fake *anonymous* defendant

[david_thornley]

From what I understand, perjury in civil cases is rarely prosecuted. I don't know why, but it seems to me that prosecuting it would be a good idea.

Re:What's your point?

[Kierthos]

Of course, if any of the lawyers (or self-representing plaintiffs) are aware that the defendant is fake, then they are committing perjury. Any lawyer who does this is an absolute dumbass, because courts come down hard on these sorts of shenanigans.

I mean, it's one thing if you or I lie on the stand. It's still perjury, but if we're not lawyers (I'm not), then we aren't officers of the court, and there aren't going to ethics review boards crawling up our asses over this.

Re:What's your point?

[Qzukk]

It has nothing to do with whether or not the content is defamatory, or even if the content is defamatory. It looks like this movie script runs like this:

Plaintiff: "Your honor! I accuse 'Bob' here of defaming me by posting scandalous slurs on his website www.microsoft.com!"

"Defendant": "I admit I run www.microsoft.com and posted horrible things on it, but I refuse to shut down www.microsoft.com!"

Judge: "I hereby order you to shut down www.microsoft.com"

Plaintiff: "Hey google, I have here a court order demanding that www.microsoft.com be shut down. Please kindly stop people from finding this site"

Google: "Well, if it's a court order I don't have to think about it. Request complete."

What a confusing summary

[91degrees]

So it seems that companies are suing fake defendants on the pretext that these defendants are behind critical comments on third party websites. This is in order to get the comments removed from websites.

A summary is supposed to cover a broad overview. Not give the details without context.

Re:What a confusing summary

[AHuxley]

Think of advanced money laundering.
A company get sued in one nation with gov cash flow limits. No way to get cash out the country. Even extended family buying a 10th home, expensive fake education claims don't work anymore.
So create a totally fake law suit.
The boss to pay out huge amounts to another legally advanced safe nation due to damages. Stolen design issues, wasted product run, a contract.
Huge amounts of cash was lost in an open court case in another happy nation with actual rule of law. Expert third party advice in that safe nation was to pay up in full and save the reputation of the brand.
The cash flows out and its all good.
The court finding was real, the contract was fake, the other company was fake, the third party advice was fake. The wronged company is a front set up to get the cash payment out.
The small company wronged in a safe country just fails a short time later and the cash is gone to a few hidden investors.
Why not try the same on the internet? No bespoke production run needed, no design lawyers. Same arranged third party legal advice given to settle quickly and in full.
Totally fake arbitration gets the cash flowing out and the court moves on to the next case.

Re:What's your point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohh okay, so it's just criminal negligence from the bench then?

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[Oswald McWeany]

Surely illegal in some manner or other, but slick nonetheless.

In some manner? You mean perjury? Yes, it is illegal, very illegal and can carry a hefty sentence.

Slick, not so much.

Re:Ostensible

[Big Hairy Ian]

Surely you need more proof that the defendant actually exists than that

Re:Ostensible

[ninthbit]

I doubt it.... You sue fake person, they fail to appear, you win a default judgment. As the article points out, what financial motive is there to gain from suing fake people, you can't recoup the court fees. However, by gaming the system, you now have enough paperwork to scare the third party admins into removing undesirable content.

It's really more of a problem with the 3rd party not verifying that the order applies to the originator of the content.... But what do they care? That would cost money, while just pulling the content is basically free.

So Google cannot tell who's real?

[bobbied]

Don't they trust their own tools?

Wouldn't they just need to Google the name to find out?

Re:Ostensible

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't have any trouble with it. Perhaps the unreadability has more to do with you than with the summary.

Due diligence?

[bradley13]

Surely it is the responsibility of a court would make sure that the parties involved in a lawsuit actually exist?

One court in TFA did so - apparently none of the others bothered. If one cannot hold the court responsible, then surely a criminal complaint against the person who filed the suit (against a non-existent defendant) is justified?

Re:Due diligence?

[fbobraga]

Against the judges involved... the author of the article (and the readers) may do it (several cases might be needed to avoid retaliation...)

Re:Due diligence?

[Holi]

If you filed an Amicus Curiae during the trial you would probably get everyone involved in the case thrown in jail.

Re:Due diligence?

[EndlessNameless]

Surely it is the responsibility of a court would make sure that the parties involved in a lawsuit actually exist?

Civil courts exist to resolve disputes, not to determine facts and sentence offenders.

In this case, the court is presented with a dispute that has been resolved except for the minor detail of deindexing some "defamatory" content---because neither party can perform this action themselves. So the court issues an order to have it done.

While this situation implicitly involves perjury somewhere along the line, the court can still avoid the problem by involving the content host in the proceedings.

In the future, the court could require the host site to be involved in such agreements. This would conceivably lead to the notification of the real author, as the site would presumably contact the user when the suit was filed. In addition, the content can be removed from its original location if it is legitimately illegal.

To do this, the court needs to be technically literate enough to understand where the defamatory statements in question exist. I.e., the Google results will go away if the original host removes them from its site.

Also, the courts must be willing to perform this action for every case of online defamation---it will still be abused in any jurisdiction that does not follow the same procedure.

Re:Due diligence?

[david_thornley]

Probably not jail, but I wouldn't be surprised to find the lawyers sanctioned. The court can't dish out criminal penalties in a civil case.

The really hard part, of course, is knowing that this is going on in time to file a brief.

Re:What's your point?

[meta-monkey]

No. We have an adversarial court system, not an inquisitorial system. The job of the civil court is to settle disputes, not find truth. The dispute is settled, the court did its job. It's not the court's job to determine if the dispute was real or not.

Re:What's your point?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's perjury on the part of the party submitting the suit.

Judges are such Easy-going People

[PMuse]

Maryland : Unauthorized Practice of Law: Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. Code 10-601 to 10-606
Fines and penalties of up to $5000 and 5 years in prison per instance.

Not to mention making intentional misrepresentations to a court (e.g., that a putative defendant existed who didn't, or that said defendant was the author of a post when no one actually believed he was). The contempt of court penalties for that will be a great deal swifter than the company's trial for practicing law without a license. No wonder the putative plaintiffs (clients) have lawyered up so fast and denied authorizing the suits. Judges do not like to be used.

Obviously SJWs running amok

[Anonymous Coward]

Subject says it all. Some abitious SJWs have concocted a scheme to reshape the internet in their own image by bamboozling the legal system into doing their bidding.

Re:Obviously SJWs running amok

[Holi]

I would hardly put the so called "Social Justice Warriors" in the same boat as online reputation defenders. But the fact you even use that term does make me question your intelligence.

Re:Obviously SJWs running amok

[93 Escort Wagon]

Shouldn't you be in junior high school right now? Does your district not have truant officers?

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[Zak3056]

Imagine that the comments were by an anonymous individual (for example, an employee). They really can't challenge this without creating a paper trail that potentially exposes them. For the scumbags using these pretext lawsuits, that's win-win--either the comment stays down, or they smoke out their enemy.

In that context, it is pretty slick. Reprehensible, but slick.

Re:Ostensible

[Big Hairy Ian]

Perjury & Fraud legislation anyone?

Perjury because essentially someone is lying to the court buy submitting fake defendants.

Fraud if they take this judgment which was obtained illegally and use it to get services (read take down that post)

Re:Ostensible

[Pinky's Brain]

They take up court time too, take the lawyers involved for damages and add on a nice order of magnitude multiplier.

Re: So lemme see if I understand this...

[fbobraga]

It's some kind of http://imdb.com/title/tt137566... AD? The movie is old now, you know...

Re:DNS will be next...

[91degrees]

Google has never said "do no evil". Their motto was "don't be evil". Subtle difference.

Re:Ostensible

[fbobraga]

Surely you need more proof that the defendant actually exists than that

They want fries with that!?

Re:What's your point?

[Archangel Michael]

ethics review boards

Lawyers have ethics? Well color me surprised!

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[Qzukk]

I'm curious how this could be challenged anyway? Would the real poster just show up to the proceedings and shout "No! I'm Spartacus!" from the gallery floor? Seems like a quick way to get hauled out by a bailiff. Neither the plaintiff nor the defendant would call you as a witness since that would blow their cover.

Prenda Much?

[twmcneil]

Sounds pretty typical of their behavior.

Go after the lawyers

[Holi]

These are disbarrable actions, the violate the lawyers oath of ethics (funny I know but they have one), go after the lawyers.

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[Holi]

File an Amicus Curiae, this would be one of the things that is for. You don't need permission from either side.

Re:Ostensible

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we do this: Web sites whose function is to let people review products and/or services are totally immune to any type of take downs? Better yet, repeal the entire DMCA, and make it illegal to even propose any stupid laws of this type ever again!

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[Archangel Michael]

Its only illegal if you get caught. There is very little chance(if any at all) of getting caught. Risk is low, reward is high, game the system until it changes.

Re:Ostensible

[DutchUncle]

Hey, the entertainment industry paid good money to get the DMCA in place, and reputable lawmakers STAY bought. The same legislatures that put it in place will not take it away.

Re:What's your point?

[parkinglot777]

Any lawyer who does this is an absolute dumbass, because courts come down hard on these sorts of shenanigans.

I'm not sure how many of those dumbass lawyers are new lawyers who know nothing about the company conspiracy. These new lawyers just want their name to be in the list of "successfully lawsuit" for their resume. They may be told one thing from the company about easy winning law suit without being told the whole story. Experienced lawyers would have known the trick or did some homework before accepting the use of their names in any kind of this law suit... I feel sorry for those innocent new lawyers if they are innocent but now their future in the law path is ruined (and might have a big debt waiting for). However, if these lawyers know what the company is doing, I would not feel sympathy for them.

Re:Ostensible

[MooseTick]

"make it illegal to even propose any stupid laws"

You want to make it illegal to propose laws?

Re:What's your point?

[MooseTick]

"criminal negligence"

You throw the word criminal around like it is candy. Just because something isn't up to your standards doesn't mean it is criminal.

Re:What's your point?

[gsslay]

"Defendant": "I admit I run www.microsoft.com and posted horrible things on it, but I refuse to shut down www.microsoft.com!"

This statement contains three falsehoods. Are you saying it's not the court's job to check or notice that? It's not much different from;

Plaintiff: "Your honor! 'Bob' here represents Microsoft and they owe me $1 Billion!"
"Defendant": "I admit it all. I represent Microsoft and we owe him $1 Billion, but I refuse to pay!"
Judge: "Oh yeah? We'll see about that. I hereby order Microsoft to pay $1 Billion."
Plaintiff: "Cool. I can now go to debt collection agencies, show them this order and collect my money from Microsoft. Kaching!"

Re:Ostensible

[myowntrueself]

"make it illegal to even propose any stupid laws"

You want to make it illegal to propose laws?

Anything not illegal should be compulsory.

Re:Ostensible

[Opportunist]

Considering the recent record, this can only lead to an improvement of the legal system.

Re:What's your point?

[Gilgaron]

Money gets people's attention more quickly than deindexed webpages, but sure, debt buyers end up with forgiven, expired, and illegitimate debt and still try to collect. You wouldn't net a billion if you found a buyer but I'm sure people try scams like you laid out and net smaller rewards.

Re:What's your point?

[AmiMoJo]

Seems that if Google just emailed webmaster@microsoft.com about the removal, the plaintiff and fake defendant would soon end up on perjury and fraud charges.

Re:What's your point?

[meta-monkey]

That's perjury, yes. But a court not noticing perjury isn't "criminally negligent" on the part of the court.

If someone tried to do what you suggested, Microsoft would complain and there would be criminal and civil penalties for the plaintiff/"defendant" in your script. But nothing bad would happen to the judge...he didn't do anything wrong. What do you think would or should happen to the judge?

Re: Ostensible

[ArmoredDragon]

It would probably be a very bad thing if the safe harbor provision of the DMCA was repealed. However we could stand to lose the anti circumvention provision and the no linking interpretation.

Re:What's your point?

[budgenator]

"criminal negligence"

You throw the word criminal around like it is candy. Just because something isn't up to your standards doesn't mean it is criminal.

Are you kidding, this is the United States, we have laws against everything, often several contradictory laws.

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[budgenator]

That would work if you knew in advance enough to prepare the brief. My suspicion is the victim of this fraudualent action wouldn't even know his page got de-listed or his comment got deleted.

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[budgenator]

It is still a Crime but if your all but guaranteed a Presidential pardon, it's a toothless crime.

LOL

[ThatsNotPudding]

It's not the court's job to determine if the dispute was real or not.

WHAT?

Re:LOL

[meta-monkey]

I said,

IT'S NOT THE COURT'S JOB TO DETERMINE IF THE DISPUTE WAS REAL OR NOT.

stupid lameness filter I know it's like yelling that's the joke.

If only

[93 Escort Wagon]

If only there was some way to look up who owns a domain, and what their street address is.

And if that information was somehow protected for some reason, if only there were a system of... oh, let's call them "registrars", for lack of a better term... who would "host" those domains and could easily verify the ownership.

Maybe some day Google won't have to go it alone.

Re:If only

[david_thornley]

Except that the DNS is irrelevant.

Suppose that I put something on a review site about you that you don't like. You bring action against George over there, who says he put it on the site, he's sorry, and he'll agree to a settlement that involves a court order to remove the review. Everybody knows where to find you, me, and the review site, although in the examples apparently George frequently has a phony address, and the court doesn't know that I should be involved. It's risky for the lawyers involved, who face serious danger of sanctions or disbarring, and apparently this is gotten around by having people file suits for themselves without admitting that they get legal help.

Re:So lemme see if I understand this...

[D00MSlayer]

To play devil's advocate here...

The government must prove that the defendant: (1) knowingly and willfully made or concealed a (2) materially (3) false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation within (4) the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the federal government.

So they need to prove that she knowingly lied, which can be a difficult challenge. If she testified with what she believes was the truth, even though it was later to be found untrue, they have to determine that she knew it was untrue to get her with perjury. If there is no proof that she was lying on purpose, no perjury charge can be applied.

This article helps explain why she won't be charged with perjury:
http://lawnewz.com/high-profil...

FRAUD

[hduff]

Nice to see lawyers willing to commit fraud. I hope they get caught

Re:Ostensible

[mschwanke97402]

No, actually, when you run large scale web services with ridiculously few employees, everything tends to be automated. Read automated here as automatic. No due diligence just click the take-down button and move to the next item.

Re:What's your point?

[mschwanke97402]

Umm, self-represented cases, so no lawyer, so no Bar Association penalties?

Re:What's your point?

[sjames]

Pretty much our courts routinely weild their considerable power with all the care and due diligence of a toddler with an Uzi.

Re:What's your point?

[qeveren]

No lawyers involved; everyone is self-representing. But with the plaintiff and the defendant being on the same side, who's going to out them for perjury?

Re:Issue is with the courts

[EndlessNameless]

Every system is gamed, and this goes double for the courts because they have government authority behind them.

That's why there are a billion rules on court procedure and the behavior of attorneys.

If any of the documents are falsified, this is more a case of "break the rules and pray no one notices" than actually gaming the system.

When I hear someone has gamed the system, I usually expect that he obtained an unfair benefit without breaking any of the rules.

Re:Process

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Another bit - if you're suing someone in court you need a process server to provide papers that the person you are suing was properly served before any legal proceedings can continue. Were these papers forged? If the defendants were fictional, most likely. That goes beyond perjury and veers into fraud.

Presumably, the defendants would have been paid shills, not actually fictitious people.

Of course, it's still fraudulent - even if the content in question really was infringing.

Re:What's your point?

[UnderCoverPenguin]

and there aren't going to ethics review boards crawling up our asses over this.

Instead, the jail/prison guards would do that.

Re:Ostensible

[david_thornley]

Repeal the DMCA and hosting companies won't dare host user-supplied content for fear of copyright prosecution. What the DMCA does here is make it possible for a site to host content without being sued, provided it follows the takedown procedure. As long as ordinary copyright law was in effect, sites would be legally liable for infringing content they hosted.

The basic issue is that people load infringing material onto places like YouTube all the time. For copyright to be meaningful, the copyright holders need to have some way of dealing with it. The DMCA safe harbor provisions are mostly reasonable, in that they put the burden of identifying infringement on the copyright holders, allow hosting sites to function safely, and still allow the copyright holders to get infringing material removed. The MAFIAA wants to gut these provisions. The big problem that I see is that there is no downside to issuing bogus takedown requests repeatedly en masse.

Re:Ostensible

[david_thornley]

The entertainment industry paid good money for extended copyrights and some features of the DMCA that implement the WIPO treaty (the anti-circumvention parts). They don't like the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.

Re:What's your point?

[david_thornley]

Under the circumstances, I don't think Google has any duty to tell microsoft.com what's happening. (I'm not a lawyer, which may be painfully obvious to people who are.) Google probably isn't particularly hurt by this, and likely doesn't have standing to sue. Microsoft likely is hurt, and has standing (at least in the form of a libel suit), and this is probably a crime, which means that a prosecutor could bring this into a criminal court, although prosecutors tend not to do this.