Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MMM Receives Legal Threats

mrmoneymustache.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 92 posts

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#61

Post by atomical »

CaptJax wrote: post #58
atomical wrote: post #51

What's wrong with contacting a lawyer if someone is writing things that are blatantly untrue? Has anyone here actually read the posts?

Nothing. However S230 creates a safe harbor for publishers, which is common knowledge for anyone practicing IP/cyber law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice_and_take_down

Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal. Content is removed by the host following notice. Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infringement, as well as for libel and other illegal content. In US and European Union law, notice and takedown is mandated as part of limited liability, or safe harbour, provisions for online hosts (see the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 and the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000). As a condition for limited liability online hosts must expeditiously remove or disable access to content they host when they are notified of the alleged illegality.[1]

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#62

Post by atomical »

xacaxulu wrote: post #4

MMM is handling this like pros! Hopefully this will serve as a blueprint for future people in similar situations.

MMM says there isn't "much" merit to the claim. So there is some merit apparently. This isn't a blueprint for handling anything. He hasn't determined with any certainty if the post is libelous but is charging ahead full force to defend it? It doesn't make sense.

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#63

Post by atomical »

jimbokun wrote: post #55

Every time I see another example of frivolous litigation threats like this, I feel like one of the biggest shortcomings of the U.S. justice system is not enough pain inflicted on frivolous litigators. This goes for patent trolling, too, obviously. There should be a healthy fear of filing baseless legal challenges. Disbarment? Large fines? What's the effective remedy here, that doesn't go so far it dissuades legitimat…

Who decides if they are baseless? From the post MMM can't even decide: "From what I could tell, there wasn’t much merit to their complaint."

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#64

Post by Pitarou »

viggity wrote: post #37

FWIW, the kisstrust.com website appears to be down (giving a 404). Furthermore, I'd like to express my opinion that these lawyers are a bunch of douchebags.

Dear Mr. Graham,

It has come to our attention that the commenter "viggity" on your "Hacker News" internet discussion forum has suggested that the practising partners at the Law Office of Mark B Williams, PLC are, and I quote, "a bunch of douchebags".

My clients at the Intimate Hygiene Manufacturers Association maintain that this is an unfounded slur on their products, and insist that the forum posting and any derived or related content be removed forthwith.

Yours etc.

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

peeters wrote: post #56
zevyoura wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "Never mind the fact that Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code holds that website owners cannot be held responsible for comments that their users make."

Wouldn't this be somewhat like the DMCA, where the host is only protected if they respond to claims? Or would it take an actual court injunction to order the material to be removed?

The plain language of the provision is starkly unconditional. 47 USC Sec. 230(c)(1) specifies: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

atomical wrote: post #61
CaptJax wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. However S230 creates a safe harbor for publishers, which is common knowledge for anyone practicing IP/cyber law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice_and_take_down Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal. Content is removed by the host following notice. Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infringement, as well as for libel and other illegal content. In US and European Union law, notice and takedown is mandated as pa…

The sweeping exemption in 47 USC 230 doesn't (unlike the DMCA safe harbor) have any notice and takedown provisions attached to it, so your link and text is, while accurate, irrelevant.

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#67

Post by kps »

tomphoolery wrote: post #33

I highly suggest going the "Something Awful" route, and simply just making fun of the lawyer(s) in question until they stop. People like this should be treated the way they act. Like children.

“We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.”

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#68

Post by unclebucknasty »

atomical wrote: post #63
jimbokun wrote: post #55

Every time I see another example of frivolous litigation threats like this, I feel like one of the biggest shortcomings of the U.S. justice system is not enough pain inflicted on frivolous litigators. This goes for patent trolling, too, obviously. There should be a healthy fear of filing baseless legal challenges. Disbarment? Large fines? What's the effective remedy here, that doesn't go so far it dissuades legitimat…

Who decides if they are baseless? From the post MMM can't even decide: "From what I could tell, there wasn’t much merit to their complaint."

No, the parent is right. My own attorney even describes the current system as extortionate.

Even if this claim is not found to be technically frivolous (a legal term that carries a standard), the current system offers little or no penalty to those who use the courts as a bullying tactic.

If you say or do something that someone doesn't like, then they just sue you and force you to spend exorbitant amounts of money and time to defend yourself, or otherwise just capitulate to their demands. Even the effort required to show that something is frivolous can be expensive, as the standard is high.

The current design absolutely favors those with money. The defendant can win handily but stand very little chance of even recovering their attorney's fees.

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#69

Post by tunesmith »

atomical wrote: post #62
xacaxulu wrote: post #4

MMM is handling this like pros! Hopefully this will serve as a blueprint for future people in similar situations.

MMM says there isn't "much" merit to the claim. So there is some merit apparently. This isn't a blueprint for handling anything. He hasn't determined with any certainty if the post is libelous but is charging ahead full force to defend it? It doesn't make sense.

He doesn't know if there's merit to the claim that the offending comment was libelous. The offending comment said kisstrust was a "scam" when they apparently meant that the kisstrust offer simply added no value to a tool that is already available to consumers for less cost. It appears he does know/believe, however, that there is no merit to the claim that MMM is responsible for the content of a comment in his forums.

Re: MMM Receives Legal Threats

#70

Post by newuser10 »

byoung2 wrote: post #30
notastartup wrote: post #25

not sure I understand what's going on here, why are they being threatened legally and who is doing it?

KISS Trust is a company that offers revocable trusts for people. Someone on the MMM forum said that this company was a scam and warned others to stay away. That post made the first page of Google for a search for KISS Trust, and the company noticed. They sent a cease and desist to the blog owner demanding that he take the post down. He refused. Now the company is getting more bad press because of the legal fight than…

Just to be clear...

The first part of this post is correct. Except that after receiving the legal threat, the blog owner DID remove the offending forum thread.

But then the blog owner created a new thread describing the legal threat (can't be libelous to describe a business tactic they've actually employed, can it?), which has led to much additional discussion and bad press.

Oh, and there's apparently also a wikipedia editing war going on between the internet and the company PR person. Any guesses on how that one will end?

-new user, followed link from MMM blog to get here.

Post reply on HN