Man jailed over blog... In America

Discussion in 'Security and Legal' started by Alfa1, Jan 12, 2014.

  1. Alfa1

    Alfa1 Regular Member

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  2. BirdOPrey5

    BirdOPrey5 #Awesome

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    Alabama hasn't wanted to be part of America for 150 years.
     
  3. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    They need to put more people in Jail in America
     
  4. AWS

    AWS Administrator

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    That is a perfect example of rights we take for granted and that are afforded to us by the U.S. Constitution are getting trampled more and more everyday.
     
  5. zappaDPJ

    zappaDPJ Regular Member

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    It seems in general the US courts are looking for more accountability when it comes to posting content on-line i.e.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25711932

    It's a double edged sword in my view; free speech vs accountability, can you have both?
     
  6. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

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    It's a tough call. Free speech, I don't think, guarantees anonymity though. Review sites tend to have a lot of crap reviews because of the protection anonymity provides.
     
  7. AWS

    AWS Administrator

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    We are all accountable for what we say and as the BBC news article shows a person, in this case the carpet guy, sued to find out who wrote the reviews so he could find out the individuals names so he could sue them too. If the person who wrote the reviews did so under their own names the case would have never been brought to court and hence no ruling.
     
  8. we_are_borg

    we_are_borg Regular Member

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    Yes you can have both as long as people that leave the review are honest, that way the company can try to set things right. But the consumer needs to be protected by law from lawsuits that try to silence them or try to financially ruin them. For the company there must be a penalty when they try this and it must be a scary penalty for that company. But on the other side if customers leave bogus or untruthful reviews then that person needs to be punished to, as for companies that make false reviews they should be accountable for this by law.
     
  9. BirdOPrey5

    BirdOPrey5 #Awesome

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    If the reviews are legit I doubt he has a case, but if he can show 10 accounts are all the same people then he may well have a legitimate case- and imagine if they were from a competitor.

    Freedom of speech is a right, anonymity is not.
     
  10. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    People on the net are malicious. I believe there needs to be a level of policing. What that level is, I dont know.
    But people are jerks on line.

    I would think though people would be more worried about the NSA these days.
     
  11. Alfa1

    Alfa1 Regular Member

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    If internet brands can sue xenforo over frivolous claims just to paralyze their business, then other companies can sue their critics just to shut them up. Its a two edged sword.
     
  12. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    I think we all know the truth about xF.
    RIP
     
  13. BirdOPrey5

    BirdOPrey5 #Awesome

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    I suspect the case against XF wasn't so frivolous as you believe. The very fact the case continued on so long the Judge felt there may have been some merit somewhere.

    A truly frivolous case is dismissed by the judge swiftly.
     
  14. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    BOP. Exactly, but that doesn't meet the agenda of most people on AT.

    Oh yea, forgot to add, VB sucks... (im safe now)
     
  15. Alfa1

    Alfa1 Regular Member

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    I actually think it was dismissed relatively swiftly. Court cases have a tendency to play on for quite a while. And if you can afford it and have the right lawyers then the game can be played in many different ways and lengths.
     
  16. BirdOPrey5

    BirdOPrey5 #Awesome

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    While it was technically dismissed it was a settlement, not dismissed like a frivolous lawsuit would be dismissed after the defendants made a motion of dismissal- that is where they show the judge the case is so without merit they don't bother proceeding any further and often the accuser pays the court costs and attorney fees and their attorney may even get fined. This did not happen.
     
  17. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

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    Does it matter? A lot of B.S. cases go to settlement simply because it's often the easier route. Doesn't change the fact that they were complete B.S. to begin with. I don't know what was going through the judge's head. But after reading document upon document from the case, it was clear that IB was just wasting the court's time and threw ridiculous accusations out to delay it further. To me, it seems, the objective was to drain all of XenForo's funds to try and ensure they would not be able to make it as a business. Luckily, that failed and vBulletin is still a heaping pile of rubbish.
     
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  18. zappaDPJ

    zappaDPJ Regular Member

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    I have to agree, having read through every single available document submitted to the court, the case appears to be without merit. If it had merit why did vBSI agree to settle when they could have won the case and wiped out XenForo?

    I also agree that the settlement was reached fairly swiftly. You have to remember that this was a case based largely on technology the judge would know nothing about so there's no way he could dismiss the case as frivolous without first being able to determine the full facts and for that he'd need to hear expert testimony.

    At the end of the day nobody knows what the settlement was but it was obviously not substantially in vBSI favour or XenForo would have ceased trading. In fact it's unlikely that XenForo was able to service their own legal costs without outside funding so for all we know vBSI could have settled very much in XenForo's favour.
     
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  19. BirdOPrey5

    BirdOPrey5 #Awesome

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    The case wasn't all about technology. Speculating who got the better end of the settlement is useless- it's just as easy to speculate vBulletin walked away with the better deal.
     
  20. zappaDPJ

    zappaDPJ Regular Member

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    I said the case was 'largely' about technology. The non-technology claims including violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Penal Code 502, Violations of California Business and Professional Code, Conspiracy and Violation with regards to RICO were all dismissed by the judge because that element of the case was of course, frivolous. Highly amusing if you understand the general purpose behind the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

    Yes I agree, speculating is useless but you've been spending far too much time around Mark.B. You are starting to sound like him which is a great pity because you are far better than that.
     
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