3 ms·

Yes, but more generally someone bringing suit and losing should be responsible for defendants legal expense. This is the system in other places (eg. Germany) a

Yes, but more generally someone bringing suit and losing should be responsible for defendants legal expense. This is the system in other places (eg. Germany) and greatly prevents legal bullying

Spartan-S63 5y ago
I agree. In addition, multiple occurrences of wrongful copyright assertion should result in losing existing copyrights. If you abuse the system, you should lose the ability to protect future work.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
It's still far from optimal though, with that system it is still way too easy to do legal bullying. If you draw out a legal case long enough the coverage of legal expenses for the defendant does matter less and less (still better than not having it, of course!), because the financial pressure can still do permament damage that might not be easily reverted, add to that the intimidation and potential crippling of work/career/brand/profession of the defendant if any of those are part of the legal battle. Companies can still calculate the costs of losing the case and come to the conclusion that the benefit of the intimidation alone is worth it.
munk-a 5y ago
This can have a chilling effect - if you are a legitimately wronged party you still might be hesitant to engage in a legal battle if some technicalities failing to be technicalities could result on you losing everything you've ever earned in life when you get hit with a suit to recover legal fees. I think we sorta want more proactive and aggressive state attorneys that will prosecute seen injustices for the public good. I've pondered this a lot and I can't really see any obvious other path that doesn't have even worse potential consequences.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  > if some technicalities failing to be technicalities could result on you losing everything Could this be solved if we moved towards more % based monetary penalties?
  - jjk166 5y ago
    If anything it would make it worse. For those who are making a little over ends meet, a small percentage loss could put them under the threshold, whereas those with far more than they need can afford to lose a larger portion of their wealth. More fundamentally, the purpose of such measures is explicitly to discourage the bringing of suits - anything big enough to be a viable deterrent to bad faith actors will inevitably also be big enough to deter good faith actors.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    It might make sense if potential legal liability was limited to your own expenditure (though that might get complicated with self-representation). For instance if you've spent 30k on a defense vs. a company that put in 20M - you'd be on the hook for 30k or some multiplier/proportion of that. It'd essentially be a one-way filter: little guys get protection and bigger companies receive almost none - but it might also be exploitable by legal trolls filing bogus suits with essentially no liability exposure. The law of the law be a complicated and harsh mistress.
- echelon 5y ago
  > This can have a chilling effect Make both parties start in non-binding arbitration, where the plaintiff pays. If either party chooses to escalate, they'll be on the hook for all the fees, including the original arbitration, if they loose. Plaintiffs could purchase insurance or some other vehicle to de-risk their claims if they believe, but aren't certain, that they'll win. This will help smaller parties that get infringed upon.

Yes, but more generally someone bringing suit and losing should be responsible for defendants legal expense. This is the system in other places (eg. Germany) and greatly prevents legal bullying

Spartan-S63 5y ago

I agree. In addition, multiple occurrences of wrongful copyright assertion should result in losing existing copyrights. If you abuse the system, you should lose the ability to protect future work.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

It's still far from optimal though, with that system it is still way too easy to do legal bullying. If you draw out a legal case long enough the coverage of legal expenses for the defendant does matter less and less (still better than not having it, of course!), because the financial pressure can still do permament damage that might not be easily reverted, add to that the intimidation and potential crippling of work/career/brand/profession of the defendant if any of those are part of the legal battle. Companies can still calculate the costs of losing the case and come to the conclusion that the benefit of the intimidation alone is worth it.

munk-a 5y ago

This can have a chilling effect - if you are a legitimately wronged party you still might be hesitant to engage in a legal battle if some technicalities failing to be technicalities could result on you losing everything you've ever earned in life when you get hit with a suit to recover legal fees. I think we sorta want more proactive and aggressive state attorneys that will prosecute seen injustices for the public good. I've pondered this a lot and I can't really see any obvious other path that doesn't have even worse potential consequences.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
> if some technicalities failing to be technicalities could result on you losing everything Could this be solved if we moved towards more % based monetary penalties?
- jjk166 5y ago
  If anything it would make it worse. For those who are making a little over ends meet, a small percentage loss could put them under the threshold, whereas those with far more than they need can afford to lose a larger portion of their wealth. More fundamentally, the purpose of such measures is explicitly to discourage the bringing of suits - anything big enough to be a viable deterrent to bad faith actors will inevitably also be big enough to deter good faith actors.
- munk-a 5y ago
  It might make sense if potential legal liability was limited to your own expenditure (though that might get complicated with self-representation). For instance if you've spent 30k on a defense vs. a company that put in 20M - you'd be on the hook for 30k or some multiplier/proportion of that. It'd essentially be a one-way filter: little guys get protection and bigger companies receive almost none - but it might also be exploitable by legal trolls filing bogus suits with essentially no liability exposure. The law of the law be a complicated and harsh mistress.
echelon 5y ago
> This can have a chilling effect Make both parties start in non-binding arbitration, where the plaintiff pays. If either party chooses to escalate, they'll be on the hook for all the fees, including the original arbitration, if they loose. Plaintiffs could purchase insurance or some other vehicle to de-risk their claims if they believe, but aren't certain, that they'll win. This will help smaller parties that get infringed upon.