Last I checked, this was called the fruit of a poisoned tree/vine (or something along those lines). Anything legally gained from an illegal event is not admissable in the courts. Proving that they started off illegally will be the problem though.
The fruit of poisoned tree and rules of evidence generally only apply to law enforcement or people acting on their behalf (i.e: informants). If I break into your house to rob you and in the course of doing so discover evidence that implicates you in a murder then turn myself into the authorities, odds are that they will be able to use the evidence that I discovered at trial, whereas if they had broken into the house themselves it would generally not be admissible.
Of course if the cops put me up to breaking into your house to begin with then it's also not admissible -- I was acting as an agent of law enforcement and they presumably know better.
I guess the whole point is that the voter puts its vote in an urn as normal. But now, you can count the electronic, the paper one and compare. The whole thing is that paper votes with some features like bar codes, allow the printer to cheat also, and I think that is the whole problem that people is complaining about.
I'd agree. It needs to be human readable not just visable. This is what the NYS election law says and one reason that we still aren't HAVA complaint -- the state can't get any vendors to produce a machine that complies with the law.
You make your selections on the touchscreen, it prints out a paper ballot, which you can see behind glass. If you approve it that ballot goes into a lockbox and can be audited later. If you made a mistake you reject the ballot and it gets disposed of or marked somehow so it can't be counted.
But if a paper copy is given to the voter, then lies are caught.
You can't give it to the voter. That defeats the purpose of the anonymous ballot and what good is it anyway? You couldn't use them in a recount unless you have a chain of custody.
New York State election law requires them to be shown to the voter behind glass. If they accept the paper ballot after verifying it then it goes into a lockbox. Our legislature is dysfunctional but sometimes they actually manage to get it right...
I agree whole heartedly. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are intent on taking advantage of the situation. Welfare, on paper should accomplish the same, but look how many multi-generational "welfare families" are in existence today.
And there are creditors who take advantage of the situation. And even before BK "reform" the game was clearly rigged in their favor. While I'd agree that people need to own up to their responsibility and not charge shit they can't pay for, I'd also make the argument that the credit card industry doesn't need to make it so easy for people to get into trouble in the first place. If I wanted to I could go out and get credit lines equal to ten times my annual salary. Would you lend somebody money who had the potential to go into that much debt overnight?
Plus, I've always been skeptical of the people crying BK "abuse". Everything that I saw when I went through the system (under the old laws) suggested to me that any abuse would be fairly rapidly detected and dealt with. Most lawyers won't help you game the system. All the new laws seem to have done is make it harder (and more expensive) for people who need to file to file. More then half of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. I don't think anybody can make the argument that somebody deserves to be in financial prison because they got sick. Where's the abuse?
I agree with most of the points you make, and I appreciate the fact we can have a discussion without resorting to ignorant assumptions about one another. Our viewpoints may not be exactly the same, but that doesn't stop us from having an intelligent conversation about it, and I thank you for that.
I don't make assumptions because I have been through BK. I hope you don't think I was making assumptions about your sister either. It sucks that she lost her car (your state has lousy exemptions or she had too much equity in it I guess) but given that even I understand that the creditors have the right to some recovery, I honestly can't say I'm surprised that the Trustee took the boats. It sucks, but it's better to liquidate your assets and start over then it is to be in prison for the rest of your life. That's why BK exists, IMHO.
They can not be deterred financially, having hundreds of millions available from the record companies
One would think that sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA member companies would question why they are spending all this money on lawsuits for no net return. Is there any evidence that the lawsuits have scared people away from file sharing? I'd suspect that you can name any one of a number of songs put out by RIAA labels and I could find them in less then two minutes. It may not be as easy as it was with Napster and a nice centralized database but it's not exactly hard either.
My original point (now lost in the argument about my tactics being justified and the side debate on bankruptcy) was that if just half of the people extorted^Wsued by RIAA decided to fight them tooth and nail in court that it would become so unproductive and expensive for them that the shareholders would probably make them reconsider. Even the record labels don't have limitless resources and even staff lawyers only work so many hours per day. I think that point would be even more true if you could make the case that none of their intimation tactics have deterred file sharing.
Hell, somebody made the point in reply to one of my posts that there is no public outrage because nobody (beyond/.) knows about the RIAA suits. If most people don't know about them then what is stopping them from sharing files?
Usually you can unless they relate to a crime or taxes.
Otherwise there would be no point to bankruptcy. Why? What happens when you don't pay a creditor? They sue you. They get a judgement. BK wipes away that judgement.
Perhaps you are an enlightened Zen master and nothing ever gets you down, but for most average people, being sued is a huge emotional drain and and ruin health, livelihood, and relationships. I think it's naive and frankly insulting to say to people who are undergoing the stress of a lawsuit to tell them that they are just 'allowing' it to get to them. Step into the real world.
I don't pretend to be an enlightened Zen master and I don't intend to insult anyone undergoing this. I will say that I have been dragged into court, for matters far serious then RIAA claiming I owe them money (money is nothing compared to freedom) and I survived it just fine without my health and relationships being ruined.
Demonstrably false. If you choose not do defend yourself, the judge will find in favor of the RIAA, and you will owe them tens of thousands of dollars. Perhaps you are a millionaire, and this would not be a huge financial burden. For most people, this means a kid not going to college. If you do choose to defend yourself, lawyer fees could easily several thousand dollars, even over ten-thousand dollars. For most people, this is a huge financial burden. Maybe not for you, but for most individuals, this would be 1/3rd to 1/2 of their yearly income.
And I demonstrated that you could drag it out for quite some time pro-say at a lower cost to yourself. I would also point out that there are numerous ways (legal and otherwise) to avoid a civil judgement and that even if RIAA got a judgement against me for a million bucks they'd find it hard to collect a single dime from me. IRAs, 401ks/403bs, education savings, medical expenses, pensions, your house (in some states), child support, blah, blah, blah, blah. And those are just the legal ways of hiding money from a civil judgement. I won't dwell on the less the legal methods.
I don't see any of your supposed community outrage or major group backing as having had any impact whatsoever on the RIAA and their campaign.
Yeah, I suppose being a pessimist on slashdot is a much more effective way of dealing with them.
say hello to ten years of living with the bankruptcy on public record. don't forget that you get only one bite of the apple every eight years. try for liquidation again and the courts won't be so forgiving.
And your point is?
a lawyer of even modest integrity will walk away from a client who insists on paupering himself and his family to no intelligible purpose.
You don't know many lawyers do you? I'm personally not worried about a RIAA lawsuit, but I am stubborn enough that if I was hit with one I'd give every dime of my money to a lawyer to defend myself before I'd give them a cent. And if I lost then I would file BK.
you will in all probability never rate a mention even on Slashdot.
No, but my point was what would happen if everybody fought them tooth and nail instead of rolling over and taking it. If everybody who was sued by RIAA decided to fight them (even pro-say without any legal help) then they wouldn't stand a chance. They are relying on quick settlements so they can move their resources to the next case. Every person that fights them forces them to spend time, money and resources on that one case then they could be out there intimidating dozens of others.
I may be wrong in my original points about the lawyers costing them thousands of dollars per hour if they are on staff, but even RIAA doesn't have unlimited resources. If everybody fought back against them using the full power of the legal system then they wouldn't be able to keep up.
I'd be curios to know what this guys income is. I'm sure someone making $25,000/year would have a much tougher time re-establishing credit than a guy making $100,000/year.
Actually income has less bearing on credit then you might think. Your income usually will figure out how much a lender is willing to lend to you not if they are willing to lend to you. In my example the person makes
In any case I've gone way off topic here. My original point was that RIAA can't completely ruin your life. BK is always an option and it's not the end of the world by any means.
Maybe you weren't refereing to this specifically, but you did take the attitude of bankruptcy as a way of getting out of debt. Tell me, did you have any credit card debt when you filed? ANd yeah, if I end up paying more for stuff because people do exactly that, rack up debt knowing they are going to file, then yes, I will get touchy about it. The only way to win is be a weasel and I won't stoop to that.
What debts I had are none of your business. We could argue about credit cards all day long and it probably wouldn't change either of our opinions. Consider the fact that in my case they made something like 70% to 80% of the principal back with all the finance charges and fees they hit me with over the years. Yet they still get to claim a huge tax write off? Business is business and while they seek to take advantage of every single thing they can you'd be a fool not to do so as a consumer.
Well, as you won't give details on your bankruptcy, I hardly think you are qualified to make judgements about someone else's that you don't know the details on. (In my sister's case, her only fault was letting her now ex-husband handle the finances.) Besides, if you know you are going to file, and sell all your assets beforehand, you have commited a crime.
I wasn't suggesting selling her assets to hide them from the BK estate. I was suggesting that if she had those kinds of assets to dispose of then perhaps she should have sold them and tried to avoid filing BK in the first place. Obviously she kept her house, so I don't really see what the big deal is? And none of this changes my point that for better or worse, BK is hardly the end of your credit life these days.
And why should I care why she got into debt? You obviously don't care about why I did. The fact is that BK exists so people can have a fresh start. Debtors prisons don't exist anymore. Society has decided that it's better for somebody to be able to start fresh then it is for them to exist in indentured servitude for the rest of their life. If anybody was facing a massive judgement from RIAA then they'd be a fool not to consider filing BK.
If declaring bankruptcy is nothing but a positive thing that increases your credit score, why isn't everyone bending over backwards to do it?? And when you debts are "magically" erased, who do you think pays them?? Do you think that companies just eat the losses? No, they increase the prices of their goods and services to make up for them. So there is no "trick" to beating the system - you end up paying one way or another.
I was stating things that I've learned from my own experiences with the subject. I didn't say it was "nothing but a positive". I said that in certain scenarios it can raise your credit score. This is a known fact. If you don't like it then argue with the people making the formulas for the credit scores, not with me!
And if my "debt" was a civil judgement owed to RIAA and I successfully get it discharged, then exactly who the heck else is going to "pay" it? That was a fake debt that they created. I received no goods. I wasn't talking about purposefully running up credit cards and walking away from them. Is this a touchy subject for you?
You should really look into all the new bankruptcy laws and laws that have changed in the past couple years - it isn't as easy to wriggle out of debt as it used to. My sister just declared and they took everything from her but her house. Her car, 2 boats, and even her gym membership included. So I guess the experinces I have had (not personally thank god) with bankruptcy seem to be a little different than yours.
If your sister had two boats and a car with a massive amount of equity then they should have taken it! That's how the law works. Nobody needs two boats and in that scenario the creditors have a legitimate interest. Perhaps she should have sold them herself before filing and tried to avoid BK altogether? When I was forced into BK (for reasons that I won't go into here) my car was worth less then $2,500, I had no assets, no nothing. In that scenario BK was the right thing for me to do. And if faced with a huge RIAA judgement I'd file in a heartbeat and wouldn't feel an iota of remorse about doing so.
That's extremely fortunate for that particular person. The experince I had dealing with my ex-wife's bankruptcy was not the same. It prevented us from buying a car, and delayed the buying of our house by a good year and a half. Cars and credit cards are one thing, but I bet that person would still have a hard time buying a house without having at least 25% cash downpayment.
Sorry but my experiences say otherwise. I've seen people buy homes with zero downpayment less then a year out of bankruptcy. IMHO, it's a foolish move (what's wrong with renting?) because you will pay more in interest, but it is done and it's not as uncommon as you'd think. I've also spoken to mortgage brokers who tell me that with a little bit of effort at credit repair (post BK), they can get a lot of people the same rates as anybody else a lousy two years after filing.
I don't know the scenario behind your ex's BK but generally speaking BK is not the end of your credit life. Ironically enough, filing BK will often increase ones credit score, because credit scores are based on tiers and your credit file that shows in the top 50% of your current tier (people who haven't filed BK) might be in the top 95% of those that have.
Who would you rather lend money to? Somebody drowning in debts who doesn't have enough disposable income to pay them all off or somebody who just filed BK, owes nothing and whom can't file again for at least six to eight years (depending on Ch 7/Ch 13 and old laws/new laws)?
Generally speaking, civil judgements are dischargable, unless they relate to drunk driving or some sort of intentional harm done to someone as a result of a crime. Since the whole point of bankruptcy is a fresh start I find it exceedingly unlikely that a bankruptcy judge would allow a RIAA company to keep someone in financial slavery for the rest of their lives.
However, if you are on the receiving end of a lawsuit, it is extremely stressful and a huge financial burden.
Only if you allow to be.
It's your basic tough-guy, mafia, bully routine. Beat the hell out of the skinny nerd who can't fight back to show that you are willing to be violent, and hope that that scares the other people into falling in line.
Given the community outrage and the back that major groups (the EFF for one) are backing the people being sued, it doesn't seem to have worked real well does it?
And as far as filing bankruptcy goes to spite them, that's great if you don't want to purchase a house, car, major appliance, or anything else you may need credit for in the next 7 - 10 years. If so you are only screwing yourself.
Not exactly. A timeline for you:
Sep 2005: BK (Chapter 7) filed.
Dec 2005: BK discharged.
Dec 2005: Obtained $200 secured credit card.
Dec 2005: Obtained $500 secured installment loan.
Mar 2006: Obtained $1,000 unsecured credit card with $25 annual fee and 24.9% APR.
May 2006: Obtained $12,000 car loan at 13.6% APR.
May 2006: Obtained $2,000 unsecured credit card with no annual fee and 16.9% APR.
Nov 2006: Re-fi'ed previous car loan with local lender: 7.5% APR.
Nov 2006: Obtained $5,000 unsecured credit card from same lender with no annual fee, 9.9% fixed APR and 1% cashback.
Less then one year after a BK discharge this person has a car loan at a more or less prime rate and a FICO score of 660. In another year they will be able to obtain a mortgage at the same rate as anybody else. They could get one now -- it would just cost more.
Bankruptcy isn't the end of your credit life by a longshot these days.
No, it's when they get the judgement against his *parents* - where they're ruined.
Then it comes down to a civil judgement isn't exactly the end of your life. Ask OJ. He didn't even need to file bankruptcy to avoid his judgement.
I've been involved and vindicated in court case (Same Name, Different Guy) that has a, shall we say, credit problem. I was taken to court by his creditors- even though I proved I wasn't the person they wanted.
Yeah, well, debt collectors are scum, but this is where I got the idea from. I've seen people use this mo to drag debt collectors into the legal version of trench warfare and avoid paying debts that they probably owed in the first place. I'm not saying I advocate that -- though I do feel that debt collectors are scumbags and as your experience proved they don't care if you owe the money or not as long as they get paid -- but it is a good example of what you can do if you decide to make it as expensive as possible for the other party to proceed against you.
Kudos to you for fighting them too. All to often people don't show up and they manage to get a default judgement against you.
I lost about 20 lbs in the time that it took to straighten out and felt like shit for the entire time.
And if it happened again would you let the same thing happen? I'm not going to be intimidated by a civil lawsuit nor am I going to let it ruin my life.
So... what can they do? They can make you so miserable that you don't want to live.
Only if you let them.
At least 'justice' worked in my case... now if I could just win judgement against them for violations of the Fair Credit act....
Go after them! You should also look at the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If they violated any of that you can sue them for $1,000 per violation and you don't even need to prove damages.
That wouldn't be a bad idea for someone who's retired, but what about those of us who have to earn a living? The time you'd spend in court is time you're not at work. Not only can most people not afford lawyers to go up against the Media Mafia, they probably can't afford the time off from work to aggressively pursue the matter themselves, which means they're even more frakked than you might at first imagine.
Who said anything about going to court? I said I'd bog them down with paperwork, answers, interrogatories, etc, etc. I can file those on my way home from work.
Hey and if you have to go that route just remember that your assets in 401 k)s and IRAs and other tax exempt retirement accounts can not be taken from you during Chapter 7 (http://detroitbankruptcylawyer.com/dosdonts.htm).
Nor can they be taken from you for a judgement either.
It's about not filing a ridiculous lawsuit. It's about making it un-profitable for them to continue with their existing ridiculous lawsuit.
If you want to come after me then I'm going to stipulate nothing. I'm going to send you a merry paper chase with my interrogatories. I'm going to drag out any depositions that you may request to the point that you walk away with nothing useful. I'm going to file a counterclaim that you'll have to answer.
The point is that they are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour on their lawyers and that if everybody did this then even RIAA would not be able to justify that sort of expense. Do you think the shareholders would approve of pouring tens of millions into a legal black hole when you are only expecting to cover a few thousand per case if you win and if the defendant has any money or assets that can be seized.
And if RIAA does get a judgement, then so what? You think civil judgements are the end of your life? Ask OJ how hard that civil judgement hurt him -- he didn't even need to file bankruptcy (always an option) to avoid paying it!
Make it massively unprofitable and sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA companies will demand an end to this little adventure.
Well I doubt it would be that easy given what they are doing in other cases where the people have decided to fight instead of rolling over.
Still, even accounting for "time is money", I know that I could cost a hellva lot more money then they could cost me, were they ever to come after me. And I have nothing to lose. I have few assets and little disposable income. If they beat me, hello Chapter 7. And they'd still be out the money.
If I did have money to lose then I'd run up huge legal bills defending myself. My lawyers get priority in any bankruptcy proceeding and I'd rather give them all the money then RIAA.
If everybody had this attitude they wouldn't be able to get away with this.
They want "you" to know, as a 20-something poor-little-rich-kid zit-faced P2P user who has been caught bang-to-rights redistributing their member's content and has barely any moral credibility whatsoever, that there's pretty much nothing you can do about it
And what exactly can they do about it? Get a judgement against that 20 year zit-faced brat with no assets and little income? What does he have to lose? The time it takes to find a bankruptcy lawyer and file?
How's he going to beat the RIAA in court for that when they've already got billions of dollars worth of lawyers aimed at his family?
Those billions of dollars of lawyers cost money. If I was sued by RIAA I'd go pro-say and drag it out for as long as humanly possible. I'd file motion after motion that they'd have to answer (while paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour for that legal help) and tie it up for years. I'd drag out any depositions that they requested for hours and hours. You think it can't be done? I've known people that turned "What is your name and occupation?" into a four page long answer about how that question reminds them of their favorite childhood pet.
And counter suits? I'd counter sue them for everything from harassment to loss of consortium (my wife is stressed out by the suit they filed) to PTSD. Every thing that I file or every question that I answer with a non-answer costs them hundreds or thousands of dollars..
And in the end, if they won? That's what bankruptcy is for.
Yeah, I know, it doesn't have the glamour of fighting the good fight. But if just half of the people sued by RIAA adopted these tactics of filibustering and delay it would cost them a fortune and grind the court system to a screeching halt. It costs you nothing but grief and sweat equity. In the end they lose money.
My old boss as in my old boss whom I no longer work for, not my old as in half-blind slow driving old. She was in her 40s and immigrated here in the early 90s so I think her experience is still somewhat relevant.
"Immigrant". That's two. She's not a poor huddled mass. Those don't get in anymore.
Sure they do. How many Mexicans (legal and not) are living in the US right now? The ones that break the law even get amnesty every two decades or so. Do you know anything about the US?
"Boss". That's three.
Yeah because the "boss" of a seven employee small business is really in the top 10% with access to the "good" health care according to the GP. Give it up, I think she probably made less money then I did. Small business owners pay themselves last after the employees, the overhead, the contractors, blah, blah, blah.
I'm sorry that you are facing disillusionment with the great health care that you believe you have access to, and that people in the profession likely would not agree with you. However, "La la la I can't hear you! I hear anecdotes and believe in capitalism!" is not a reasoned response.
Neither is an attack on my post that ignores all of my main posts by an AC. I didn't set out to defend the entire American health care system. I set out to refute the point by the GP that only the richest 10% of Americans have access to the best Doctors. As an added bonus I also refuted his point that Germans would be "horrified" by our medical system. I think I was successful at both.
Most people will agree that humans are still special even if we find an advanced civilization outside our solar system. However, the majority of Christians (and other religions) believe we were placed here by a supreme being in his likeness and the whole universe is ours and ours alone. The idea of another race of beings on another planet would basically shatter the definition of life created by the church.
I think that most Christians (and other religions) could accept the concept of life beyond Earth without having their faith completely shattered. Hell, the Catholic Church is more or less accepting of evolution as a concept (though "guided" by God as they say). The Fundies might have a problem with it, but then, what don't they have a problem with?
They missed WW2 and are waiting for WW3 before they decide to invade and conquer us;) They'll be bi-pedal, ginger addicts and won't understand our desire for sex.
Slashdot Mirror
Last I checked, this was called the fruit of a poisoned tree/vine (or something along those lines). Anything legally gained from an illegal event is not admissable in the courts. Proving that they started off illegally will be the problem though.
The fruit of poisoned tree and rules of evidence generally only apply to law enforcement or people acting on their behalf (i.e: informants). If I break into your house to rob you and in the course of doing so discover evidence that implicates you in a murder then turn myself into the authorities, odds are that they will be able to use the evidence that I discovered at trial, whereas if they had broken into the house themselves it would generally not be admissible.
Of course if the cops put me up to breaking into your house to begin with then it's also not admissible -- I was acting as an agent of law enforcement and they presumably know better.
I guess the whole point is that the voter puts its vote in an urn as normal. But now, you can count the electronic, the paper one and compare. The whole thing is that paper votes with some features like bar codes, allow the printer to cheat also, and I think that is the whole problem that people is complaining about.
I'd agree. It needs to be human readable not just visable. This is what the NYS election law says and one reason that we still aren't HAVA complaint -- the state can't get any vendors to produce a machine that complies with the law.
You make your selections on the touchscreen, it prints out a paper ballot, which you can see behind glass. If you approve it that ballot goes into a lockbox and can be audited later. If you made a mistake you reject the ballot and it gets disposed of or marked somehow so it can't be counted.
But if a paper copy is given to the voter, then lies are caught.
You can't give it to the voter. That defeats the purpose of the anonymous ballot and what good is it anyway? You couldn't use them in a recount unless you have a chain of custody.
New York State election law requires them to be shown to the voter behind glass. If they accept the paper ballot after verifying it then it goes into a lockbox. Our legislature is dysfunctional but sometimes they actually manage to get it right...
I agree whole heartedly. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are intent on taking advantage of the situation. Welfare, on paper should accomplish the same, but look how many multi-generational "welfare families" are in existence today.
And there are creditors who take advantage of the situation. And even before BK "reform" the game was clearly rigged in their favor. While I'd agree that people need to own up to their responsibility and not charge shit they can't pay for, I'd also make the argument that the credit card industry doesn't need to make it so easy for people to get into trouble in the first place. If I wanted to I could go out and get credit lines equal to ten times my annual salary. Would you lend somebody money who had the potential to go into that much debt overnight?
Plus, I've always been skeptical of the people crying BK "abuse". Everything that I saw when I went through the system (under the old laws) suggested to me that any abuse would be fairly rapidly detected and dealt with. Most lawyers won't help you game the system. All the new laws seem to have done is make it harder (and more expensive) for people who need to file to file. More then half of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. I don't think anybody can make the argument that somebody deserves to be in financial prison because they got sick. Where's the abuse?
I agree with most of the points you make, and I appreciate the fact we can have a discussion without resorting to ignorant assumptions about one another. Our viewpoints may not be exactly the same, but that doesn't stop us from having an intelligent conversation about it, and I thank you for that.
I don't make assumptions because I have been through BK. I hope you don't think I was making assumptions about your sister either. It sucks that she lost her car (your state has lousy exemptions or she had too much equity in it I guess) but given that even I understand that the creditors have the right to some recovery, I honestly can't say I'm surprised that the Trustee took the boats. It sucks, but it's better to liquidate your assets and start over then it is to be in prison for the rest of your life. That's why BK exists, IMHO.
Take it easy!
They can not be deterred financially, having hundreds of millions available from the record companies
One would think that sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA member companies would question why they are spending all this money on lawsuits for no net return. Is there any evidence that the lawsuits have scared people away from file sharing? I'd suspect that you can name any one of a number of songs put out by RIAA labels and I could find them in less then two minutes. It may not be as easy as it was with Napster and a nice centralized database but it's not exactly hard either.
My original point (now lost in the argument about my tactics being justified and the side debate on bankruptcy) was that if just half of the people extorted^Wsued by RIAA decided to fight them tooth and nail in court that it would become so unproductive and expensive for them that the shareholders would probably make them reconsider. Even the record labels don't have limitless resources and even staff lawyers only work so many hours per day. I think that point would be even more true if you could make the case that none of their intimation tactics have deterred file sharing.
Hell, somebody made the point in reply to one of my posts that there is no public outrage because nobody (beyond /.) knows about the RIAA suits. If most people don't know about them then what is stopping them from sharing files?
Usually you can unless they relate to a crime or taxes.
Otherwise there would be no point to bankruptcy. Why? What happens when you don't pay a creditor? They sue you. They get a judgement. BK wipes away that judgement.
Perhaps you are an enlightened Zen master and nothing ever gets you down, but for most average people, being sued is a huge emotional drain and and ruin health, livelihood, and relationships. I think it's naive and frankly insulting to say to people who are undergoing the stress of a lawsuit to tell them that they are just 'allowing' it to get to them. Step into the real world.
I don't pretend to be an enlightened Zen master and I don't intend to insult anyone undergoing this. I will say that I have been dragged into court, for matters far serious then RIAA claiming I owe them money (money is nothing compared to freedom) and I survived it just fine without my health and relationships being ruined.
Demonstrably false. If you choose not do defend yourself, the judge will find in favor of the RIAA, and you will owe them tens of thousands of dollars. Perhaps you are a millionaire, and this would not be a huge financial burden. For most people, this means a kid not going to college. If you do choose to defend yourself, lawyer fees could easily several thousand dollars, even over ten-thousand dollars. For most people, this is a huge financial burden. Maybe not for you, but for most individuals, this would be 1/3rd to 1/2 of their yearly income.
And I demonstrated that you could drag it out for quite some time pro-say at a lower cost to yourself. I would also point out that there are numerous ways (legal and otherwise) to avoid a civil judgement and that even if RIAA got a judgement against me for a million bucks they'd find it hard to collect a single dime from me. IRAs, 401ks/403bs, education savings, medical expenses, pensions, your house (in some states), child support, blah, blah, blah, blah. And those are just the legal ways of hiding money from a civil judgement. I won't dwell on the less the legal methods.
I don't see any of your supposed community outrage or major group backing as having had any impact whatsoever on the RIAA and their campaign.
Yeah, I suppose being a pessimist on slashdot is a much more effective way of dealing with them.
say hello to ten years of living with the bankruptcy on public record. don't forget that you get only one bite of the apple every eight years. try for liquidation again and the courts won't be so forgiving.
And your point is?
a lawyer of even modest integrity will walk away from a client who insists on paupering himself and his family to no intelligible purpose.
You don't know many lawyers do you? I'm personally not worried about a RIAA lawsuit, but I am stubborn enough that if I was hit with one I'd give every dime of my money to a lawyer to defend myself before I'd give them a cent. And if I lost then I would file BK.
you will in all probability never rate a mention even on Slashdot.
No, but my point was what would happen if everybody fought them tooth and nail instead of rolling over and taking it. If everybody who was sued by RIAA decided to fight them (even pro-say without any legal help) then they wouldn't stand a chance. They are relying on quick settlements so they can move their resources to the next case. Every person that fights them forces them to spend time, money and resources on that one case then they could be out there intimidating dozens of others.
I may be wrong in my original points about the lawyers costing them thousands of dollars per hour if they are on staff, but even RIAA doesn't have unlimited resources. If everybody fought back against them using the full power of the legal system then they wouldn't be able to keep up.
I'd be curios to know what this guys income is. I'm sure someone making $25,000/year would have a much tougher time re-establishing credit than a guy making $100,000/year.
Actually income has less bearing on credit then you might think. Your income usually will figure out how much a lender is willing to lend to you not if they are willing to lend to you. In my example the person makes
In any case I've gone way off topic here. My original point was that RIAA can't completely ruin your life. BK is always an option and it's not the end of the world by any means.
Maybe you weren't refereing to this specifically, but you did take the attitude of bankruptcy as a way of getting out of debt. Tell me, did you have any credit card debt when you filed? ANd yeah, if I end up paying more for stuff because people do exactly that, rack up debt knowing they are going to file, then yes, I will get touchy about it. The only way to win is be a weasel and I won't stoop to that.
What debts I had are none of your business. We could argue about credit cards all day long and it probably wouldn't change either of our opinions. Consider the fact that in my case they made something like 70% to 80% of the principal back with all the finance charges and fees they hit me with over the years. Yet they still get to claim a huge tax write off? Business is business and while they seek to take advantage of every single thing they can you'd be a fool not to do so as a consumer.
Well, as you won't give details on your bankruptcy, I hardly think you are qualified to make judgements about someone else's that you don't know the details on. (In my sister's case, her only fault was letting her now ex-husband handle the finances.) Besides, if you know you are going to file, and sell all your assets beforehand, you have commited a crime.
I wasn't suggesting selling her assets to hide them from the BK estate. I was suggesting that if she had those kinds of assets to dispose of then perhaps she should have sold them and tried to avoid filing BK in the first place. Obviously she kept her house, so I don't really see what the big deal is? And none of this changes my point that for better or worse, BK is hardly the end of your credit life these days.
And why should I care why she got into debt? You obviously don't care about why I did. The fact is that BK exists so people can have a fresh start. Debtors prisons don't exist anymore. Society has decided that it's better for somebody to be able to start fresh then it is for them to exist in indentured servitude for the rest of their life. If anybody was facing a massive judgement from RIAA then they'd be a fool not to consider filing BK.
If declaring bankruptcy is nothing but a positive thing that increases your credit score, why isn't everyone bending over backwards to do it?? And when you debts are "magically" erased, who do you think pays them?? Do you think that companies just eat the losses? No, they increase the prices of their goods and services to make up for them. So there is no "trick" to beating the system - you end up paying one way or another.
I was stating things that I've learned from my own experiences with the subject. I didn't say it was "nothing but a positive". I said that in certain scenarios it can raise your credit score. This is a known fact. If you don't like it then argue with the people making the formulas for the credit scores, not with me!
And if my "debt" was a civil judgement owed to RIAA and I successfully get it discharged, then exactly who the heck else is going to "pay" it? That was a fake debt that they created. I received no goods. I wasn't talking about purposefully running up credit cards and walking away from them. Is this a touchy subject for you?
You should really look into all the new bankruptcy laws and laws that have changed in the past couple years - it isn't as easy to wriggle out of debt as it used to. My sister just declared and they took everything from her but her house. Her car, 2 boats, and even her gym membership included. So I guess the experinces I have had (not personally thank god) with bankruptcy seem to be a little different than yours.
If your sister had two boats and a car with a massive amount of equity then they should have taken it! That's how the law works. Nobody needs two boats and in that scenario the creditors have a legitimate interest. Perhaps she should have sold them herself before filing and tried to avoid BK altogether? When I was forced into BK (for reasons that I won't go into here) my car was worth less then $2,500, I had no assets, no nothing. In that scenario BK was the right thing for me to do. And if faced with a huge RIAA judgement I'd file in a heartbeat and wouldn't feel an iota of remorse about doing so.
That's extremely fortunate for that particular person. The experince I had dealing with my ex-wife's bankruptcy was not the same. It prevented us from buying a car, and delayed the buying of our house by a good year and a half. Cars and credit cards are one thing, but I bet that person would still have a hard time buying a house without having at least 25% cash downpayment.
Sorry but my experiences say otherwise. I've seen people buy homes with zero downpayment less then a year out of bankruptcy. IMHO, it's a foolish move (what's wrong with renting?) because you will pay more in interest, but it is done and it's not as uncommon as you'd think. I've also spoken to mortgage brokers who tell me that with a little bit of effort at credit repair (post BK), they can get a lot of people the same rates as anybody else a lousy two years after filing.
I don't know the scenario behind your ex's BK but generally speaking BK is not the end of your credit life. Ironically enough, filing BK will often increase ones credit score, because credit scores are based on tiers and your credit file that shows in the top 50% of your current tier (people who haven't filed BK) might be in the top 95% of those that have.
Who would you rather lend money to? Somebody drowning in debts who doesn't have enough disposable income to pay them all off or somebody who just filed BK, owes nothing and whom can't file again for at least six to eight years (depending on Ch 7/Ch 13 and old laws/new laws)?
Generally, only if they relate to a criminal case of some sort.
Nondischargeable Debts.
Generally speaking, civil judgements are dischargable, unless they relate to drunk driving or some sort of intentional harm done to someone as a result of a crime. Since the whole point of bankruptcy is a fresh start I find it exceedingly unlikely that a bankruptcy judge would allow a RIAA company to keep someone in financial slavery for the rest of their lives.
However, if you are on the receiving end of a lawsuit, it is extremely stressful and a huge financial burden.
Only if you allow to be.
It's your basic tough-guy, mafia, bully routine. Beat the hell out of the skinny nerd who can't fight back to show that you are willing to be violent, and hope that that scares the other people into falling in line.
Given the community outrage and the back that major groups (the EFF for one) are backing the people being sued, it doesn't seem to have worked real well does it?
And as far as filing bankruptcy goes to spite them, that's great if you don't want to purchase a house, car, major appliance, or anything else you may need credit for in the next 7 - 10 years. If so you are only screwing yourself.
Not exactly. A timeline for you:
Sep 2005: BK (Chapter 7) filed.
Dec 2005: BK discharged.
Dec 2005: Obtained $200 secured credit card.
Dec 2005: Obtained $500 secured installment loan.
Mar 2006: Obtained $1,000 unsecured credit card with $25 annual fee and 24.9% APR.
May 2006: Obtained $12,000 car loan at 13.6% APR.
May 2006: Obtained $2,000 unsecured credit card with no annual fee and 16.9% APR.
Nov 2006: Re-fi'ed previous car loan with local lender: 7.5% APR.
Nov 2006: Obtained $5,000 unsecured credit card from same lender with no annual fee, 9.9% fixed APR and 1% cashback.
Less then one year after a BK discharge this person has a car loan at a more or less prime rate and a FICO score of 660. In another year they will be able to obtain a mortgage at the same rate as anybody else. They could get one now -- it would just cost more.
Bankruptcy isn't the end of your credit life by a longshot these days.
No, it's when they get the judgement against his *parents* - where they're ruined.
Then it comes down to a civil judgement isn't exactly the end of your life. Ask OJ. He didn't even need to file bankruptcy to avoid his judgement.
I've been involved and vindicated in court case (Same Name, Different Guy) that has a, shall we say, credit problem. I was taken to court by his creditors- even though I proved I wasn't the person they wanted.
Yeah, well, debt collectors are scum, but this is where I got the idea from. I've seen people use this mo to drag debt collectors into the legal version of trench warfare and avoid paying debts that they probably owed in the first place. I'm not saying I advocate that -- though I do feel that debt collectors are scumbags and as your experience proved they don't care if you owe the money or not as long as they get paid -- but it is a good example of what you can do if you decide to make it as expensive as possible for the other party to proceed against you.
Kudos to you for fighting them too. All to often people don't show up and they manage to get a default judgement against you.
I lost about 20 lbs in the time that it took to straighten out and felt like shit for the entire time.
And if it happened again would you let the same thing happen? I'm not going to be intimidated by a civil lawsuit nor am I going to let it ruin my life.
So... what can they do? They can make you so miserable that you don't want to live.
Only if you let them.
At least 'justice' worked in my case... now if I could just win judgement against them for violations of the Fair Credit act....
Go after them! You should also look at the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If they violated any of that you can sue them for $1,000 per violation and you don't even need to prove damages.
That wouldn't be a bad idea for someone who's retired, but what about those of us who have to earn a living? The time you'd spend in court is time you're not at work. Not only can most people not afford lawyers to go up against the Media Mafia, they probably can't afford the time off from work to aggressively pursue the matter themselves, which means they're even more frakked than you might at first imagine.
Who said anything about going to court? I said I'd bog them down with paperwork, answers, interrogatories, etc, etc. I can file those on my way home from work.
Hey and if you have to go that route just remember that your assets in 401 k)s and IRAs and other tax exempt retirement accounts can not be taken from you during Chapter 7 (http://detroitbankruptcylawyer.com/dosdonts.htm).
Nor can they be taken from you for a judgement either.
It's about not filing a ridiculous lawsuit. It's about making it un-profitable for them to continue with their existing ridiculous lawsuit.
If you want to come after me then I'm going to stipulate nothing. I'm going to send you a merry paper chase with my interrogatories. I'm going to drag out any depositions that you may request to the point that you walk away with nothing useful. I'm going to file a counterclaim that you'll have to answer.
The point is that they are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour on their lawyers and that if everybody did this then even RIAA would not be able to justify that sort of expense. Do you think the shareholders would approve of pouring tens of millions into a legal black hole when you are only expecting to cover a few thousand per case if you win and if the defendant has any money or assets that can be seized.
And if RIAA does get a judgement, then so what? You think civil judgements are the end of your life? Ask OJ how hard that civil judgement hurt him -- he didn't even need to file bankruptcy (always an option) to avoid paying it!
Make it massively unprofitable and sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA companies will demand an end to this little adventure.
Well I doubt it would be that easy given what they are doing in other cases where the people have decided to fight instead of rolling over.
Still, even accounting for "time is money", I know that I could cost a hellva lot more money then they could cost me, were they ever to come after me. And I have nothing to lose. I have few assets and little disposable income. If they beat me, hello Chapter 7. And they'd still be out the money.
If I did have money to lose then I'd run up huge legal bills defending myself. My lawyers get priority in any bankruptcy proceeding and I'd rather give them all the money then RIAA.
If everybody had this attitude they wouldn't be able to get away with this.
They want "you" to know, as a 20-something poor-little-rich-kid zit-faced P2P user who has been caught bang-to-rights redistributing their member's content and has barely any moral credibility whatsoever, that there's pretty much nothing you can do about it
And what exactly can they do about it? Get a judgement against that 20 year zit-faced brat with no assets and little income? What does he have to lose? The time it takes to find a bankruptcy lawyer and file?
How's he going to beat the RIAA in court for that when they've already got billions of dollars worth of lawyers aimed at his family?
Those billions of dollars of lawyers cost money. If I was sued by RIAA I'd go pro-say and drag it out for as long as humanly possible. I'd file motion after motion that they'd have to answer (while paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour for that legal help) and tie it up for years. I'd drag out any depositions that they requested for hours and hours. You think it can't be done? I've known people that turned "What is your name and occupation?" into a four page long answer about how that question reminds them of their favorite childhood pet.
And counter suits? I'd counter sue them for everything from harassment to loss of consortium (my wife is stressed out by the suit they filed) to PTSD. Every thing that I file or every question that I answer with a non-answer costs them hundreds or thousands of dollars..
And in the end, if they won? That's what bankruptcy is for.
Yeah, I know, it doesn't have the glamour of fighting the good fight. But if just half of the people sued by RIAA adopted these tactics of filibustering and delay it would cost them a fortune and grind the court system to a screeching halt. It costs you nothing but grief and sweat equity. In the end they lose money.
Let's see... "old". That's one.
My old boss as in my old boss whom I no longer work for, not my old as in half-blind slow driving old. She was in her 40s and immigrated here in the early 90s so I think her experience is still somewhat relevant.
"Immigrant". That's two. She's not a poor huddled mass. Those don't get in anymore.
Sure they do. How many Mexicans (legal and not) are living in the US right now? The ones that break the law even get amnesty every two decades or so. Do you know anything about the US?
"Boss". That's three.
Yeah because the "boss" of a seven employee small business is really in the top 10% with access to the "good" health care according to the GP. Give it up, I think she probably made less money then I did. Small business owners pay themselves last after the employees, the overhead, the contractors, blah, blah, blah.
I'm sorry that you are facing disillusionment with the great health care that you believe you have access to, and that people in the profession likely would not agree with you. However, "La la la I can't hear you! I hear anecdotes and believe in capitalism!" is not a reasoned response.
Neither is an attack on my post that ignores all of my main posts by an AC. I didn't set out to defend the entire American health care system. I set out to refute the point by the GP that only the richest 10% of Americans have access to the best Doctors. As an added bonus I also refuted his point that Germans would be "horrified" by our medical system. I think I was successful at both.
Most people will agree that humans are still special even if we find an advanced civilization outside our solar system. However, the majority of Christians (and other religions) believe we were placed here by a supreme being in his likeness and the whole universe is ours and ours alone. The idea of another race of beings on another planet would basically shatter the definition of life created by the church.
I think that most Christians (and other religions) could accept the concept of life beyond Earth without having their faith completely shattered. Hell, the Catholic Church is more or less accepting of evolution as a concept (though "guided" by God as they say). The Fundies might have a problem with it, but then, what don't they have a problem with?
They missed WW2 and are waiting for WW3 before they decide to invade and conquer us ;) They'll be bi-pedal, ginger addicts and won't understand our desire for sex.