
Techdirt's First Amendment Fight for Its Life - coloneltcb
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170111/11440836465/techdirts-first-amendment-fight-life.shtml
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ccvannorman
The issue is in the same category as patent trolls.

Basically, our society has ended up in a place that you can sue anyone you
want out of business as long as your lawyer team is bigger and better than
theirs, despite how ridiculous or wrong your claims are.

I think the solution hinges on very large punitive damages for offending
parties who sue for no reason and lose, e.g. in this case suing a magazine
over "I invented email and you can't say that I didn't, give me $15M" should
result in the accuser having to pay $15M himself because the claim is
obviously a lie, and the _intent_ of the lawsuit is not to be proven right but
to _harm_ the defendant.

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RickS
Does cost matter? Tentatively, there may be a compelling case for jail time
for something like this. "Intent to cause harm" isn't necessarily physical
harm. The concept of legal assault is one that could be useful.

Though it opens up a very slippery slope, and I would hope it would have damn
high standards for proving malicious intent.

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CurtMonash
I don't think that idea holds up to scrutiny, because:

\-- As you point out, resorting to the legal system should at most be
criminalized only in the most extreme instances of abuse.

\-- Those extreme instances aren't the hardest problem to solve, because the
legal system already knows how to dispose of OBVIOUS nonsense.

\-- Any apparent counterexample to my assertions would probably already be
covered by other criminal statutes, such as those pertaining to perjury.

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angryasian
I really hope this gets more attention. Techdirt has been a pretty good
publication and this lawsuit is absolutely ridiculous.

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Gelob
Newegg's lawyer should help them

