It was barely funny when I read the headline a few years ago. Really weird story, I guess I just don't understand the humor at all. I'd rather stop hearing about InfoWars entirely.
Jokes aside, The Onion is basically spending a giant pile of money to burn the website down.
Most people thought they were insane. Bill Drummond wrote about how it strained his relationship with his kids. You can tell that he regrets it.
Personally I think a million bucks to lease a domain name for a year is a really terrible business decision. You might be able to argue that it's going to victims but you could almost certainly just park that money into an interest-bearing account and do better for those victims.
But it's also been obvious from the beginning (starting with Jones' own comments) that nobody really gives a shit about these families and they're just props in other peoples' theater show.
Not only would another owner likely allow Alex Jones to continue to operate, but The Onion can truly salt the earth around Alex Jones' business. If they own the InfoWars trademarks... if they own The Alex Jones Show as a trademark? They can potentially shut down Alex Jones' future works if they violate InfoWars' trademarks and intellectual property. They can sue him if he says something defamatory about the new InfoWars. One of the perks here is that The Onion is well-versed in free speech rights, intellectual property rights, and trademark law. They already have lawyers good at this stuff.
The Onion can be a truly significant thorn in Jones' side, the way most other outcomes for this could not. I'm guessing the new site won't be that funny, but thankfully I don't really care about the "art".
If the victims don't benefit from the money now, they can bear their own interest. Time-value, etc.
"If Infowars' brand and property are sold, Jones could still start a new company or work for someone else. But because the bankruptcy judge ruled Jones' behavior "willful and malicious," the bankruptcy will not erase Jones' debt, meaning families can keep claiming any money he makes in the future until he pays the $1.3 billion he owes them."
This idea that he "can't have toys" or the court is "going to take is cat" because he has debts is insanity.
Let's say it's your family member. And they go bankrupt due to medical bills. Is this how you want the system to treat them? Justice isn't an opportunity to demean people you don't like.
People will tolerate all kinds of bad precedent and injustice simply because of their emotions. Which might be fine, but to see it drizzle onto the front page of Hacker News, I have to agree with the OP, is annoying.
He could have cooperated with the original trial instead of stonewalling discovery until he was dealt a default judgement, he could have cooperated with the other trial but he didn't, he could have not tried to hide his assets in the bankruptcy process but he didn't... he could have done SO MANY THINGS. But he chose not to. fuck him.