Legal fund for Reviewers/Erin?

[kemmler3D]

Now that this Troubadour story is concluded, I'd love the discussion to return to Amir's original question about the suitability and community appetite for a general legal defense fund. This is my 2 cents as a practising lawyer and an EE by training. I've served on the board of a not-for-profit and I belong to two different regulated professional associations.

1. I would be very worried about the effectiveness and public acceptance of a general legal defense fund, a fund that is a pile of money amassed before actual litigation. This opens such a huge can of worms. Who holds the money? Amir in a regular bank account? A lawyer in a trust account? Gofundme? How can the money be used? Only on costs directly related to actual litigation? What about general legal advice or incorporation, not related to actual litigation but which is intended to minimize liability exposure? These are typical costs of running a business, not defending a lawsuit. Will there be rules about arms-length relationships with retained lawyers (can't hire a buddy or family)? Will there be rules about minimum competency (can't hire your estate or tax lawyer to do defamation), or maximum billable rate? Who manages the fund and who is allowed to dip into the fund? If no actual litigation happens, is money returned to contributors after a certain amount of time, or is it kept in the fund for future possible lawsuits?

I do not mean to impugn the integrity of Amir, Erin, or anyone else, but I don't feel comfortable contributing to this type of fund simply due to the potential for abuse, mismanagement, or reputation-damaging scandal.

2. A less risky alternative would be to set up a Gofundme only after a suit is filed in court. Decent people don't set up a cancer Gofundme simply because of family history; they do it after a diagnosis. The fund would be constrained to a specific case (and appeals) and unused money would be donated to a charity specified at the creation of the fund. Some of the concerns in 1. should still be managed here, but the specific nature of this fund makes it more palatable to me, personally, to accept the risks.

3. A trade association with dues and insurance. I don't think the membership would be big enough to make this viable, but others would know better than me.

Here's my thought on it, if it were up to me and I were going to set it up right now -

It would be a trust, specifically for litigation or pre-litigation advice only, and funding would be limited to reviewers of audio equipment facing legal threats over their reviews. Eligibility for funding should be pretty easy to determine on a case-by-case basis.

I think there would also need to be a criterion as to whether the review was prima facie legitimate. If the trust determines that the review actually was very likely defamatory or negligent, the funds shouldn't be wasted on that.

I think it would need to be managed by a board of some sort.

I think your points about competency, conflicts of interest, etc. are good. A lot of details would need to be worked out while setting up the trust. Ideally a member who is an attorney can help set it up to avoid blowing all the cash in the process of creating the fund. So there also ought to be a stipulation that the reviewer would need to agree to deposit any funds raised related to the lawsuit back into the trust...

Anyway, yeah this gets very complex once you start thinking about it concretely. But I'm definitely in support of the idea after having watched this play out. Volunteer attorney definitely required for this...

I think the money would sit in the fund indefinitely, not to be returned to anyone. I think that's a feature, not a bug. If there's a pool of money out there, specifically to counter any audio reviewer facing this type of threat, this type of threat will be significantly deterred. And the reviewers will have a lot less stress about it.

If people like Eric Alexander knew (for example) that there was $250K of cash just sitting there, waiting to make him look stupid in court, even he would never send the kind of emails he's sent to Amir and Erin. As we know the only real danger a litigant like this poses is fiscal and temporary, but that can be a serious danger.

The analogy to a cancer gofundme* falls apart because you can't scare cancer off by having a healthy bank balance.

* HOWEVER - if anyone gets caught up in a lawsuit and actually needs the funding, they should definitely be encouraged to use that situation to fundraise, to avoid depleting the fund and ending back where we started.

 

[coonmanx]

So that means Eric still won and got what he wanted: no more unsolicited reviews. He can go back now to paying for reviews from shills and continue his bullying as usual. Frankly, while I can understand Erin’s sentiment on the matter, I see it as a loss for the community. That, right after a post where I see the whole ordeal as a positive… I don’t know anymore…

Not exactly sure that Eric won with all of the bad publicity coming his way. But who knows. Will just have to wait and see...

 

[kemmler3D]

Brand value is entirely tied to goodwill. Goodwill is tied to being easy to love, admirable and trustworthy.

It's not just admirability, but also recognizability and awareness.

In this case, Tekton has gained awareness and lost admirability. This is a double whammy, the "stagflation" of brand marketing.

 

[KaasNL]

I've followed this whole thing, and whilst it's tempting to chime in and throw some more dirt around i'm not going to. Because i decided the best thing to do is become a paid member, as this best shows my gratitude for the service and dedication Amirm and the others running this website provide. @amirm i hope you use my money to buy a couple of nice coffees for you and your wife and a little treat for the dog (he got better right?), so you guys can sit in the morning sun for a bit and forget about this whole charade for 10 mins.

 

[Katzz]

The videos from tekton with the tittle "Erin's Audio Corner and ASR [Audio Science Review] of Tekton Design Mini Lore" and "We are NOT suing anybody! are private at this moment

 

[AaronJ]

View attachment 363264
To paraphrase an old saying: better to have people think you are, than to open your mouth and prove them right.

This is literally all Eric cares about. Not about his company, his business, his employees, heck probably not even his brand.

 

[ta240]

2. A less risky alternative would be to set up a Gofundme only after a suit is filed in court.

The only drawback I can see there is, in some cases it would likely be handy to have an appropriate attorney look over and possibly even respond to the email threats before it reaches that level. Otherwise there could be a fair amount of time spent dealing with a barrage of emails where the reviewer doesn't know if they have any validity or not.

But, to be honest, I have no clue how one would setup a fund to function in that early capacity though. Who would decide at what point money would get released?

 

[EarlessOldMan]

I just saw this thread, and I haven't read all of it. I'm a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of Washington. I recently successfully defended one SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) brought by a company because of negative Google reviews. I very much dislike garbage threats like this one. I'd be happy to the target of this threat and see if I can help out.

I don't want to provide my name here to avoid hassle. But I can be reached through the messaging on this site.

 

[kemmler3D]

From the start it baffled me that he didn't just go with the "I don't design speakers to be measured, I design them to be enjoyed". He could have made a video with that statement and then pointed out his issues with the feet and the distance for the tweeter measurements.

This is what happens when a founder-CEO mistakes their ego for a marketing strategy and won't listen to sensible advice.

There were ways for him to salvage this or even boost his brand with it, all along, even after the legal threats. He just needed to put his business ahead of his feelings.

Hell, I think he STILL could come out of this looking better than he started if he dug deep enough. (I'm in marketing and I believe it's possible.) The level of apology and self-abasement would have to be pretty extreme, but people will forgive a lot if you seem to be fully honest and self-aware.

The narrative could have turned from "The speakers are decent but the owner is a monster, so I won't buy" to "The speakers are decent and the owner learned from his mistakes, I guess I could consider it".

But there's no way. His ego and narcissistic-looking tendencies won't let him. 99.9% chance he's going to go down with the ship, pointing fingers all the way to the bottom.

 

[ta240]

Not exactly sure that Eric won with all of the bad publicity coming his way. But who knows. Will just have to wait and see...

It reminds me a bit of a meme that was posted in a humor section recently that said: She died doing what she loved.... saying "Pedestrians have the right of way"
That feeling of self satisfaction only lasts so long in some instances.

 

[ClaudeJ1]

It reminds me a bit of a meme that was posted in a humor section recently that said: She died doing what she loved.... saying "Pedestrians have the right of way"
That feeling of self satisfaction only lasts so long in some instances.

Not in Europe. "Pedestrians have legs to get out of the way of vehicles."

 

[napilopez]

Permission from the manufacturer to do a review is NEVER necessary. It sets a bad precedent. Procedurally, it could shut down any site that engages in it, because sites want to publish fast. Manufacturers want to review stuff written about them slooowly.

Mainstream review sites like Consumer Reports and Wirecutter would never agree to "solicited" reviews because that's antithetical to journalistic culture. (Not asking whether ppl think this is good or bad, just reporting the way it IS and has been for forever.)

Of course Wirecutter, which is owned by the NYTimes, and Consumer Reports have deep pockets and lawyers. Small sites don't. This is precisely why we have to hold the line and not let vendor intimidation win.

As a former journalist, I could not agree with this more. For all people like to harp on "the press" these days , one thing being part of a larger media organization helps with is preventing this sort of bullying. People often assume that if a publication writes something negative about a company, they'll lose "access" to their events/products. I can genuinely say I very rarely saw this be the case in a decade of tech journalism. Most of the PR people handling these things know better than that.

But I've sometimes seen the same manufacturers take a much harsher stance with smaller independent creators, because they know they could. Those relationships seem to often be handled by a different team too.

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

Anyway, yeah this gets very complex once you start thinking about it concretely. But I'm definitely in support of the idea after having watched this play out. Volunteer attorney definitely required for this...

Yeah that's what I want to draw attention to about a defense fund. It sounds great in concept but it's a lot of work to get it going properly. If it's sufficiently transparent and well set up, I can see it succeeding. Big if tho.

 

[kemmler3D]

Yeah that's what I want to draw attention to about a defense fund. It sounds great in concept but it's a lot of work to get it going properly. If it's sufficiently transparent and well set up, I can see it succeeding. Big if tho.

I agree, big "if". This is a bigger project than putting together a proper FAQ, and we still don't have that either.

I do think it's an idea worth keeping alive. This might sound like fanboyism, but Amir, Erin, and reviewers like them are actually managing to "turn the ship" of the audio industry to an extent. You could say we're in a new era of professional-grade amateur independent reviewers, the paradigm is actually shifting.

However, to @napilopez 's point, there's a big hole in this new paradigm, which is that the court system is still a huge stick to swing at someone, and the vanguard of independent reviewers don't have the resources to defend themselves that a reporter or reviewer would have had in the print era.

The legal defense fund could get us to a situation where modern reviewers have the same confidence to publish as traditional ones, but with real independence and objectivity away from the demands of big advertisers, etc. A best of both worlds scenario.

Anyway, I agree that there is a ton of detail that needs to be worked out, so the only realistic path IMO is if we get an attorney who wants to donate their time to the project. Otherwise we're going to need a fund for the legal defense fund.

 

[coonmanx]

Erin's second video review has just been uploaded on Youtube.

"

Man, watched this whole thing and Erin is a class act and that video was awesome.

 

[Dick-A]

Thank you for insight John. Why does Eric claim that he needed to "fact check" the review?

M

Erin is not being sued so any talk of a go fund me probably should be halted. For those that feel generous, just go to his patreon site and leave the rest of us out of it .

I just saw this thread, and I haven't read all of it. I'm a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of Washington. I recently successfully defended one SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) brought by a company because of negative Google reviews. I very much dislike garbage threats like this one. I'd be happy to the target of this threat and see if I can help out.

I don't want to provide my name here to avoid hassle. But I can be reached through the messaging on this site.

Thank you very much.

 

[ExUnoPlura]

I just saw this thread, and I haven't read all of it. I'm a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of Washington. I recently successfully defended one SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) brought by a company because of negative Google reviews. I very much dislike garbage threats like this one. I'd be happy to the target of this threat and see if I can help out.

I don't want to provide my name here to avoid hassle. But I can be reached through the messaging on this site.

Excellent. Washington has good anti-SLAPP legislation according to this:

Understanding Anti-SLAPP laws - The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

What is Anti-SLAPP? Short for strategic lawsuits against public participation, SLAPPs have become an all-too-common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism through expensive, baseless legal proceedings. Anti-SLAPP laws are meant to provide a remedy to SLAPP suits. Anti-SLAPP laws are...

www.rcfp.org

 

[kemmler3D]

Excellent. Washington has good anti-SLAPP legislation according to this:

Understanding Anti-SLAPP laws - The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

What is Anti-SLAPP? Short for strategic lawsuits against public participation, SLAPPs have become an all-too-common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism through expensive, baseless legal proceedings. Anti-SLAPP laws are meant to provide a remedy to SLAPP suits. Anti-SLAPP laws are...

www.rcfp.org

This would help Amir but Erin is in AL (huntsville I think) which does not have an anti-SLAPP statute.

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

I agree, big "if". This is a bigger project than putting together a proper FAQ, and we still don't have that either.

I do think it's an idea worth keeping alive. This might sound like fanboyism, but Amir, Erin, and reviewers like them are actually managing to "turn the ship" of the audio industry to an extent. You could say we're in a new era of professional-grade amateur independent reviewers, the paradigm is actually shifting.

However, to @napilopez 's point, there's a big hole in this new paradigm, which is that the court system is still a huge stick to swing at someone, and the vanguard of independent reviewers don't have the resources to defend themselves that a reporter or reviewer would have had in the print era.

The legal defense fund could get us to a situation where modern reviewers have the same confidence to publish as traditional ones, but with real independence and objectivity away from the demands of big advertisers, etc. A best of both worlds scenario.

Anyway, I agree that there is a ton of detail that needs to be worked out, so the only realistic path IMO is if we get an attorney who wants to donate their time to the project. Otherwise we're going to need a fund for the legal defense fund.

Yes, the ideal would be a foundation like EFF. If anyone can get the ball rolling it's Amir (don't mean to speak for him). He's got the connections and the experience setting up LLCs.

 

[Timcognito]

Okay, now back to the Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance? thread.