Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- "A telling admission" by Aaron Williamson (AW1337)

[Alexander Terekhov]

rjack wrote:
[...]
> The S.F.L.C. lawyers are filing repetitive, frivolous, cookie-cutter 
> complaints
> in the S.D.N.Y. where they would never meet the requirements for federal
> jurisdiction. Subsequently they voluntarily dismiss the suits prior to the 
> court
> ever reviewing the complaint.
> 
> These tactics are often adopted by pro se plaintiffs who do not have 
> sufficient
> knowledge or facts to prosecute their claims in court. The suits are filed
> merely to intimidate and harass defendants. They waste judicial resources and
> time. Eventually the courts get wind of these abusive tactics and put a stop 
> to
> them.

To wit:

http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2007/01/section-411a-bites-plaintiff-twice.html
 

------ 
The dispute involves a rather traditional infringement of architectural
blueprints by unauthorized construction of a home based on those plans.
Plaintiff sued both the couple who gave the builder the plans, and the
builder. The builder moved to dismiss for failure to comply with Section
411(a). Plaintiff stipulated to dismissal of the builder, but then
amended the complaint after receiving a registration, adding the
builder. The builder again moved to dismiss; the court granted the
motion, holding that the “relevant jurisdictional fact, which cannot be
changed by amending the complaint, is that registration of the copyright
had not been made” when the complaint was originally filed. Plaintiff
then re-filed its complaint; the builder moved to dismissal under FRCP
41(a). The court denied the motion, but sua sponte ordered plaintiff to
pay attorney’s fees in connection with the prior two dismissals, and to
really show its pique stayed the proceedings until the fees were paid
up. 

That was just the beginning of the mess, though, as years of litigation
over motions for reconsideration, summary judgment, and appeal to the
Seventh Circuit occurred. Ultimately, another $75,000 in fees were
awarded in connection with the motion for summary judgment and the
appeal. One cannot but wonder whether the final award was influenced by
the 411(a) fiasco. 
------ 

regards, 
alexander. 

-- 
http://gng.z505.com/index.htm 
(GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can 
be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards 
too, whereas GNU cannot.)