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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

From TFA: “This is not a battle worth fighting,” he said in a tweet. Toponce told TechCrunch that he has complied with the demands, fearing legal repercussions if he didn’t.

Okay, but let's see what they wanted: "The letter also demands that he disclose to the law firm the identity of the person or people with whom he had shared a copy of the software, agree that he would not make any further copies of the software and to delete any copies of the software he had in his possession."

Umm, F-THAT!! I will not send you personal contact info of anyone for anything without a warrant/suponea for any of my clients/customers/users/friends. Anyone that would be willing to do that should have that tattooed across their foreheads so anyone in the future will know.

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My guess is you have never found yourself in this kind of legal situation.

In my experience, as someone that was detained for the first time at the age of 14 by the secret service for counterfeiting, has multiple subsequent arrests, and despite all that actually became a lawyer myself, while a lawyer later in life was abducted and kidnapped at gun point managed to escape by jumping out of a moving car and tracked down the guy 24 hours later and delivered him to the police (or police to him) - so I feel I have some life experience - it’s the person screaming the loudest about what they would do in the shoes of others that is usually the least likely to actually do it.

Unless you can say what you have done in like circumstances you don’t know.

So before you go around championing marking people with tattoos in order to readily identify them, at least consider where in history that very concept comes from. My suggestion if you feel so strongly, is help, maybe by donating money for a legal fund, or at minimum show a little compassion and moral support, but don’t tell someone else what you would do in their shoes and how you’d punish them if they don’t show the same moral convictions you pretend to have without being put to the test.

> I will not send you personal contact info of anyone for anything without a warrant/suponea

Unless you're (a) swimming in money, (b) have some kind of strong (and free?) legal/financial support behind you to battle such a thing, (c) are not in the US, or (d) are so poor that you have nothing to lose anyway, this sounds like a rather incredible claim. Most people facing potentially massive lawsuits would probably cave.

It’s tempting to think that being “right” - in principle, objectively, or even legally - gives superpowers over legal proceedings. It doesn’t. Even a brief brush against targeted litigation will clear up this confusion quickly and painfully. You’ll be broke, and therefore defeated by default, long before you’ll be vindicated.

This opens up an interesting discussion point. Is there a way to reform the legal system to make it depend less on how much money you have?

edit: I like our current legal system, but I know Europe has the (Roman/Napoleonic?) inquisitorial system, if any Europeans could contribute and note if that has different outcomes? Or just any wild ideas on how to tweak the system to give more equal footing that isn't based on money.

I think one thing that would help would be to broaden the number of cases where legal fees can be awarded. Another thing that is not currently the case would be to work on simplifying the legal system to the point where a well educated person can take some time studying the law, at least well enough to defend themselves against baseless accusations. The ABA has made it a point to lobby states in order to increase the number of situations where professional lawyers are required (kind of like what TurboTax has done with the tax code).

Even with a simplified laws and legal proceedings, obviously not everyone would be in a position to defend themselves. However, many of those people could probably find a legally astute relative or friend to help them. There will always be a need for public defenders or something similar, though, since not everyone has a good support network.

To be honest though, I think the only really long term solution is for radical reform to the economy in general is the abolishment of private property. Private property, including intellectual property in particular, is always going to give disproportionate power to the wealthy. We should reward people for actual labor (not necessarily the same amount for the same hours), not because they already have giant stacks of cash.

The US took a step towards that with CASE Act that was recently passed, establishing what is basically a small claims court for copyright infringement. The big problem with the existing situation is attorneys fees can be over $50k for a relatively simple case, and the average case costs over $200k. With the new system the process is streamlined and there is no need to hire an attorney, and attorneys fees will not be awarded to the prevailing party, except in cases of bad faith. The total damages are also limited to $30k, and $15k in statutory damages per infringement, so if you prevail it is less likely to be appealed

Parts of the UK and several EU countries have a similar system with a small claims court for copyright cases under a certain limit with a limited discovery, where attorneys are not needed in addition to the regular courts.

In the UK there is no such thing as a small claims court. A small claim is lodged in a county court. Easily done online.

In England and Wales there is a small claims track in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court

Well, one obvious alternative would be to decide that everyone has a right to legal support, similar to how most countries have decided that anyone has a right to healthcare. Similar as for healthcare there could be a single payer system for legal support. Everyone could pay a bit more tax, and then get legal support when needed. Main question is how you keep costs under control, and avoid abuse of the system.

Could be done, not sure if it would be a better system...

Loser should pay both sides legal fees by default, but the judge should have the discression to change this and also to cap costs based on what is reasonable.

Actually basing the legal system on money might not be the worst. Certainly better than basing it on influence and connections.

About your question: you might like this paper https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

It doesn't offer any answers, and it's about criminal justice; but it's good food for thought about unintended consequences.

"You’ll be broke, and therefore defeated by default, long before you’ll be vindicated."

Unless maybe the ACLU or EFF take up their defense pro-bono.

Alas, not being in the US does not protect against the American legal system.

The outrage many Americans on HN extol over the GDPR is amusing when it’s US law that has been exported globally for decades.

Well, I don't like neither US nor EU meddling with people in other parts of the world.

EU doesn’t meddle as long as you have nothing to do with the the EU.

Kim Dot Com on the other hand...

IANAL, but since you aren't actually in court, nor are you benefiting financially from the situation, couldn't you just...lie and say you don't have the contact information of anyone you sent it to? Or hell, just lie and say you didn't send it to anyone?

IANAL either but I would imagine if they gather any past or future data to suggest otherwise you might paint a target on your back. Not sure if there are any terms around that per se buy at least if it does come to a court case, I imagine having lied probably wouldn't help your case.

Or if published publically provide the name of everyone everywhere...

It seems Aaron Toponce is in the US (UT) and the company is in the UK.

Hypothetically, he were in the EU, I understand it would be illegal to provide the personal information as requested (i.e. of anyone who had not explicitly consented to the transfer of their data to an explicitly named third party).

Maybe there's a way to give the GDPR more teeth by punishing businesses who operate in the EU "legally" while outside the EU are not treating people as well.

U.K. is still covered by gdpr

The GDPR no longer applies to the UK (although it does apply to UK organisations operating in our marketing to the EU). From ICO: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/dp-at-the-end-of-the-tr...

“ The GDPR has been incorporated into UK data protection law as the UK GDPR – so in practice there is little change to the core data protection principles, rights and obligations found in the UK GDPR. ”

Right - four months in, there hasn't yet been any divergence, but the GDPR no longer applies to the UK. You don't have recourse to EU enforcement measures or courts.

A case like this usually means you've screwed so badly, you're going out of business anyways. Again, cops do not enter a house without a warrant, and lawyers don't get anything for free without getting a subponea. It's not a hard thing to stand up to make the opfor at least do the leg work, and then make it as expensive for them as you can.

Once you do receive a subponea, you get to then see exactly how it is worded. Converting all of the data to hex or binary, and then printing it out at a 4pt font on greenbar paper with one character per line might not be explicitly stated as something not to do. If the request comes in as "delivered exactly as it is stored electronically" providing binary would seem apropos.

> Once you do receive a subponea, you get to then see exactly how it is worded. Converting all of the data to hex or binary, and then printing it out at a 4pt font on greenbar paper with one character per line might not be explicitly stated as something not to do. If the request comes in as "delivered exactly as it is stored electronically" providing binary would seem apropos.

Do this only if you want to catch a contempt of court charge.

I see this kind of thinking on HN a lot (though to be fair, it’s not limited to HN). If a court asks for data, you give them the data they ask for, or you straight-up sue them if the data is somehow privileged or the request is unconstitutional. There is no space for individual cleverness when dealing with legal stuff, and judges do not take kindly to “bUt i FoLlOwEd ThE InStRuCtIoNs!”-style defenses.

Many people seem to beleive the justice system behaves like a set of if...then clauses. I blame the mass production of crappy US courtroom drama - people start thinking it's how the real world works.

And if you need legal assistance to do something like interpret the wording sufficiently accurately to avoid running into further legal trouble, expensive for you as well.

Maybe you just haven't done anything dangerous enough to warrant that sort of attention so you can have the luxury of that unchallenged opinion.

Unfortunately, it doesn't necessarily have to be dangerous to be the target if a lawsuit like this.

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