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"The implication is that SCEA might be fighting dirty, providing misleading information to the court." That's kind of naive, this is how the law works - you ma

"The implication is that SCEA might be fighting dirty, providing misleading information to the court." That's kind of naive, this is how the law works - you make your case by putting the most beneficial spin on everything from your clients perspective ("he agreed to this when he did X"). The defendant then makes their case by putting the most beneficial spin on everything from their clients perspective ("X only extends to cover Y and therefore is not relevant"). The judge or jury then rule on who is right. That's not fighting dirty, it's the practice of law. This is an analysis of the defence motions which are always going to be worded to make everything Sony has done sound deeply wrong and evil. The Julian Assange defence was very similar - if you read through it you'd wonder how the case had ever been bought and yet the judge found against them on pretty much every point. They weren't fighting dirty, they were giving their interpretation of things and this is the same. Not saying this isn't good, or interesting, just that it has a very specific and obvious bias and that irks me a little.

YooLi 16y ago
I agree with you. That said, where does it cross the line from beneficial spin to providing misleading information? Can, for instance, a landlord claim to a court that a tenant agreed not to throw loud parties in the rental contract (even if there was no such provision) and leave it up to the the tenant's defense to correct that no, the rental contract says nothing about parties? To me this would be misleading information, but I am highly ignorant of how courts work.
- markklarich 16y ago
  It can, actually, get much worse. While cross examining the other side, the opposition attorney can, and often does, state an assumption in the middle of a question that misstates a fact. If you don't object, then that statement becomes fact. In other words, every statement made must be considered. Is this something I am willing to allow? It seems that we want to think of a world that is logical and populated with verifiable facts. However, the world of the lawyer is fundamentally illogical (as are most humans most of the time) and facts only exist when either agreed to by the parties or determined by judge or jury. As a result events that you or I would consider to be unquestionably true may end up being not facts. I have seen this in supreme court opinions, appeals, and bench (judge-not jury) cases. Sony knows this well. They have tons of money to throw at lawyers. Generally speaking, the more money spent, the more likely you will win. The word "justice" is never used in law school.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    It seems that we want to think of a world that is logical and populated with verifiable facts. However, the world of the lawyer is fundamentally illogical (as are most humans most of the time) and facts only exist when either agreed to by the parties or determined by judge or jury. This observation that "legal logic" is not quite the same as traditional rational-thought logic has led to an interesting "legal reasoning" subfield of AI over the past decade or so (with some precursors dating back further) that tries to formalize exactly what logic it is following, and how it differs from traditional rationality. That area develops alternative logics, reasoning procedures, etc., in order to do things like simulate case outcomes, suggest possible arguments to make, evaluate alternative strategies, etc. Until relatively recently many people did think that the right way to make a legal reasoning system was to treat the law as logical rules, and the legal reasoning problem as a problem of rational inference over rules+evidence... which turns out not to be that accurate an account of how law actually operates.
    - GFischer 16y ago
      I have long been interested in the possibility of a legal AI, although only as a mental exercise (with lawyer parents and siblings, hard not to :) ). I didn't know there were advancements in the AI field pertaining to that, I'll try to look them up, but would be very grateful if someone could point them out :)
      - _delirium 16y ago
        I'm not really an expert in the area; have just run across some sessions on it at the general yearly AI conferences I attend (AAAI, ECAI, and/or IJCAI). The keywords "legal reasoning" and "legal argumentation system" will get you quite a lot of stuff though. The latter bleeds into general "argumentation systems", since one way of modeling legal reasoning (though not the only one) is that it's a specific sub-species of debate or argumentation, rather than a specific sub-species of logical inference. (Of course, you might ask: isn't debate ideally logical as well? Empirically, it seems, the answer is: not entirely.)

YooLi 16y ago

I agree with you. That said, where does it cross the line from beneficial spin to providing misleading information? Can, for instance, a landlord claim to a court that a tenant agreed not to throw loud parties in the rental contract (even if there was no such provision) and leave it up to the the tenant's defense to correct that no, the rental contract says nothing about parties? To me this would be misleading information, but I am highly ignorant of how courts work.

markklarich 16y ago
It can, actually, get much worse. While cross examining the other side, the opposition attorney can, and often does, state an assumption in the middle of a question that misstates a fact. If you don't object, then that statement becomes fact. In other words, every statement made must be considered. Is this something I am willing to allow? It seems that we want to think of a world that is logical and populated with verifiable facts. However, the world of the lawyer is fundamentally illogical (as are most humans most of the time) and facts only exist when either agreed to by the parties or determined by judge or jury. As a result events that you or I would consider to be unquestionably true may end up being not facts. I have seen this in supreme court opinions, appeals, and bench (judge-not jury) cases. Sony knows this well. They have tons of money to throw at lawyers. Generally speaking, the more money spent, the more likely you will win. The word "justice" is never used in law school.
- _delirium 16y ago
  It seems that we want to think of a world that is logical and populated with verifiable facts. However, the world of the lawyer is fundamentally illogical (as are most humans most of the time) and facts only exist when either agreed to by the parties or determined by judge or jury. This observation that "legal logic" is not quite the same as traditional rational-thought logic has led to an interesting "legal reasoning" subfield of AI over the past decade or so (with some precursors dating back further) that tries to formalize exactly what logic it is following, and how it differs from traditional rationality. That area develops alternative logics, reasoning procedures, etc., in order to do things like simulate case outcomes, suggest possible arguments to make, evaluate alternative strategies, etc. Until relatively recently many people did think that the right way to make a legal reasoning system was to treat the law as logical rules, and the legal reasoning problem as a problem of rational inference over rules+evidence... which turns out not to be that accurate an account of how law actually operates.
  - GFischer 16y ago
    I have long been interested in the possibility of a legal AI, although only as a mental exercise (with lawyer parents and siblings, hard not to :) ). I didn't know there were advancements in the AI field pertaining to that, I'll try to look them up, but would be very grateful if someone could point them out :)
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I'm not really an expert in the area; have just run across some sessions on it at the general yearly AI conferences I attend (AAAI, ECAI, and/or IJCAI). The keywords "legal reasoning" and "legal argumentation system" will get you quite a lot of stuff though. The latter bleeds into general "argumentation systems", since one way of modeling legal reasoning (though not the only one) is that it's a specific sub-species of debate or argumentation, rather than a specific sub-species of logical inference. (Of course, you might ask: isn't debate ideally logical as well? Empirically, it seems, the answer is: not entirely.)