They have to reasonably reflect the legal expenses incurred and the defendant's ability to pay.
Not necessarily; in family law the rules get a bit different as to who can get charged what. In general civil litigation you can get hit with a $400,000 attorneys fee award even if you're broke.
You haven't made a very good argument as to why your clients should pay for your mistakes instead.
Who said it was my mistake? And I probably shouldn't have used "mistake" but couldn't think of any other word.
Scenario 1: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000 because it's a simple matter, and the case should clearly be dismissed. The judge misreads the law, doesn't dismiss it. Goes to a long, complex trial that I have to work 500 hours on. At the end we win, but don't get attorneys fees.
Scenario 2: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000 because it's a simple matter. After I file the lawsuit, the law changes, but Congress leaves it ambiguous whether the law should be retroactively applied. I then have to spend 500 hours laboriously researching and briefing the issue across multiple filings, and at the end we still lose.
Scenario 3: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000,000 because it's an incredibly complicated matter that will take a lot of discovery. He agrees; I spend 5 hours filing an initial motion to dismiss, expecting it to be denied. The judge misreads the law and grants it, and the other side can't afford to appeal.
In each of these situations I've done nothing wrong, but I'm either forced to work for $2 an hour, or get to charge $200,000 an hour. It's unfair both ways.
And honestly I do not accept the representations made by posters here that somehow other professions have to absorb the cost of theirs (or others) mistakes. A wide variety of consultants, both technological and otherwise, charge by the hour. Programmers in certain circumstances can be paid by the hour, and they don't debug their mistakes for free. Doctors can charge by the hour, and they don't drop the charge if they misdiagnosed you.
I have never understood the long hours, big pay deal. Tomorrow, why don't you work a third less hours for a third less pay?
Because I would probably lose my job if I did that. I would love to scale back my hours; I work hourly anyway so wouldn't even have to renegotiate my salary. But it wouldn't be accepted here, and quite frankly I am insanely lucky to even be working in this economy, especially in what is probably the least secure professional career (architecture and non-profit might edge it out slightly), so not going to gamble with my job.
And before all the idiots here go nuts and say "you don't know what you're talking about", I've got over 1,000 hours in the courts, arguing civil, criminal, and regulatory cases,
Speaking as a lawyer, I'd love that. Cap my salary, take away my law school loans, and give me a reasonable work schedule and I'll be good, even if I'm making a third of what I could without the cap.
So while the cost of writing a letter is insignificant, the cost of being an attorney, running a firm, and generally being available to take up this sort of case is likely not so trivial. We could compare similar firms' rates, but stating that 'attorneys charge a lot' is sort of a non-starter.
As an attorney I can assure you there is no legitimate scenario where the EFF honestly had to expend $400,000 worth of work to write a letter. Maybe, MAYBE, $2,000 if you throw in a few hours of research, which the EFF shouldn't have to do considering this is what they specialize in. A top-of-the-line civil litigator bills maybe $600 an hour, and as much as we like the EFF people they are not top-of-the-line civil litigators.
Is $400,000 a fair punishment for accidentally including one video in your list that wasn't a bona fide copyright infringement?
You're missing the point, it wasn't "accidental," it was purposeful. The question then becomes was it a knowing misrepresentation, in other words that the use of the song was clearly fair use. Honestly, it wasn't. So they're probably not liable.
The only knowing misrepresentation I see here is EFF's ridiculous $400,000 legal bill. The attorneys who signed any legal filings requesting or supporting this should be sanctioned.
Nope, (a) too old; (b) not skinny enough; (c) I dress like a normal person; and most importantly (d) I'm a native NYCer (I grew up 15 minutes from where I live now).
The problem with attorneys' fees is not unlike the problem in the medical profession. They usually get paid per hour. This gives them incentives to drag cases out and not do their best work up front. After all, if you end the case fast, you don't get much money.
As a lawyer I can tell you I hate billable hours with the heat of a thousand suns. Most lawyers do. The problem with a flat fee is one mistake and you could end up doing hundreds of hours of work for a very low amount of money.
Mac users are bought by those that want to distinguish themselves from the rest in terms of money or social class, more in the lines of "I can afford an Mac and you are a poor blue collar bastard"
Not in my experience. Macs are bought around here by people who throw their little hipster hearts into dressing like they have absolutely no money, except for their shiny new macs, and of course the $3,000 a month apartments that they claim they can afford on their salary as an unpaid indie record label intern (no, of course their parents don't help them, they're edgy bohemians). Or maybe living in Brooklyn has made me bitter.
The cute thing is that, contrary to what you claim, the level of oversight will change drastically. Currently not only the message is controlled but also the channels of information; if such loose organisation goes into a medium such open as the internet, they loose the latter. Which might jeopardize the former.
You're really not making too much sense here, you're sort of speaking in incredibly vague generalities regarding power structures and messages, etc., but it's sort of like the kind of things freshmen come up with in late night dorm room chats after they take that first cultural studies class. Due to the decentralized nature of the Catholic Church, priests already had a pretty extensive freedom to preach what they wanted. How does this change something? Why would Father Bob's blog somehow change things that Father Bob's homily didn't?
I don't think there is much in the current world to surprise you, if you've read John Brunners The Shockwave Rider [wikipedia.org]. The biggest surprise is when you look at the time it was published: 1975. It has always astounded me, how clearly Johns eyes have seen....
I got that same sort of shock after reading Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, then seeing the publishing date.
Good grief is the art still that bad? I haven't read that in 10 years, I'd assume it would improve at some level. I mean, that's enough time to go to art school up through an MFA and learn to draw from scratch.
Huh?? Since when? A class action is just a procedural action that allows one side to have one or a few named members who sue or are sued on behalf of an unwieldy number of persons. The underlying purpose/method/law is the same as if they were suing individually.
Believe it or not, I work in a plaintiff class action firm. How shady/obnoxious/arrogant a lawyer can be based on specialty (litigators are probably in general the worst), but a lot of it is also based on law firm culture, which is self-perpetuating to a degree. And obviously, law school itself tends to attract a lot of obnoxious type-A personalities with massive senses of entitlement (though fortunately a lot of that gets knocked out of them when they graduate and find out that a law degree is, in terms of job security, one of the worst advanced degrees you can get).
Have you ever heard of the AFL CIO? In 2000 they spent 4.1 million on federal campaigns.
In other words, an organization representing FIFTY SIX different unions and 11 million workers, donated about the same as a single large corporation would? I think you just proved the point you were trying to disprove.
Slashdot Mirror
They have to reasonably reflect the legal expenses incurred and the defendant's ability to pay.
Not necessarily; in family law the rules get a bit different as to who can get charged what. In general civil litigation you can get hit with a $400,000 attorneys fee award even if you're broke.
You haven't made a very good argument as to why your clients should pay for your mistakes instead.
Who said it was my mistake? And I probably shouldn't have used "mistake" but couldn't think of any other word.
Scenario 1: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000 because it's a simple matter, and the case should clearly be dismissed. The judge misreads the law, doesn't dismiss it. Goes to a long, complex trial that I have to work 500 hours on. At the end we win, but don't get attorneys fees.
Scenario 2: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000 because it's a simple matter. After I file the lawsuit, the law changes, but Congress leaves it ambiguous whether the law should be retroactively applied. I then have to spend 500 hours laboriously researching and briefing the issue across multiple filings, and at the end we still lose.
Scenario 3: Client A is being sued, asks me to respond. I quote him $1,000,000 because it's an incredibly complicated matter that will take a lot of discovery. He agrees; I spend 5 hours filing an initial motion to dismiss, expecting it to be denied. The judge misreads the law and grants it, and the other side can't afford to appeal.
In each of these situations I've done nothing wrong, but I'm either forced to work for $2 an hour, or get to charge $200,000 an hour. It's unfair both ways.
And honestly I do not accept the representations made by posters here that somehow other professions have to absorb the cost of theirs (or others) mistakes. A wide variety of consultants, both technological and otherwise, charge by the hour. Programmers in certain circumstances can be paid by the hour, and they don't debug their mistakes for free. Doctors can charge by the hour, and they don't drop the charge if they misdiagnosed you.
I have never understood the long hours, big pay deal. Tomorrow, why don't you work a third less hours for a third less pay?
Because I would probably lose my job if I did that. I would love to scale back my hours; I work hourly anyway so wouldn't even have to renegotiate my salary. But it wouldn't be accepted here, and quite frankly I am insanely lucky to even be working in this economy, especially in what is probably the least secure professional career (architecture and non-profit might edge it out slightly), so not going to gamble with my job.
And before all the idiots here go nuts and say "you don't know what you're talking about", I've got over 1,000 hours in the courts, arguing civil, criminal, and regulatory cases,
Dude, why do you get sued and arrested so much?
Ha, you're right, it is interesting...though not sure if I would joke in a legal filing that I could face a bar complaint over.
Speaking as a lawyer, I'd love that. Cap my salary, take away my law school loans, and give me a reasonable work schedule and I'll be good, even if I'm making a third of what I could without the cap.
How is that different that any other professional job? If you screw up you eat the costs not me.
What are you talking about? Plenty of other professional jobs charge per hour.
So while the cost of writing a letter is insignificant, the cost of being an attorney, running a firm, and generally being available to take up this sort of case is likely not so trivial. We could compare similar firms' rates, but stating that 'attorneys charge a lot' is sort of a non-starter.
As an attorney I can assure you there is no legitimate scenario where the EFF honestly had to expend $400,000 worth of work to write a letter. Maybe, MAYBE, $2,000 if you throw in a few hours of research, which the EFF shouldn't have to do considering this is what they specialize in. A top-of-the-line civil litigator bills maybe $600 an hour, and as much as we like the EFF people they are not top-of-the-line civil litigators.
Is $400,000 a fair punishment for accidentally including one video in your list that wasn't a bona fide copyright infringement?
You're missing the point, it wasn't "accidental," it was purposeful. The question then becomes was it a knowing misrepresentation, in other words that the use of the song was clearly fair use. Honestly, it wasn't. So they're probably not liable.
The only knowing misrepresentation I see here is EFF's ridiculous $400,000 legal bill. The attorneys who signed any legal filings requesting or supporting this should be sanctioned.
Fucking hipster.
Nope, (a) too old; (b) not skinny enough; (c) I dress like a normal person; and most importantly (d) I'm a native NYCer (I grew up 15 minutes from where I live now).
The problem with attorneys' fees is not unlike the problem in the medical profession. They usually get paid per hour. This gives them incentives to drag cases out and not do their best work up front. After all, if you end the case fast, you don't get much money.
As a lawyer I can tell you I hate billable hours with the heat of a thousand suns. Most lawyers do. The problem with a flat fee is one mistake and you could end up doing hundreds of hours of work for a very low amount of money.
Mac users are bought by those that want to distinguish themselves from the rest in terms of money or social class, more in the lines of "I can afford an Mac and you are a poor blue collar bastard"
Not in my experience. Macs are bought around here by people who throw their little hipster hearts into dressing like they have absolutely no money, except for their shiny new macs, and of course the $3,000 a month apartments that they claim they can afford on their salary as an unpaid indie record label intern (no, of course their parents don't help them, they're edgy bohemians). Or maybe living in Brooklyn has made me bitter.
The cute thing is that, contrary to what you claim, the level of oversight will change drastically. Currently not only the message is controlled but also the channels of information; if such loose organisation goes into a medium such open as the internet, they loose the latter. Which might jeopardize the former.
You're really not making too much sense here, you're sort of speaking in incredibly vague generalities regarding power structures and messages, etc., but it's sort of like the kind of things freshmen come up with in late night dorm room chats after they take that first cultural studies class. Due to the decentralized nature of the Catholic Church, priests already had a pretty extensive freedom to preach what they wanted. How does this change something? Why would Father Bob's blog somehow change things that Father Bob's homily didn't?
I don't think there is much in the current world to surprise you, if you've read John Brunners The Shockwave Rider [wikipedia.org]. The biggest surprise is when you look at the time it was published: 1975. It has always astounded me, how clearly Johns eyes have seen....
I got that same sort of shock after reading Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, then seeing the publishing date.
Did he? I thought that was C.S. Lewis who said that.
Good grief is the art still that bad? I haven't read that in 10 years, I'd assume it would improve at some level. I mean, that's enough time to go to art school up through an MFA and learn to draw from scratch.
Huh?? Since when? A class action is just a procedural action that allows one side to have one or a few named members who sue or are sued on behalf of an unwieldy number of persons. The underlying purpose/method/law is the same as if they were suing individually.
Believe it or not, I work in a plaintiff class action firm. How shady/obnoxious/arrogant a lawyer can be based on specialty (litigators are probably in general the worst), but a lot of it is also based on law firm culture, which is self-perpetuating to a degree. And obviously, law school itself tends to attract a lot of obnoxious type-A personalities with massive senses of entitlement (though fortunately a lot of that gets knocked out of them when they graduate and find out that a law degree is, in terms of job security, one of the worst advanced degrees you can get).
I don't think so. MS allowed rampant piracy for years.
Actually, it's the opposite of what you just said.
My issue with most lawyers is the way they carry themselves, like they are all high and mighty.
Have you ever met an MD?? They make us lawyers look humble by comparison.
large law firms
Actually in my experience most class action law firms tend to be small. It's the defense firms that are the big ones.
All of which would have gone to the lawyers.
Modded insightful? It's completely and utterly false, though. Ahh, slashdot.
Have you ever heard of the AFL CIO? In 2000 they spent 4.1 million on federal campaigns.
In other words, an organization representing FIFTY SIX different unions and 11 million workers, donated about the same as a single large corporation would? I think you just proved the point you were trying to disprove.
Awesome game. Though for some reason I really didn't like Tie Fighter even though they were almost the same game.
Ahhhh I had repressed the memory of all those post-C&C RTS games.