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Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

wsj.com

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Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#551

Post by NotSammyHagar »

cmart wrote: post #519
j2kun wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: aside from historical precedent, what objective "connection with the merits of the dispute" makes the ACLU more appropriate than Thiel to fund a privacy suit? Is it just that the ACLU has trained lawyers who can weigh in on the law? Would the attitude toward Thiel change if Thiel happened to have a law degree? Would it change for the ACLU if they were purely funding it and not actually providing lawyers…

> Would the attitude toward Thiel change if Thiel happened to have a law degree? He does have a law degree.

Ha, that's too funny. Of course he does.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#552

Post by igorgue »

nailer wrote: post #509
igorgue wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the kind of person who likes the first amendment only for compliments, it supposed to be for these kind of stuff, the ugly shit. Again, he's a public figure.

Not American, but the Hogan story wasn't under trial. The sex tape was. The jury made the right choice.

The only reason the trial exists is not because of the tape, is because of Thiel's thin skin, cause he didn't have any grounds on his.

I don't think you understand how this is an abuse of money on the juritary system.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#553

Post by wrsh07 »

jdminhbg wrote: post #466
wrsh07 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying Gawker is a martyr here. But if you haven't, you really ought to read Benedict Evans piece on this: > Again, though, Thiel has already won. He is fabulously wealthy and extremely influential, and say what you will about Gawker, the liberal democracy that made it possible for the companies Thiel has built and invested in to emerge depends on a free press; driving a publication to bankruptcy via lawyer f…

Wrong Ben -- that's Ben Thompson, not Benedict Evans.

Oh geeze. Yup. I even read the Twitter follow-up. Too late to edit, though

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#554

Post by dctoedt »

rayiner wrote: post #455
grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

> I think we are otherwise left a little unsettled over what the promiscuous scattering of third-party money throughout the courts might do. Whatever it is, it likely is not good. I disagree. Division of labor and specialization is almost always economically efficient. Litigation finance is just the embodiment of that concept applied to litigation. Traditionally, litigation has been financed either by: (1) the plaint…

> Division of labor and specialization is [sic] almost always economically efficient. Litigation finance is just the embodiment of that concept applied to litigation.

I'd be more comfortable with your economic-efficiency argument if there were more economic certainty in the process by which damages awards are arrived at --- especially in situations such as the Gawker case. I didn't see or hear any of the damages evidence, but it seems strange that the jurors concluded that Hulk Hogan really suffered $115 million in damages. As I know you're aware, it's not uncommon for lay jurors to do a version of baseball arbitration, choosing the analysis of one side's damages expert over that of the other --- and of course the opinion of neither expert is entirely unmotivated.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#555

Post by opo »

grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

>... The broader question is whether the law should permit any third-party funding of litigation where the funder has otherwise has no connection with the merits of the dispute.

Are you seriously trying to argue that contingency fee arrangements, or lawsuits funded by groups such as EFF, ACLU, SPLC, ACLU etc etc etc are somehow litigation abuse?

The real underlying issue is that it shouldn't take millions of dollars to litigate a claim against a big corp like Gawker. Why in general should legal fees be so large that someone with any kind of injury has to give 40% of the settlement to a lawyer? This is the public policy issue that is important.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#556

Post by blastrat »

kofejnik wrote: post #537
sheepleherd wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. ...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name) I'd have more sy…

Jennifer Lawrence's persona and living are based on being extremely attractive, so was it Ok to hack her iCloud and publish her nude selfies? Strangely, Gawker crowd was very upset that no one went to jail for it.

I'm not saying Gawker is OK or not, nor that they are hypcocrites or not.

I'm talking about the standards that courts use to measure "harm". Young starlets have so many sex tapes (their own and hacked) out there, and it doesn't seem to harm them much.

It's almost as if a porn star could make a better claim that they lost the commercial potential of something stolen!

Again, I'm not saying that I want to live in a world where it's ok to steal people's sex tapes and put them out there; but I am also noting that in today's world, it is much less of a "harm" or even an embarrassment to people than it was when the system of torts was established. Since torts are based on harm, we run into the issue of "how much harm did this cause?"

maybe it needs to be made illegal like "upskirts". (and I'm not advocating that, either. I'm saying, I'd like some clarity to exactly what people are outraged by)

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#557

Post by blastrat »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #474
sheepleherd wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. ...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name) I'd have more sy…

Hogan can't eat our positive thoughts. He lost a lot of respect among the kind of people that (economically) matter a lot to him, like sponsors and employers.

I get the idea of what you said, but did he, really measurably? plus: the information released about him was accurate; who says you get to have secrets that disqualify you from jobs that you hide from your employer? I'm not saying we want to have a big brother society, but I am saying if you present yourself as wholesome (whatever that means) and you are not wholesome, then you are false advertising anyway, to people who care about that.

Anyway maybe it made him relevant again ("there is no such thing as bad PR"), I had forgotten he existed. Need to wait for some time to go by before it's clear.

I'm not advocating a side or devil's advocating, i just prefer the "less outraged middle" over the "outraged extremes"

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#558

Post by nailer »

igorgue wrote: post #552
nailer wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not American, but the Hogan story wasn't under trial. The sex tape was. The jury made the right choice.

The only reason the trial exists is not because of the tape, is because of Thiel's thin skin, cause he didn't have any grounds on his. I don't think you understand how this is an abuse of money on the juritary system.

What? Without the tape there wouldn't have been a trial.

I think you've bought into a narrative created by fearful journalists.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#559

Post by danielweber »

smt88 wrote: post #299
danielweber wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do let us know when that situation happens.

http://gawker.com/5741535/police-find-photographs-of-berlusc... (An irony that the first site that came up was Gawker)

So where are the photos, like Gawker had on their front page?

All I see is a report that it exists. Neither of the two links in the tweet were to stories showing the photos.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#560

Post by michaelmior »

adamnemecek wrote: post #15
baldfat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LifeHacker?

I feel like Lifehacker might have been somewhat unique in say 2006 but that whole "productivity" space has become somewhat saturated.

Any suggestions of other good sources of similar articles?
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