
Patreon loses lawsuit with Owen Benjamin fans - pgrote
https://nationalfile.com/patreon-loses-lawsuit-with-owen-benjamin-fans-likely-to-pay-millions-in-arbitration-and-legal-fees/
======
ceejayoz
> Patreon’s terms included language that allowed any users of the platform to
> litigate their case individually under California’s JAMS arbitration scheme.

Regardless of the merits
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views))
of the comedian in question, I'm enjoying watching arbitration - intended to
fuck over users - come back to bite companies in the ass.

DoorDash learned this the hard way, too.
[https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-
workers-10-m...](https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-
workers-10-million-forced-arbitration-class-action-supreme-court-backfired)

> Under Judge William Alsup’s order in Abernathy v. DoorDash, DoorDash must
> arbitrate over 5,000 individual disputes with various workers who claim that
> they were misclassified as independent contractors, when they should be
> treated as employees. It also must pay a $1,900 fee for each of these
> individual arbitration proceedings.

~~~
zucker42
William Alsup is a name that seems to come up frequently in tech litigation,
and I'm rarely disappointed with his opinions.

He was the one who learned Java in order judge to Google v. Oracle case
better.

Fun fact: his middle name is Haskell.

~~~
dependenttypes
He has been programming for decades actually
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-
googl...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-
william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber)

------
mikece
I just saw this on a YouTube news clip last night. ONE YouTuber was banned
form Patreon and he encouraged his followers who had been supporting him on
Patreon to file a "tortious interference" lawsuit which asserts breach of
contract against Patreon. In letting this go forward the judge also asserted
that Patreon's change in their terms of service on January 1 _does not apply_
to complaints about actions which give rise to legal claims prior to that
date.

In short: Patreon has to front $10,000 in legal fees per arbitration claim.
The source of the suit is only about 100 people but if a sizable portion of
the supporters of some of the larger names who have been banned from Patreon
file suit as well then Patreon could be facing the requirement to put aside
hundreds of millions of dollars to pre-fund arbitration cases... which could,
theoretically, force them to file for bankruptcy and/or cease operation.

The above-mentioned news clip:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8)

------
binarymax
It's sad that Patreon is paying a price for kicking an abusive person off
their platform, but forced arbitration needs to die, and I hope cases like
these end the practice entirely.

~~~
mindlar
Patreon would have been fine if they hadn't cancelled a comedian for having
political views that they don't like. Pretty much every comedian has said
things that others find offensive.

The Patreon arbitration is the beginning of the revolt against cancel culture
and the censorship of conservative voices on various platforms.

~~~
panarky
When you say "political views they don't like", it sounds like he wanted more
or less taxes, more or less regulation, more or less public transit.

Let's be clear, he's a holocaust denier, and that's not just an unpopular
"political view".

He has every right to say it to whoever will listen, but private companies
should not be forced to amplify that shit.

~~~
lliamander
> he's a holocaust denier

From what little I've seen, Owen Benjamin rejects that description of himself,
so I'd be interested to hear why you think he is.

Worth noting that outlets that reported him as a "holocaust denier" also
claimed that he would definitely lose this lawsuit, which was clearly false.
Not only did Patreon lose, but the judge went so far as to point out that the
cases they cited undermined their own case.

> He has every right to say it to whoever will listen, but private companies
> should not be forced to amplify that shit.

Private companies have an obligation to honor their Terms of Service, which
Owen did not violate, and why he and his fans filed for arbitration in the
first place.

------
lgleason
I hope that we see more situations like this. Providers need to stop
moralizing IMHO and it would be nice to see this severely affect their bottom
line or even put Patreon out of business.

~~~
sp332
He's actively directing harassment of anyone who gets in his way. Deciding not
to be part of that is not moralizing, it's very practical and might actually
be self-defense.

------
chejazi
Unrelated; this site runs ads literally between each sentence. smh

~~~
ceejayoz
It's a grifty conspiracy theory site; the ads are its primary purpose for
existing: [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-
file/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-file/)

------
VikingCoder
How did their lawyers screw this up so badly?

~~~
hedora
Any site with a binding arbitration clause is vulnerable to the same sort of
attack.

California shouldn’t have ~ banned class action lawsuits.

