
Court Rules That “Patent Troll” Is Opinion, Not Defamation - glitcher
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/court-rules-phrase-patent-troll-opinion-not-defamation
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abraae
Shame! I was hoping for some detailed analysis of what constitutes a troll.

For example, from Oxford I see "(in folklore) an ugly creature depicted as
either a giant or a dwarf." Well, which is it?

Further to that, is Troll always a derogatory term? Some think of them as
ugly, but apparently in Scandinavian folklore, trolls may be ugly and slow-
witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly
grotesque characteristic about them.

Again, these important issues are left unresolved by the New Hampshire Supreme
Court. Truly an opportunity lost.

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goto11
I believe the etymology is from the verb troll, "carefully and systematically
search an area for something" "fish by trailing a baited line along behind a
boat."

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abraae
TIL. That makes a defamation lawsuit seen even more farcical.

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goto11
Of course etymology is not meaning. While the origin of the term is neutral,
there is no doubt that "patent troll" is used as a derogatory term. But in
order to count as defamation it also have to be _false_.

But since there is no clear agreed-upon definition of "patent troll", it is
impossible to prove whether it is a false statement or not.

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jandrewrogers
A robust win for freedom of expression, and expected insofar as American
jurisprudence takes an atypically narrow view of what constitutes
"defamation". This was a last gasp for this odious business, they couldn't
have thought the odds were good that this would be upheld.

A patent troll is as a patent troll does.

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tus88
Good. It's an accurate opinion most of the time too.

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Iv
In a country that protects money transfers as speech, shouldn't this be
obvious?

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rayiner
The US doesn’t protect “money transfers” as speech as such. _Buckley v. Valeo_
upheld limits on campaign contributions, for example. What that and _Citizens
United_ struck down was restrictions on using money to pay for political
expression. If you want to spend $500 billion to put a sign on the moon that
says “vote for Biden” you can do that. That’s not protecting “money transfers
as speech,” it’s striking down restrictions on speech and political expression
disguised as restrictions on money transfers.

Of course that makes sense. If the government can stop you from spending $500
billion to put a sign on the moon, “because money isn’t speech,” then the
government can stop you from spending $500 at Kinkos to print signs for a
protest, for the exact same reason. If the government can use control of money
to control speech, it has vast powers over speech because huge amounts of
speech involves the expenditure of money. You pay AWS to host your political
site? If _Citizens United_ went the other way, the government could control
that! Indeed, during oral argument in the Supreme Court, the lawyer for the
government defending the campaign finance law was forced to admit that under
the government’s view, Congress could ban books by controlling corporate
expenditures:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf)
(pp. 26-30). (It’s one of the most devastating concessions in a Supreme Court
oral argument I’ve ever read.)

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shmerl
_> That’s not protecting “money transfers as speech,” it’s striking down
restrictions on speech and political expression disguised as restrictions on
money transfers._

More like it legitimizes bribery as a "campaign contribution".

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egdod
It's... not like that at all. Did you read the comment you replied to?

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shmerl
Citizens United? It in essence is. One of the worst outcomes when it comes to
legitimized political corruption.

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egdod
Bribery would be giving money to the politician, yes? Citizens United doesn't
address such contributions.

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reallydude
If I can pay for the sign on a boat instead of the moon, and it just says that
politician's name, and the politician gets the boat, the difference is
negligible.

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egdod
The politician doesn't get the boat though.

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shmerl
Politician gets the power, bought with money. How more corrupt than that it
can be?

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egdod
The politician gets whatever benefit the advertising produced in the minds of
the voters. That's it. He doesn't get to keep the boat, the corporation isn't
giving him money, etc.

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shmerl
Politicians get the power, those who paid for it will ask for favors in
return. If you don't see this as corrupt, not sure anything would count as
corrupt then.

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rayiner
You're mashing together two different things: helping someone get elected, and
getting special "favors" in return for helping someone get elected. What the
Supreme Court has said is that the first thing, _by itself_ , is not
corruption, whether or not you use money to accomplish that. (And everyone
uses money to help politicians get elected, from gross-roots organizations to
newspapers who print endorsements. If merely using money to help someone get
elected could be regulated as "corruption" the government would have vast
powers over political speech.)

The second thing, giving special favors to people who helped you get elected,
can be corruption, _whether or not money is involved_ , as long as a quid pro
quo arrangement can be shown. For example, few people would disagree that its
core free speech for newspapers to be able to endorse candidates. (Even the
government in _Citizens United_ suggested that the freedom of the press clause
might protect newspapers separately from general speech protections.) But if
the Washington Post entered into a quid pro quo arrangement with Joe Biden to
endorse him in return for favorable legislation that specifically benefited
the newspaper, that might be prosecuted as a corrupt quid pro quo arrangement
_even though no money changed hands_. The quid pro quo arrangement in your
hypothetical--which _Citizens United_ does not address--is what makes the
corruption, not spending money to get someone elected.

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shmerl
Problem is that first thing directly leads to corruption, so it's a rather
poor excuse, and in practice simply legitimizes it.

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tptacek
By the logic this tossed-off comment employs, deploying any money whatsoever
to help someone get elected, even paying Kinkos for signs, or a website hosted
out of an S3 bucket, even for a grassroots reformer underdog candidate,
"directly leads to corruption".

Do you have an argument that would be persuasive to someone who _didn 't_
think the entire concept of a market economy leads inexorably to political
corruption?

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shmerl
I'm not looking to persuade those, who think that buying power is good for
society, they pretty much support corruption by design. This is addressed to
those who oppose corruption, but didn't realize, Citizens United enables it on
huge scale.

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tptacek
That's fine and coherent, but we should recognize that there are two wildly
different conversations happening here, because the users of this site broadly
favor the notion of market economies --- if not for, like, health care, then
at least things like "sign printing" \--- and most of them will not read your
argument in the "markets are inherently corrupt" frame you intend them.

