4 ms·
really? even when it's a litigation scam like that? i understand about defending the 'guilty' and all, everyone must have their lawful rights to freedom and co
by gcb 16y ago
really? even when it's a litigation scam like that?
i understand about defending the 'guilty' and all, everyone must have their lawful rights to freedom and compensation. But a for-profit scam, c'mon. You ought have some responsibility were you choose to make a living from.
it would be completely ethic if they were defending a murder-rapist in trial. but going after people without any kind of evidence, just in the hopes that you will get money for scaring some of them. that's just too unethical to be excusable in any imaginable way.
- juiceandjuice 16y agoJust because the DMCA sucks doesn't mean a lawyer shouldn't be the best lawyer they can be. Now, if he fails to sever contact with the RIAA, or fails to be impartial to any case which may involve the RIAA or copyrights while being solicitor general, that's a different argument.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoDon't fool yourself. No lawyer decides to go to bat for the RIAA in civil court out of a sense of justice, or for any other reason than to bring home giant bags of money.
- citricsquid 16y agoHow many people out there work for the desire to achieve vs. bags of money?
- Cadsby 16y agoToo many fall into the latter unfortunately. The desire to make money is fine. It's when it becomes a higher priority than basic morality/decency that it becomes something contemptible.
- burgerbrain 16y agoA lot.
- tzs 16y agoCould you explain what you are talking about? I'm aware of the RIAA suing people whose IP addresses were used for P2P sharing of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner, but that wouldn't fit your description, as that is not a scam, as they had evidence against the people they went after in those lawsuits. Hence, I assume you are talking about some other RIAA litigation that I am unaware of.
- pyre 16y agoI think the 'scam' implication comes up because the RIAA's lawyers try as hard as they can to just get people to settle out of court, and once they are brought into court, usually try to back-peddle as fast as they can to get out of there while still leaving open the possibility of bringing suit again in the future. The impression this leaves with people is that it's meant to be a 'shake-down' since the RIAA is less interested in court cases and more interested in settlements.
- _delirium 16y agoI don't like the cases he was involved in either, but I don't think Verrilli was part of those settlement-demand letters, or in litigation against individuals. He's an appellate and Supreme-Court practice attorney, and the cases he's been involved with have been appeals of the RIAA's suits against content-hosting companies and P2P companies. For example, he argued their side in the Viacom v. Google case and in MGM v. Grokster. I don't like the positions he argued in those cases, either, but I don't think representing MGM versus Grokster, for example, was a breach of professional ethics or scammy. In fact it seems the position he argued was correct as a matter of law, according to a unanimous Supreme Court (the main problem is that Congress shouldn't have passed the law in question).
- chopsueyar 16y agoI wonder if a similar argument could have been made about slave ownership prior to the 13th amendment? Morality be damned, it is the law.
- 16y ago