
Judge orders cybersquatter to pay Verizon $33m - mjfern
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/27/onlinenic_verizon_ruling_upheld/
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sahaj
i hope that some day patent trolling companies be treated this way.

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DanielStraight
A legal system which orders fines so vastly disproportionate to the "crime" is
no longer a real legal system, but a joke. If you want to make a point, write
a damn essay. Your job is to uphold the law, not screw with people to try to
scare them into obedience. This is ridiculous. It's time for these judges to
get axed and to get some competency back (assuming it was ever there in the
first place) into the U.S. legal system.

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lucumo
Damages, not fines. It's supposed to compensate Verizon for the losses it has
suffered, due to the wrong-doing of OnlineNIC.

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DanielStraight
Damages, whatever. Terminology is really not worth fighting over.

There is no conceivable way this company did that much damage to Verizon. In
fact, it's unlikely they damaged Verizon at all, especially when we know that
most users find pages through Google and that Google would certainly return
Verizon's real site first. If anyone was damaged, it was the people who
thought they were at Verizon's site but weren't, and the number of those
people is probably 3 at best.

Look at the other story they link to about file-sharing. A $2M fine for
sharing 24 songs? Is there any possible way that one person sharing 24 songs
can do $2M in damage? No. It's insane.

I think it's quite clear that judgements like these are designed to scare
people. They have absolutely no basis in reality or sanity. Any judge that
issues a judgement like this should be removed from service. I would feel the
same about someone ordering life in prison for car theft... but this is more
like ordering the death penalty for shoplifting.

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lucumo
_> Damages, whatever. Terminology is really not worth fighting over._

That's like saying "Cars, bicycles, whatever. Terminology is really not worth
fighting over." There's a difference between the two.

 _> There is no conceivable way this company did that much damage to Verizon.
In fact, it's unlikely they damaged Verizon at all, especially when we know
that most users find pages through Google and that Google would certainly
return Verizon's real site first. If anyone was damaged, it was the people who
thought they were at Verizon's site but weren't, and the number of those
people is probably 3 at best._

OnlineNIC claims that it made ~$1500 in profits from it. That's just their
claim and already far more than 3 visitors. Some of those visitors may have
gotten lost and never ended up on Verizon's website. They may have been able
to make more from their visitors than OnlineNIC. Their brand is lessened by
the experience. They had to find OnlineNIC. They had legal expenses. And
there's probably more.

 _> Look at the other story they link to about file-sharing._

I have no interest in comparing anything to file sharing/piracy. That subject
seems to cause some powerful emotions that make rational discussion
impossible.

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DanielStraight
There's a difference between fines and damages, but the issue was simply
terminology. I understand perfectly well what we're talking about. I used the
wrong word.

I understand there are issues where this could have caused damages to Verizon,
but I don't think they come to $33M. Either way, I don't think there's any way
to quantify the damages to show what they really come to... which is sort of
the problem.

