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I've often thought that if you really wanted to pirate something, just start an S-corp for ~$200 and put your cable account in its name. If you get sued, tell t

I've often thought that if you really wanted to pirate something, just start an S-corp for ~$200 and put your cable account in its name. If you get sued, tell them to litigate until they're blue, the company is going under.

mnutt 14y ago
That would likely be a case where a corporation would not protect you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil
- jasonkolb 14y ago
  What if the business's purpose is to provide an open suburban hotspot?
  - jerf 14y ago
    You're trying to convince a human judge, not a computer program.
    - larrys 14y ago
      But you're assuming it would even get to a trier of fact. That is a mistake that lawyers make many timese that I've seen. They will settle a case with another lawyer as if the other side will actually go through and file a lawsuit and even has the money to litigate. McDonalds regularly settles slip and fall lawsuits that are merit less. It is cheaper in certain cases to just pay off the tort lawyer with $10,000 then go to court. And certainly you've seen cases where the little guy gets sued and gives up because they don't have the money to fight even though they are clearly right (or let's assume they are..)
      - jerf 14y ago
        No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.
        pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        Sounds like you're saying judges are corrupt and dont care if they have proof or not?
        rprospero 14y ago
        No, it comes down to a question of the letter of the law versus the spirit. By the letter of the law, jasonkolb's proposal would work. However, jasonkolb's propsal clearly violates the spirit under which corporate protection was originally developed. Now, if you argue that the judge should follow the letter of the law, and ignore the spirit, remember that the first amendment protects the freedom of "speech" and the "press". It doesn't say anything about websites. Of course, the spirit of the law was clearly anti-censorship and would obviously apply to written texts that haven't physically been through a printing press, but the letter of the law says no such thing. Alternately, you could stick to the letter of the law and simply redefine the word "speech" to include things obviously not spoken, like websites. Convincing judges that the spirit of the law does not match the letter, or that the dictionary definition of a word isn't the definition to be used in the case, are ways of hacking the law that have nothing to do with judicial corruption.
        pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        Sorry but no. Interpreting an IP address as identifying a user isn't a matter of interpreting the spirit of the law it's simply making a factual error. Should an IP address be sufficient to allow a search to be made? Certainly in a criminal case. It is similar to the case of catching a speeding car but not being able to identify the driver (except speeding isn't a tort). You can't assume the owner is guilty unless the law is drafted to make it so that a car owner is responsible for all authorised use of their vehicle. Talking about the spirit of the law is considering the law makers intentions and how they would have drafted the details in the current technological background. Even if you narrow down the guilty party to one of a small group you can't convict the whole group or even a random member of the group on that strength alone. That's not how European or USA law works (though there may be other crime, withholding evidence, harbouring a criminal and such that members of the party would be guilty of).
    - jasonkolb 14y ago
      It is not a matter of convincing anyone, it is a matter of interpreting the law. I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but you have to consider this within the bounds of the legal system, not what you find to be tasteful or convincing. There are of course ways to address this via legislation--but that will never happen as it goes to the very core of the corporate personhood issue.
  - larrys 14y ago
    I really like your thinking. This is exactly what you have to do when confronted with legal opinions and what lawyers are telling you. You have to challenge them ask questions and propose ideas. They aren't going to think for you and depending on their ethics they aren't going to put words in your mouth (and tell you how to lie and I'm not implying you are doing that). (Same with accountants as well.)
  - antonej 14y ago
    That would probably violate the terms of the broadband ISP service contract. No doubt people do this all the time and get away with it, but that doesn't mean the big guys wouldn't go ahead and enforce it in situations where it really matters.
larrys 14y ago
The strategy could work if done correctly and most certainly in the case of a mass lawsuit. If the corp is opened in a place that offers nominee owners or directors even better. Although there are most certainly legal ways that someone could figure out who to sue, in a mass lawsuit it would simply not pay to put the effort in to pierce the corporate veil of any individual when there were 1500 other targets. Despite what others have said you've made a good point to always keep in mind as an entrepreneur. Something that you are legally obligated to do by contract is very often not worth the time for the other party to file a lawsuit over. If you rely on attorneys this is not something they always will make you aware of. (My points are based upon surviving many many years in business both with and w/o contracts.)
- pasbesoin 14y ago
  A lot of law, in practice, comes down to cost/benefit rather than right/wrong.
- antonej 14y ago
  From the corporation's point of view, it would pay as an investment in deterrence. Companies fight money-losing legal battles all the time because they don't want to open the floodgates to thousands of others doing the same thing.
rbanffy 14y ago
If you make the ownership graph sufficiently complicated (as in enough companies crossing enough international jurisdictions through enough shared-ownership layers) you'll be: 1) invulnerable to lawsuits 2) the coolest person in the whole internet
- jasonkolb 14y ago
  You should see what the ownership graphs of most multinationals look like. I did an analysis of JP Morgan at one point and I kid you not the list of companies in small type with no formatting took 10 pages to print out. For all the people who are saying that this is hacking the legal system you are correct. This is routinely done and I recommend you spend some time reading up on it, because it is fascinating. For example, did you know that most cities are corporations?
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > I recommend you spend some time reading up on it I work for a portal that was recently acquired. The company who acquired the portal is, in part, owned by the same companies that own the telco that sold the portal, but the composition is different. I'm not even sure there are no cycles in the graph - it's perfectly possible some of the entities involved own themselves.
    - arbitrarywords 14y ago
      That's amusing. Can you have two companies that own each other? If so, how long does it take to finalize the books at tax time?
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        I wouldn't try to form such a short cycle, but it would be fun to form a series of other cycles with the ownership graph in such a way that drawing the graph would give the prospective investigator a congratulatory message ;-)
  - 14y ago
antonej 14y ago
As a lawyer, I would never recommend this. Corporate plaintiffs would sue the individual(s) as well under the theory of "piercing the corporate veil." Given these facts, I think they would have a good chance of winning, but even if they lost, that's not the point. The real issue is attorneys fees. $100,000 in legal expenses is a rounding error to large corporations; for many individuals, it is their life savings

mnutt 14y ago

That would likely be a case where a corporation would not protect you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

jasonkolb 14y ago
What if the business's purpose is to provide an open suburban hotspot?
- jerf 14y ago
  You're trying to convince a human judge, not a computer program.
  - larrys 14y ago
    But you're assuming it would even get to a trier of fact. That is a mistake that lawyers make many timese that I've seen. They will settle a case with another lawyer as if the other side will actually go through and file a lawsuit and even has the money to litigate. McDonalds regularly settles slip and fall lawsuits that are merit less. It is cheaper in certain cases to just pay off the tort lawyer with $10,000 then go to court. And certainly you've seen cases where the little guy gets sued and gives up because they don't have the money to fight even though they are clearly right (or let's assume they are..)
    - jerf 14y ago
      No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.
      - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        Sounds like you're saying judges are corrupt and dont care if they have proof or not?
        rprospero 14y ago
        No, it comes down to a question of the letter of the law versus the spirit. By the letter of the law, jasonkolb's proposal would work. However, jasonkolb's propsal clearly violates the spirit under which corporate protection was originally developed. Now, if you argue that the judge should follow the letter of the law, and ignore the spirit, remember that the first amendment protects the freedom of "speech" and the "press". It doesn't say anything about websites. Of course, the spirit of the law was clearly anti-censorship and would obviously apply to written texts that haven't physically been through a printing press, but the letter of the law says no such thing. Alternately, you could stick to the letter of the law and simply redefine the word "speech" to include things obviously not spoken, like websites. Convincing judges that the spirit of the law does not match the letter, or that the dictionary definition of a word isn't the definition to be used in the case, are ways of hacking the law that have nothing to do with judicial corruption.
        pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        Sorry but no. Interpreting an IP address as identifying a user isn't a matter of interpreting the spirit of the law it's simply making a factual error. Should an IP address be sufficient to allow a search to be made? Certainly in a criminal case. It is similar to the case of catching a speeding car but not being able to identify the driver (except speeding isn't a tort). You can't assume the owner is guilty unless the law is drafted to make it so that a car owner is responsible for all authorised use of their vehicle. Talking about the spirit of the law is considering the law makers intentions and how they would have drafted the details in the current technological background. Even if you narrow down the guilty party to one of a small group you can't convict the whole group or even a random member of the group on that strength alone. That's not how European or USA law works (though there may be other crime, withholding evidence, harbouring a criminal and such that members of the party would be guilty of).
  - jasonkolb 14y ago
    It is not a matter of convincing anyone, it is a matter of interpreting the law. I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but you have to consider this within the bounds of the legal system, not what you find to be tasteful or convincing. There are of course ways to address this via legislation--but that will never happen as it goes to the very core of the corporate personhood issue.
- larrys 14y ago
  I really like your thinking. This is exactly what you have to do when confronted with legal opinions and what lawyers are telling you. You have to challenge them ask questions and propose ideas. They aren't going to think for you and depending on their ethics they aren't going to put words in your mouth (and tell you how to lie and I'm not implying you are doing that). (Same with accountants as well.)
- antonej 14y ago
  That would probably violate the terms of the broadband ISP service contract. No doubt people do this all the time and get away with it, but that doesn't mean the big guys wouldn't go ahead and enforce it in situations where it really matters.

larrys 14y ago

The strategy could work if done correctly and most certainly in the case of a mass lawsuit. If the corp is opened in a place that offers nominee owners or directors even better. Although there are most certainly legal ways that someone could figure out who to sue, in a mass lawsuit it would simply not pay to put the effort in to pierce the corporate veil of any individual when there were 1500 other targets. Despite what others have said you've made a good point to always keep in mind as an entrepreneur. Something that you are legally obligated to do by contract is very often not worth the time for the other party to file a lawsuit over. If you rely on attorneys this is not something they always will make you aware of. (My points are based upon surviving many many years in business both with and w/o contracts.)

pasbesoin 14y ago
A lot of law, in practice, comes down to cost/benefit rather than right/wrong.
antonej 14y ago
From the corporation's point of view, it would pay as an investment in deterrence. Companies fight money-losing legal battles all the time because they don't want to open the floodgates to thousands of others doing the same thing.

rbanffy 14y ago

If you make the ownership graph sufficiently complicated (as in enough companies crossing enough international jurisdictions through enough shared-ownership layers) you'll be: 1) invulnerable to lawsuits 2) the coolest person in the whole internet

jasonkolb 14y ago
You should see what the ownership graphs of most multinationals look like. I did an analysis of JP Morgan at one point and I kid you not the list of companies in small type with no formatting took 10 pages to print out. For all the people who are saying that this is hacking the legal system you are correct. This is routinely done and I recommend you spend some time reading up on it, because it is fascinating. For example, did you know that most cities are corporations?
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > I recommend you spend some time reading up on it I work for a portal that was recently acquired. The company who acquired the portal is, in part, owned by the same companies that own the telco that sold the portal, but the composition is different. I'm not even sure there are no cycles in the graph - it's perfectly possible some of the entities involved own themselves.
  - arbitrarywords 14y ago
    That's amusing. Can you have two companies that own each other? If so, how long does it take to finalize the books at tax time?
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      I wouldn't try to form such a short cycle, but it would be fun to form a series of other cycles with the ownership graph in such a way that drawing the graph would give the prospective investigator a congratulatory message ;-)
- 14y ago

antonej 14y ago

As a lawyer, I would never recommend this. Corporate plaintiffs would sue the individual(s) as well under the theory of "piercing the corporate veil." Given these facts, I think they would have a good chance of winning, but even if they lost, that's not the point. The real issue is attorneys fees. $100,000 in legal expenses is a rounding error to large corporations; for many individuals, it is their life savings