Class Action Copyright Suit Filed Against Scribd... By Jammie Thomas' Lawyers?

from the say-what-now? dept

Well, this is odd. Back in March, some book publishers and authors started blaming Scribd for hosting infringing scanned and uploaded books. Of course, they ignored the fact that Scribd is quite aggressive in taking down any infringing content that it discovers, and has a filtering system to try to catch as much as possible. Under any reasonable reading of the DMCA, Scribd is protected under the safe harbors. It's not doing the actual infringing itself, but providing a tool, and it appears to go above and beyond the legal requirements in trying to help authors and publishers.

Yet, given that noise back in March, you had to know that a lawsuit was brewing, and it's not too surprising to find out that the first one filed is a class action attempt. What is surprising, however, is that the lawyers bringing the case, Joe Sibley and Kiwi Camara, are the same lawyers who represented Jammie Thomas in her recent loss to the record labels. Camara and Sibley, in that case, failed to do some of the most basic things you would have expected in such a defense (though, they were brought on to her defense just before the trial began).

Their argument against Scribd doesn't seem to make much sense at all:

"Under the aegis of self-promoting misinterpretations of federal statutes," the lawyers wrote in their complaint, "the West Coast technology industry has produced a number of start-up firms premised on the notion that commercial copyright infringement is not illegal, unless and until the injured party discovers and complains of the infringing activity, and (the) infringer fails to respond to such complaints."

That's simply not true in any sense of what they describe. None of the companies -- Scribd included -- is claiming that infringement is not against the law. They're just saying -- and the law pretty clearly reflects this -- that it is not their liability for infringements done by users. No one is denying the right of the copyright holders to go after those who actually did the uploading. Camara and Sibley seem to be making up a strawman that completely ignores the actual arguments. They continue:

"Apparently (the West Coast start-ups) believe any business may misappropriate and then publish intellectual property, as long as it ceases to use a stolen work when an author complains...Many millions of dollars have been invested in this business plan."

Again, this is simply incorrect. The businesses themselves are not doing the "misappropriating" or the "publishing." That's the entire reason for the safe harbors in the DMCA, to recognize the difference between a tool provider and a user. That these lawyers can't understand the same difference is highly questionable -- especially right after a court set Universal Music straight on the very same issue. People keep acting as if the DMCA safe harbors mean that copyright infringement is somehow not enforced, but that's a plainly wrong understanding of what's happening in the world. The entire point of the safe harbors is to make sure that the correct party is liable. It still amazes me that otherwise intelligent people can't seem to recognize this distinction.

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Hot Coffee Finally History? Take-Two Pays $20 Million To Investors

from the hot-coffee-is-now-cold dept

I have to admit that I never quite understood the complaints about the "Hot Coffee" mod in Grand Theft Auto. First, it involved proactively modifying the software to unlock certain levels -- and those levels included scenes of consensual sex. Remember, this is a game that purposely is based on stealing cars, killing people, drug dealing and other sorts of illegal activity... and suddenly people got upset because of a hidden level that included a bit of consensual sex? Yet, lawsuits came flying from all directions. The company eventually tried to settle a class action lawsuit from users -- though most members of that "class" didn't even bother to make a claim, and the court eventually realized that the whole lawsuit was filed incorrectly, and ended up busting up the settlement.

But that wasn't the only lawsuit. Another lawsuit involved shareholders, who claimed that the company was trying to mislead shareholders about Hot Coffee. A judge dismissed that claim, but apparently the shareholders kept suing, and the new management at Take-Two decided it would be best to just settle the lawsuit, fork over $20 million (much of it paid for by insurance) and just be done with the whole thing. In some ways, this is really too bad. It's difficult to see how having an easter egg in a bit of software could possibly be seen as being misleading to shareholders, and this settlement will only encourage other similar lawsuits.

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High School Student Sues Amazon For Deleting His Summer Homework?

from the pr-nightmare dept

Well, you just knew that there were going to be class action lawsuits filed over Amazon's decision to delete unauthorized George Orwell ebooks that had been sold for the Kindle, but it appears that the class action lawyers have found the most headline-worthy story to get the word out. As we mentioned in the original post on this story, at least one kid lost the notes he had been taking on one of the books. So, we get a story about how a high school student is suing Amazon for deleting his summer homework, and the lawyers are hoping to turn it into a class action.

As bad as Amazon's actions were, I can't see this lawsuit getting very far. For most Kindle users, they're going to have a hard time showing any sort of real "harm." The kid with the lost homework might be able to show some (small) amount of harm, but I have to imagine that Amazon is mostly protected from liability in such cases. Still, with Amazon being quick to apologize and swear it would never ever ever delete an ebook again, you have to wonder if Amazon will step up and just try to appease the kid (and get the lawyers to go away).

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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over Bogus Laptop Battery Length Claims

from the it-lasts-how-long? dept

Has anyone ever actually bought a laptop where the battery length claims were anything close to what you actually got? I know I haven't. I tend to read online reviews from various testers to get a better sense of how long a battery can really last, but apparently some are so annoyed by the bogus claims from PC makers that they've filed a class action lawsuit. I'm all for things that would encourage computer makers to be more honest, though these sorts of class action lawsuits always seem a little silly. Are people really significantly "harmed" if the battery life doesn't live up to expectations? These cases usually seem more like opportunities for a few lawyers to get a bunch of money out of companies. The real issue should be that the FTC should have investigated the false claims from laptop makers.

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Next, Microsoft Will Release An Even Worse Operating System To Jack Up The Prices On Vista...

from the not-sure-I-see-it dept

While it is rather amusing to see customers so interested in sticking with Windows XP rather than the supposedly more advanced Windows Vista that they're willing to pay a fee for the downgrade, it's tough to see much merit in the claim that such a charge is an antitrust violation. But, of course, that won't stop the lawyers from trying to convince a court that it most certainly is an abuse of a monopoly position. There's nothing monopolistic about charging more for a product that people want more. It certainly is ridiculous to claim that this is all a plan by Microsoft to squeeze extra money out of people by use of its monopoly position. Microsoft, by all accounts, would like nothing more than for folks to stop wanting to buy XP. The launch of Vista has been a massive disappointment for the company, not a part of a nefarious strategy to jack up the prices on XP.

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Classmates.com Sued After Guy Realizes His Classmates Weren't Really Looking For Him

from the that-would-be-called-false-advertising dept

You may recall that Classmates.com was a website that first showed up in the 90s, and tried to do what Friendster and Facebook were later able to do. The problem was that Classmates.com's business model was to charge users for many of its features, including actually connecting with and contacting your classmates -- things that more recent social networks have always allowed for free. However, if you ever used Classmates.com for anything, you've probably been spammed with emails for years, each one claiming that your classmates are looking for you, or had recently viewed your profile. Nearly every email sent by the company (and they seem to come about once a week) has some enticing subject line that tries to suggest that something is happening with your profile and you're missing out if you don't upgrade to a premium account.

I've always ignored these emails, figuring that if any of my former high school classmates really wants to contact me, there are plenty of ways to do so that don't require me to pay up -- and naturally assumed that Classmates.com was exaggerating what was happening on the site. Some folks, however, believed the emails and upgraded. And, now, one of those who upgraded his account to see which classmates were trying to contact him, discovered (surprise, surprise) that Classmates.com was lying to him. His classmates weren't trying to contact him via the site, and so he's now suing the company for deceptive advertising, and demanding that the company refund subscription fees for everyone who was similarly duped.

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EA Sued Repeatedly Over DRM

from the don't-piss-off-your-customers dept

We had already pointed out one class action lawsuit filed against EA for its use of SecuROM DRM on the game Spore, but it appears that others are getting in on the act as well. GamePolitics has news of two more class action lawsuits filed against EA over its DRM choices. At some point, you have to wonder if this is just people piling on and hoping to win a cash settlement out of EA -- but again it does demonstrate how short-sighted the DRM decision was on the part of EA.

Considering that the game is available to download as an unauthorized file on various file sharing systems, it's pretty clear that the DRM did absolutely nothing to prevent any piracy on the game. However, it did significantly harm the company's reputation, and now they have to spend time and money fending off lawsuits. My guess is that the money spent on these lawsuits, combined with the revenue not recognized from folks who planned to buy the game but didn't because of all this, will actually greatly outweigh any real "losses" from piracy.

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Once Again, Court Says Telco Can't Force Arbitration Over A Lawsuit

from the been-there,-done-that dept

This is hardly the first time we've seen such a case. In fact, the issue of whether or not companies can force their consumers to go to binding arbitration (which sides with the company somewhere around 95% of the time) over filing a class action lawsuit has been decided in favor of the consumers' rights to file the lawsuits over and over and over again. So, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that a court has told AT&T that it cannot force customers into binding arbitration rather than a class action lawsuit over bogus fees it charged.

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Court Unravels Grand Theft Auto Sex Scene Settlement

from the go-get-some-hot-coffee-and-try-again dept

We still can't understand how someone who bought a game where the focus of game play includes stealing cars, killing people, prostitution and drugs could possibly be offended to later find out that if you applied a special mod to the software you could also experience some consensual adult sex. Yet, some folks (mainly lawyers and politicians) got all uptight about the so-called "Hot Coffee" mod, and a class action lawsuit quickly followed -- supposedly to help reimburse those poor souls traumatized by the discovery (actively, after applying the mod) that the carjacking game they were playing had consensual sex. And, of course, the lawyers won. They reached a settlement where the lawyers made over a million dollars, and those of you traumatized by the hot coffee mod got $5.

It turns out, though, that not too many people were actually traumatized by this. Very few people have actually bothered to file the forms to join the class... and it all might not matter any way. A federal judge has just realized (it took this long?) that the "class" in the class action suit doesn't actually qualify as a "class." You see, the whole thing was filed under the idea that the Hot Coffee mod violated consumer protection laws... which just so happen to be handled at the state level. So the idea of lumping everyone from across the country into the same class is problematic -- since different state laws cover the issue at hand.

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Consensual Sex Mod In GTA Not Disturbing Enough To Get Many To File For Settlement Payment

from the really-not-so-bad dept

For years, we've been mystified by the "scandal" surrounding the "Hot Coffee" mod in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Here was a game that very overtly included all sorts of violence, killing, carjacking, drugs, robbery, prostitution and general mayhem. And, then someone slips in a modification that adds in some consensual sex? How dare they! Yet, it became a big issue for politicians and lawyers, who eventually worked out a settlement that gives those offended $5. The lawyers, in the meantime, stand to take home $1.3 million. And, now, it turns out that not very many people cared enough to join the settlement. There are probably two reasons for this: (1) most people really weren't particularly offended and (2) $5? ($35 if you actually kept the receipt) Not worth the time. So, once again, we have a situation where a class action lawsuit basically just moves a bunch of money to some lawyers, rather than doing anything useful.

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Who Do You Side With? Telco Lawyers And Binding Arbitrators Or Class Action Lawyers?

from the pick-a-side-and-hold-your-nose dept

There are times when you hear of lawsuits and you really don't know who to favor. In the latest such case, the Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from T-Mobile on an appeals court decision that said that T-Mobile's contract terms requiring "binding arbitration" are unenforceable if those contracts also ban class action lawsuits against the company. This doesn't mean the Supreme Court totally agrees with it, but it didn't find it worth getting involved at this point (often the Supreme Court will wait for different circuits to disagree on a point of law before weighing in -- but in the meantime, it appears that the Supreme Court is not upset by the lower court ruling).

As you probably know, many of the contracts you sign these days require binding arbitration, rather than the ability to go to court over a dispute. Companies like to claim this is because binding arbitration is faster and simpler, but it's really because arbitrators (who are hired by the company) side with the company over 95% of the time. At the same time, the companies also try to block you from being a part of any class action lawsuit, and it's this combination that the court found problematic.

The real issue here is pretty straightforward: companies are trying to get you to give up most of your rights contractually -- but not through any sort of negotiation. They're basically trying to ram through agreements in the fine print that you'll never read that take away any sort of remedy you might have against the company in case the company does something wrong. While a fair contract is one thing, these contracts are not fair; they are not negotiable, and they're often not at all clear. It seems that companies are taking them too far, often depriving customers of perfectly reasonable rights -- so it seems like a good thing that the courts are pushing back a little.

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Will Lifelock's CEO Get To Be A Part Of The Class Action Lawsuit Against Lifelock?

from the he-could-qualify dept

You may recall the story of Lifelock, the company that heavily advertises its service which charges you $10/month to get services that you can get on your own for free from credit agencies. This is the one where the CEO gives out his Social Security number in every advertisement to show how confident he is in the service. Of course, what he leaves out is that Lifelock failed to stop identity fraud carried out against him (oops). Oh yeah, also the stuff about how the company's founder was being investigated for fraud (and potential identity fraud) at a previous company.

So, it should come as little surprise that some customers of Lifelock aren't particularly pleased with the company and have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming deceptive advertising, and noting that it doesn't really provide much security. One additional nugget of information: the identity fraud against the CEO that we mentioned earlier is just the tip of the iceberg. The CEO's social security number is apparently now widely in use among identity scammers. Well, maybe he'll get some money out of the class action lawsuit, since it appears that he was misled by his own advertising...

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Network Solutions And ICANN Both Sued For Allowing Domain Front Running

from the as-expected dept

Back in January, it was revealed that Network Solutions was involved in the rather sleazy practice of registering up any domain you searched for through its search engine, and holding onto it for five days -- unless you bought it through them only. Since Network Solutions charges more than most other registrars, but is generally considered more "trustworthy" as a place to search for domain names, this was a pretty big deal. Lots of people search at NetSol and then register elsewhere -- so by holding on to the domains and forcing you to pay NetSol's inflated prices seemed like a scam. In fact, it seemed quite similar to the sleazy practices of questionable registrars, Network Solutions actually tried to claim it was actually to protect against those questionable registrars. ICANN, reprising its usual role as being powerless to do anything useful, promised to look into the matter, and promptly claimed that Network Solutions was doing nothing wrong. Many people feel otherwise, so it's hardly a surprise to find out that both Network Solutions and ICANN have been sued by lawyers attempting to create a class action suit over the activity. Whether or not it deserves a class action lawsuit is a separate discussion, but it's still difficult to understand how NetSol could possibly think this is a good idea or one that would be welcomed by anyone.

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T-Mobile Sued For Forcing People To Accept (And Pay For) Text Messages

from the pls-dnt-mk-me-gt-txt-msgs dept

It's not too hard to remember the day when a lot of people couldn't receive text messages on their mobile phones. I still sometimes ask people to see if they use text messages. Apparently, if they're on T-Mobile, I shouldn't even bother. Even if you don't want to use text messaging, T-Mobile requires users to accept messages... and to pay for them. That's resulted in a class action lawsuit against the company for unfairly forcing people to pay for text messages they don't want. While it may not be a huge issue right now, if SMS spam picks up, it could become a very important issue.

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Lawyers Work Hard To Protect Us From Grand Theft Auto's Hot Coffee Mod. Your Cut? $5.

from the grand-theft-lawyer dept

Over two years ago, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas got into a bit of hot water over the "Hot Coffee" mod that allowed players to unlock a hidden mini-game that would then show characters engaging in (gasp!) consensual sex. Considering that the rest of the game was completely awash in acts of violence, which garnered it the appropriate "M" rating, all of the hubbub that arose over the mod seemed overblown, ultimately culminating in a class-action lawsuit against the game's publisher, Take-Two. Consumerist points to the recently released details of the settlement. What do you get? $5, if you don't have the receipt for the game -- for those that are more diligent about filing away their 2 year old video game receipts, $35. The lawyers' take? A cool million. In any case, here's some free advice for the much-anticipated next release in the Grand Theft Auto series, avoid lawsuits and don't hide the sex in the game this time.

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That Didn't Take Long At All: Sears Sued For Data Breach

from the $5-million,-please dept

Well that didn't take very long at all. Late last week, it was revealed that Sears.com was revealing past purchases to anyone who knew your name, address and phone number -- a violation of Sears' own privacy policy. And, by Monday, we have a $5 million class action lawsuit against Sears. While I do think Sears made a huge mistake here, the class action lawsuit seems a bit extreme. There's no evidence that anyone was actually hurt by this -- and while it was a dumb move by Sears, it's not difficult to understand how it likely came about. Chances are Sears will settle this quickly just to get it out of the news, but really the only winners will be (as per usual) the lawyers.

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Facebook Settles Text Messaging Suit Even If It Probably Didn't Need To

from the less-of-a-hassle dept

Back in October we pointed to a totally pointless lawsuit against Facebook from a woman who blamed the company because her mobile phone was getting text messages from Facebook against her wishes. The problem with the lawsuit, however, was that it wasn't Facebook's fault, as the reason the woman was getting the errant text messages was because she had received a new phone number. The previous owner of the number had signed up to receive the text messages, and they carried over to the new subscriber. There's no doubt that this could be quite annoying and upsetting to the woman, but it's hard to see how Facebook really should have known about it or could be seen as the party liable here -- so it appeared to be yet another lawsuit where someone targets a hot company just because it's a hot company. In this case, though, it appears to have worked. Facebook has agreed to settle the lawsuit and pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, while also agreeing to make it easier to stop such text messages and working with mobile operators to learn about recycled numbers. While Facebook probably had a decent chance of winning the case, from a PR/user relations standpoint it probably made sense to settle and do everything possible to make this less of a problem.

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And Now It's Time For The Bogus Class Action Lawsuits Against Facebook

from the pick-your-popular-company-and-sue dept

At this point, it's just an unfortunate fact of life that as a company becomes more well known it will soon be targeted by totally random lawsuits. We've already seen all sorts of random people suing to take credit for the idea of Facebook (all of whom ignored that Facebook's success had nothing to do with the idea and everything to do with the execution). Now it's time for random users and their lawyers to come up with all sorts of odd lawsuit ideas. For example, we've now got a woman and her lawyer trying to create a class action lawsuit against Facebook because the woman got a new mobile phone number, and that number is receiving too many unwanted text messages that were sent through Facebook and intended for the previous owner of the number. Why is this Facebook's fault? That's not clear, but it's a hot company worth billions, so might as well sue and hope to get some cash out of it. This is a problem that plenty of people face if they get a new phone number that's been "recycled" but it's hardly the fault of the companies who are simply forwarding the messages as directed.

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Netflix Patent Antitrust Case Thrown Out, Judge Orders Lawyers To Alert The Press

from the legal-oddities dept

Back in May we told you about a class action lawsuit that was being filed against Netflix, claiming that the company violated antitrust law by fraudulently obtaining the patents it was using to sue Blockbuster. This seemed like a really odd argument, and one unlikely to succeed. By definition, patents are monopoly rights which are granted by the government -- so it's difficult to see how they can violate antitrust law. Also, as we noted when the original suit was filed, these types of class action lawsuits rarely do much good (though, they do tend to make lawyers a lot wealthier). A little over a month after this lawsuit was filed, Netflix and Blockbuster decided to settle their patent dispute, at which point we wondered what would happen to the antitrust class action. Now we know. It's about to be dismissed. However, the judge apparently is worried that due to the original press coverage of the case (from folks like yours truly), potential members of the class may have held back filing other actions against Netflix -- and therefore has demanded that the lawyers get the same level of press coverage as the first time. Of course, the news that such an action has been dismissed isn't quite as newsworthy as the original filing (which was newsworthy for being an odd way to fight bad patents). Either way, the anonymous lawyer who tipped me off to the original case, has now emailed me again with the order demanding similar press coverage (to be clear: it's the order demanding similar press coverage, not the lawyer, who said rather little in the email). I'll post it here not because the dismissal of the case is interesting, but the idea that the judge believes the plaintiffs can "make sure that the end of these actions gets as much attention as their start." At this point it's unclear if the dismissal is because of the settlement (quite likely) or because it's just not a very good idea to claim patents violate antitrust law. As much as our patent law and patent system are screwed up these days, allowing people to challenge patents on the basis of antitrust class action lawsuits seems likely to only make things worse.

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Supreme Court Lets Class Action Racketeering Suit Against Best Buy & Microsoft Move Forward

from the the-not-so-free-paid-trial dept

Way back in 2003, we wrote about accusations that Microsoft and Best Buy were scamming customers into signing up for Microsoft's ISP MSN. The accusation was that Best Buy employees would scan the "free trial" MSN CD-ROMs that were at the store when customers would make a purchase. Customers wouldn't realize it, but the scan would then charge that customer's credit card once the free trial ended, signing them up as fully paying customers. While we wondered how widespread this practice was, some Best Buy employees have come forward to confirm that it was done at times. Both Best Buy and Microsoft have been fighting the case, and an appeal went all the way up to the Supreme Court, trying to get the case thrown out, but the Supreme Court has refused to review it, meaning the case can move forward. Of course, what's left out of much of the coverage is that lawyers working for Best Buy have already admitted to altering some of the documents he handed over in the case, which certainly doesn't bode well for Best Buy. While it's still unclear just how big a "class" this covers, if the two companies really were involved in such an activity, it does seem quite sleazy.

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