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Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't trust FOSS patents and the author Florian Mueller as far as I could throw him. He has a long history of being a paid shill, lying about it, and being flat out wrong.

(Paid by oracle) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103

(Paid by microsoft) http://techrights.org/2012/08/18/vile-lobbyist/

(Paid by apple? I can't find other/primary sources to back up this claim though it does seem likely.) https://mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-...

(More examples of him being wrong) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257

I think there's a chance he's happens to be on the right side of the law this time (a stopped clock is right twice a day). At the same time he's good at his job at making believable bullshit. I put no faith whatsoever in his analysis and would suggest that reading his posts is more likely to deceive you than inform you.

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Earlier this year he accused my cofounder and I of conspiring with Apple to make fun of Epic on Twitter. This was entirely based on my cofounder tweeting a photo of Apple Park. http://www.fosspatents.com/2021/05/did-epic-games-ceo-tim-sw...

"The photo, taken from the lawn inside Apple Park, was posted at 4:55 PM Pacific Time, and the color of the sky as well as the length of the shadows cast by the trees suggest that the picture had been taken at just about that time of day."

My cofounder tweeted the photo because Twitter had just launched new photo sizes, and the photo looked good with the changes.

Just for the record, it was taken at 11:25 AM.

Wow, that article is unfortunate.

And Techrights/BoycottNovell and Groklaw are the epitome of unbiased coverage and analysis? How about we read everything with a grain of salt rather than just ad hominem? Why not just cite what is wrong with the analysis in the article, if anything? I see numerous citations, maybe submit analysis that differs from a different lawyer?

Florian Mueller has a long history of paid lying and clearly has skin in this game. I think that is important information to have presented. Importantly I also think his analysis is hardly convincing and one only needs to look to NYTimes, The Verge, NPR, CNN and the AP to see the exact opposite case presented.

Why do you think his analysis is incorrect?

Reported by journalists, not lawyers like the article.

And why is Tim Sweeney tweeting that he lost the court case?

He did lose the court case. He got none of his desires met, none of the goals he set out with met, and wasted a lot of money.

I'm not particularly sympathetic to his views, here, nor Apple, but if there was a "loser" here it would definitely be Epic.

Exactly. I'm not sure why it is so difficult for the rest of the commenters to understand that Apple winning 9/10 counts vs Epic winning 1/10 means that this is a huge win for Apple and a huge loss for Epic.

Apple is still entitled to some form of commission even if Epic or anyone else doesn't directly use IAP in their apps. Given that Epic admitted to violating the App Store guidelines, Apple is still barring them from the App Store.

Because it's really not a huge win for Apple, it's more of a huge loss because of what they lost on, and it's not really a huge loss for Epic, because iOS market revenue is meaningless in their operations.

Devs could, for example, charge a higher price if you buy it via the AppStore and a lower price if you complete the purchase on their website. It potentially removes a significant portion of Apple's cut for IAP. Apple also has to figure our how to collect the "commission", which could lead to devs not working with Apple in the future. Apple will have a hard time appealing because the appeals court could rule against them on the counts they already won on. That's why it's not seen as a huge win for Apple.

Epic has to pay a meaningless amount of money (a few million dollars they'll make back up in a few days) and is barred from a platform they didn't care about in the first place. Non-US regulators are also looking into Apple's handling of the AppStore, which means Apple could still be forced to make changes in line with what Epic was arguing. This is why it isn't a huge loss for Epic.

It is a huge win for Apple. They lost nothing and regardless if companies use IAP or not, Apple is still legally entitled to take the commission from the developers.

> Devs could, for example, charge a higher price if you buy it via the AppStore and a lower price if you complete the purchase on their website. It potentially removes a significant portion of Apple's cut for IAP.

Again, even if they charge a higher price on the IAP and lower on the website, Apple is still entitled to charge the commission regardless if they use IAP or not. The judgement clearly states that 'Under all models, Apple would be entitled to a commission or licensing fee, even if IAP was optional' [0] (p68)

On Epic's side they lost the antitrust argument which was the whole point of filing this lawsuit. Apple already made the changes to mentioning links for paying outside of the App Store before this ruling was made.

Nothing has changed on the commission side for Apple and Epic still cannot allow their own billing system in Fortnite, thus they are still banned on the App Store even after admitting being in breach of the App Store rules and must pay for those damages. Meaningless or not.

So actually, Apple still wins and it is a huge win.

[0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060631-apple-epic-...

It's appealed, so this is a moot point.

Both Epic and Apple have the right to appeal. And your point is?

As it stands, Epic lost and Apple is still entitled to the commission even if you use IAP or not and regardless if you change the pricing on the website to be cheaper than the IAP.

Apple was not found to have broken anti-trust laws which was the basis of Epic's argument and Apple already addressed the anti-steering count before the decision of this lawsuit.

Either way, Apple is still getting paid and Apple still wins.

EDIT: Why did you delete your comment? Care to explain what was wrong with it?

   > You seem to be really invested in this in an unhealthy way.

That is the reality of the result of the lawsuit and it was a clear win for Apple, assuming you read the judgement on (p68).

It's not that hard to understand that is it?

The reality is that when you're trying to consume the firehose of information that is the internet, reading reliable sources that won't lie to you is very useful. Especially on subjects like law where there are a lot of subtleties and things that are outright wrong can sound very plausible.

I have no real opinion on the journalistic integrity of techrights, I do have opinions on groklaw being pretty close to the epitome of unbiased coverage (and it was shown in court that the author of groklaw was not a paid shill...).

Even if your vague insinuations about techrights and groklaw did have foundation, it would still just be a "whataboutism" argument. Someone intentionally producing misinformation is wrong no matter how reliable other people are. The fact that foss patents was paid was literally in court, and is an admitted fact (I'm loathe to links to fosspatents blog directly, so here's a link to a news article reporting on it with direct quotes: https://web.archive.org/web/20160825043319/http://www.dailyt...)

If you think Techrights/BoycottNovell and Groklaw are not very slanted coverage then you're within the bubble and cannot see outside it. Also, one can be very slanted and biased without getting paid (rather no one can prove or disprove they got paid no one even knows the identify of the person(s) behind Groklaw).

Groklaw certainly had a variety of sincerely held opinions (so does everyone), and advocated for them. That's different from being paid to take a position that you don't believe in or making bad faith arguments.

The identity of who wrote Groklaw is known (Pamela Jones), and the accusations that they were a paid was disproven in court in the Oracle case.

Edit: And when I said advocated for them, I mean it in the legal sense as well as blogging about them: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/patents/law/commen...

Ironically, this was the reason they gave the reason for hiding their identity under PJ and then later expanding it to a generic Pamela Jones since there are a lot of people under that name:

>In other words, I was hoping people could assume whatever they wanted and just focus on what I said, rather than on who was saying it. For that reason, I chose PJ, because it could be anyone, either sex, any nationality, anyone and no one in particular.

Maybe we should follow PJ's advice while reading the posted article.

Anyway, we are rehashing a discussion from the past.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7090812

In the interst of continuing to provide actual facts to this conversation:

Here is an article by Pamela Jones (ironically not on groklaw) discussing the lack of compensation for running groklaw: https://www.zdnet.com/article/letter-to-the-editor-no-ibm-gr...

Here is the court filing by IBM in which they deny that they paid groklaw (page 10): http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/IBM-621-E19.pdf

Not like IBM would ever lie in court.

https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/18/ibm_government_lying_...

And the other link is an assertion by an anonymous person that they're totally on the up and up. What would you expect if they were not, a confession? Would Florian Muller make a confession if he were anonymously posting as FM (Frank Matthew) while getting paid as a consultant? No one would ever know he was getting paid if we didn't know his real identity.

What's more likely? IBM lied to the court for no good reason (paying for shills is not illegal, just strange), the author of groklaw made up a name and later in life violated federal law by filing comments to UPTSO under it, other named lawyers worked with her on that. Or she really is named what she claims to be named?

You're inventing wild conspiracies that don't even have a good reason to exist.

>later in life violated federal law by filing comments to UPTSO under it

That "violation" means nothing.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/06/80-of-the-22-million-comme...

> The wholesale undermining of the processes of government earned fines of $3.7 million, $550,000 and $150,000 for Fluent Inc., React2Media and Opt-Intelligence, respectively. There are also “comprehensive reforms” imposed on them, though it may be best not to expect much from those.

I would suggest that just about no individual is interested in millions of dollars of fines...

If I read this properly, it also doesn't prohibit the possibility of criminal charges in that case either.

That case also didn't exist at the time, so didn't exist as precedent for believe that you might get off "lightly".

Those fines were all for faking millions of comments. You're talking about one. Where is the precedent in the FTC case for going after someone for one fake comment, and that too for putting an alias and not for other misrepresentation?

https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-a-crime-to-use-a-di...

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-legal-status-of-pseudonyms...

One would hope a competent paralegal would know that.

>and it was shown in court that the author of groklaw was not a paid shill..

The court didn't determine who paid for hosting and dev. They didn't examine her tax returns. They don't know her employer(s). Didn't examine her bank accounts. She could be the daughter or wife of an IBM lawyer and IBMs assertion in court would still be true.

> Paid by apple? I can't find other/primary sources to back up this claim though it does seem likely.

He states that he's been rooting for Epic to win in the third paragraph.

>I've been rooting for Epic, and I wish everyone were as honest as Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney after losing a court battle.

Note that

1. It's entirely possible he is lying, it wouldn't be the first time.

2. The date of that accusation is back in 2012, it's entirely possible that his loyalties have shifted in the meantime.

3. The accusation could be false...

Instead of defaming the person, can you explain why his analysis is incorrect?

Neither truthful statements, nor opinion based on disclosed fact are defamation. I believe my statements here qualify as both. I am pretty careful when I'm intentionally attacking a person instead of an opinion.

I'm criticizing the person and not the analysis for several reasons.

The primary one is that the purpose of my post is to caution people about reading fosspatents as a reliable law blog, not to discuss this case.

An equally important reason is that I think there's a chance that he happens to be right this time (as I indicate in my original post) so there's probably not much in his analysis for me to criticize (though I did not read it in detail).

Finally it takes substantially more time and expertise to disprove disinformation (especially in a fashion convincing to lay people in a comment short enough to post on hn) than it does to make it. Debating misinformation every time it comes up is not something I have the time or expertise to do. Warning people about a known bad actor however is something I do have the time to do, and is in my opinion more likely to improve the world.

(Retracted due to error)

I firmly believe you are mistaken as to the meaning of the word defamation, to quote a dictionary (emphasis added) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defamation

> the act of communicating false statements about a person that injure the reputation of that person

True statements are not defamatory as a matter of the meaning of the word in common language.

Calling out bad actors is not a "cheap shot", it's a useful social service. On HN we should demand better sources that do not come from known bad actors.

A cheap shot would be some sort of unfair attack on his character, e.g. calling out random cases where he called the outcome wrong (which inevitably happens if you comment on enough cases).

If you want to read well written and thorough criticisms of some of his older posts, you can, for example, pull up old groklaw posts about them (which did take the time to disassemble the arguments step by step and criticize them).

(Retracted due to error)

We're not in a court... legal definitions are not the relevant ones.

Edit: Though now that you mention it, here is blacks law dictionaries definition, emphasis added

> What is DEFAMATION?

> The taking from one’s reputation. The offense of injuring a person’s character, fame, or reputation by false and malicious statements. The term seems to be comprehensive of both libel and slander.

https://thelawdictionary.org/defamation/

I'm not sure I remember this correctly but wasn't he paid by SCO?

I believe the payment by microsoft was partially over the SCO case. I don't recall seeing any evidence that he was paid directly by SCO (but I could have missed it)

You can read the document in which microsoft discusses paying shills in this form (directly on page 53) and make up your own mind...

http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096....

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