7 ms·

Court Rules That “Patent Troll” Is Opinion, Not Defamation

162 points by glitcher 7y ago

jandrewrogers 7y ago
A robust win for freedom of expression, and expected insofar as American jurisprudence takes an atypically narrow view of what constitutes "defamation". This was a last gasp for this odious business, they couldn't have thought the odds were good that this would be upheld. A patent troll is as a patent troll does.
tus88 7y ago
Good. It's an accurate opinion most of the time too.
Iv 7y ago
In a country that protects money transfers as speech, shouldn't this be obvious?
- rayiner 7y ago
  The US doesn’t protect “money transfers” as speech as such. Buckley v. Valeo upheld limits on campaign contributions, for example. What that and Citizens United struck down was restrictions on using money to pay for political expression. If you want to spend $500 billion to put a sign on the moon that says “vote for Biden” you can do that. That’s not protecting “money transfers as speech,” it’s striking down restrictions on speech and political expression disguised as restrictions on money transfers. Of course that makes sense. If the government can stop you from spending $500 billion to put a sign on the moon, “because money isn’t speech,” then the government can stop you from spending $500 at Kinkos to print signs for a protest, for the exact same reason. If the government can use control of money to control speech, it has vast powers over speech because huge amounts of speech involves the expenditure of money. You pay AWS to host your political site? If Citizens United went the other way, the government could control that! Indeed, during oral argument in the Supreme Court, the lawyer for the government defending the campaign finance law was forced to admit that under the government’s view, Congress could ban books by controlling corporate expenditures: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... (pp. 26-30). (It’s one of the most devastating concessions in a Supreme Court oral argument I’ve ever read.)
  - shmerl 7y ago
    > That’s not protecting “money transfers as speech,” it’s striking down restrictions on speech and political expression disguised as restrictions on money transfers. More like it legitimizes bribery as a "campaign contribution".
    - egdod 7y ago
      It's... not like that at all. Did you read the comment you replied to?
      - shmerl 7y ago
        Citizens United? It in essence is. One of the worst outcomes when it comes to legitimized political corruption.
        egdod 7y ago
        Bribery would be giving money to the politician, yes? Citizens United doesn't address such contributions.
        reallydude 7y ago
        If I can pay for the sign on a boat instead of the moon, and it just says that politician's name, and the politician gets the boat, the difference is negligible.
        egdod 7y ago
        The politician doesn't get the boat though.
        shmerl 7y ago
        Politician gets the power, bought with money. How more corrupt than that it can be?
abraae 7y ago
Shame! I was hoping for some detailed analysis of what constitutes a troll. For example, from Oxford I see "(in folklore) an ugly creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf." Well, which is it? Further to that, is Troll always a derogatory term? Some think of them as ugly, but apparently in Scandinavian folklore, trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them. Again, these important issues are left unresolved by the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Truly an opportunity lost.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Isn't a troll, regardless of what they look like, an entity that hides under bridges, and jumps out to demand a toll? That's apparently how the Court understands it.
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    No, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/ (Trollhunter, 2010.)
    - mirimir 7y ago
      OK, I see: > In Scandinavian mythology, trolls are large, ugly, unfriendly, brutish, slow-witted, anti-Christian creatures said to dwell in isolated rocks, mountains, or caves. In the movie, there are two main types of trolls: mountain trolls and woodland trolls. Subtypes include Ringlefinch, Tosserlad, Rimetosser, Mountain Kings, the Harding, and Jotnar. But it doesn't say what they do, in addition to dwelling. See https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrollBridge https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrollBridge
      - guerrilla 7y ago
        I'm familiar with the trop and I have no justification for this but it feels like maybe a later medieval invention. I don't know that they essentially do anything. There are many stories... they kind of just do unfriendly people things? mostly... they guard treasure and sleep for thousands of years sometimes?

162 points by glitcher 7y ago

A robust win for freedom of expression, and expected insofar as American jurisprudence takes an atypically narrow view of what constitutes "defamation". This was a last gasp for this odious business, they couldn't have thought the odds were good that this would be upheld. A patent troll is as a patent troll does.

tus88 7y ago

Good. It's an accurate opinion most of the time too.

Iv 7y ago

In a country that protects money transfers as speech, shouldn't this be obvious?

rayiner 7y ago
The US doesn’t protect “money transfers” as speech as such. Buckley v. Valeo upheld limits on campaign contributions, for example. What that and Citizens United struck down was restrictions on using money to pay for political expression. If you want to spend $500 billion to put a sign on the moon that says “vote for Biden” you can do that. That’s not protecting “money transfers as speech,” it’s striking down restrictions on speech and political expression disguised as restrictions on money transfers. Of course that makes sense. If the government can stop you from spending $500 billion to put a sign on the moon, “because money isn’t speech,” then the government can stop you from spending $500 at Kinkos to print signs for a protest, for the exact same reason. If the government can use control of money to control speech, it has vast powers over speech because huge amounts of speech involves the expenditure of money. You pay AWS to host your political site? If Citizens United went the other way, the government could control that! Indeed, during oral argument in the Supreme Court, the lawyer for the government defending the campaign finance law was forced to admit that under the government’s view, Congress could ban books by controlling corporate expenditures: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... (pp. 26-30). (It’s one of the most devastating concessions in a Supreme Court oral argument I’ve ever read.)
- shmerl 7y ago
  > That’s not protecting “money transfers as speech,” it’s striking down restrictions on speech and political expression disguised as restrictions on money transfers. More like it legitimizes bribery as a "campaign contribution".
  - egdod 7y ago
    It's... not like that at all. Did you read the comment you replied to?
    - shmerl 7y ago
      Citizens United? It in essence is. One of the worst outcomes when it comes to legitimized political corruption.
      - egdod 7y ago
        Bribery would be giving money to the politician, yes? Citizens United doesn't address such contributions.
        reallydude 7y ago
        If I can pay for the sign on a boat instead of the moon, and it just says that politician's name, and the politician gets the boat, the difference is negligible.
        egdod 7y ago
        The politician doesn't get the boat though.
        shmerl 7y ago
        Politician gets the power, bought with money. How more corrupt than that it can be?

abraae 7y ago

Shame! I was hoping for some detailed analysis of what constitutes a troll. For example, from Oxford I see "(in folklore) an ugly creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf." Well, which is it? Further to that, is Troll always a derogatory term? Some think of them as ugly, but apparently in Scandinavian folklore, trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them. Again, these important issues are left unresolved by the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Truly an opportunity lost.

mirimir 7y ago
Isn't a troll, regardless of what they look like, an entity that hides under bridges, and jumps out to demand a toll? That's apparently how the Court understands it.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  No, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/ (Trollhunter, 2010.)
  - mirimir 7y ago
    OK, I see: > In Scandinavian mythology, trolls are large, ugly, unfriendly, brutish, slow-witted, anti-Christian creatures said to dwell in isolated rocks, mountains, or caves. In the movie, there are two main types of trolls: mountain trolls and woodland trolls. Subtypes include Ringlefinch, Tosserlad, Rimetosser, Mountain Kings, the Harding, and Jotnar. But it doesn't say what they do, in addition to dwelling. See https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrollBridge https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrollBridge
    - guerrilla 7y ago
      I'm familiar with the trop and I have no justification for this but it feels like maybe a later medieval invention. I don't know that they essentially do anything. There are many stories... they kind of just do unfriendly people things? mostly... they guard treasure and sleep for thousands of years sometimes?