Legal fund for Reviewers/Erin?

[rdenney]

But not credible. He's got to pay a lawyer and court fees, then will be subject to discovery and risks of SLAPP and countersuits. If he were that stupid, his lawyer would explain this to him. He's likely not that stupid, just stupid enough to try that useless bullying tactic.

Remember that with litigation, often the process is the penalty. Proving SLAPP and filing countersuits costs even more money than the simple defense, and it depends on an imperfect system to mete out justice, which makes it a risky strategy.

Rick "Amir is not intimidated because he has resources in reserve" Denney

 

[teched58]

FYI, recently a member offered a Tekton speaker for review (one with multiple tweeters from what I recall). I agreed to test it but then something happened and the offer went away. I remain open and ready to test more Tekton products.

As far as effect on my reviews, there has been none. Nor have I seen membership being more cautious. I can't speak for other reviewers as I don't follow them closely.

I would add to this that we can't know how many people are pulling their punches -- either not posting something on a forum or not writing a review that they might've gone ahead with prior to this -- because they figure it's not worth it. I know I certainly post less than I used to.

Maybe some of it is for the good; i.e., people thinking twice before posting a meaningless, negative comment. But I have to think that we're also missing out on some interesting and vigorous discussions. So in some sense Eric did win a little bit of space around his measurement-free moat.

 

[SIY]

Remember that with litigation, often the process is the penalty.

Oh yes, I've been involved in a lot of litigation over the years, plaintiff, defendant, expert witness, percipient witness... IANAL, but I've sure spent inordinate amounts of time with them!

But again. in order to file the suit in the first place, there's significant expenditure and the plaintiff facing the process of discovery. The latter is something that fraudsters try to avoid like Dracula and garlic. This one was so egregious that summary judgement and award of costs would be inevitable, which is why there was zero credibility to the threat.

So much panic about so little danger.

 

[im_gumby]

His product may be real, but it is also real bad.

A charlatan falsely claims special expertise or attributes for commercial purposes.

Yeah his product could be bad.

But he does have some expertise.

Its like saying a doctor who gets sued for malpractice is a charlatan.

 

[BDWoody]

Yeah his product could be bad.

But he does have some expertise.

Its like saying a doctor who gets sued for malpractice is a charlatan.

A doctor has real credentials after a real education.

This man had an epiphany during band practice about how speakers should work, then off he went. Where is the expertise part?

Doing something badly for a long time doesn't make one an expert.

 

[rdenney]

Yeah his product could be bad.

But he does have some expertise.

Its like saying a doctor who gets sued for malpractice is a charlatan.

You are splitting hairs here, it seems to me.

The analogy fails on the merits, it seems to me. Nobody sued Alexander. Instead, he was the one threatening legal action. That's like a doctor who threatens (again and again and again, publicly and privately) to sue his patients because they publicly and factually report poor outcomes from his treatment without in any way accusing him of malpractice. That's the sort of thing charlatans would do to hide their poor outcomes, so when you see that behavior, the accusation shouldn't be considered a stretch, no matter how one shades the definition of "charlatan".

Nobody accused him knowing nothing about speaker construction. But charlatans can know stuff, just not all of what they claim to know--what makes them charlatans is bad faith. Hence Alexander's inability or unwillingness to provide the test data that he himself promised, and accusing Erin of bad faith--without his own testing to see what effect it really had--for testing speakers that were missing their leveling feet. (Having leveling feet threaded connections that open to the interior of the speaker, for that matter, does undermine a claim of supreme competence, it seems to me).

Rick "seeing the word 'falsely' in one definition and 'pretense' in another" Denney

 

[AdamG]

Doing something badly for a long time doesn't make one an expert.

Damn, that ruins the surprise at the end. If only Wisdom came first.

It was Bully tactics to try and contain the disaster of exposed incompetence. All Bull S_it and Bluster.

 

[ahofer]

Its like saying a doctor who gets sued for committed malpractice is a charlatan.

Fixed it.

 

[pablolie]

Fixed it.

Mistakes happen. Some scenarios are more forgiving than others. But that's why you pick your backup/helper/double-check partner carefully in such scenarios - never do it alone. It's why surgeons have co-surgeons and nurses they trust, it's why doctors consult with other doctors (well they should) on critical cases.

 

[amirm]

But again. in order to file the suit in the first place, there's significant expenditure and the plaintiff facing the process of discovery. The latter is something that fraudsters try to avoid like Dracula and garlic. This one was so egregious that summary judgement and award of costs would be inevitable, which is why there was zero credibility to the threat.

I have personally been involved in this very thing. One-man small operation still went through all of that to take us to trial. I was forced to spend huge amount of money in defense, to say nothing of huge amount of time lost helping/educating the lawyers. And anguish that comes out of "what if we loose." We lost the case by the way due to the judge not understanding anything technical. The case set bad precedent legally so had multiple major law firms on behalf of big tech companies offer to appeal without cost to us. It was only that threat of appeal that got the other side to back down and reach a settlement. Both sides lost good bit of money in the process.

It is against this backdrop that I take such threats seriously when I sense the other side is ready and willing to go forward.

In assessing what kind of liability insurance I needed, I asked my attorney what the cost would be to defend such cases and the answer was that before you drink water, you are in it for $250,000. And that cases routinely go to millions. I don't know how many online reviewers have pockets this deep.

Mind you, I get empty threats routinely. So I don't jump unless I sense the case is different.

 

[SIY]

One-man small operation still went through all of that to take us to trial.

Who was "us"? Deep pocket defendants are a different matter; I was an expert witness in a patent infringement case filed against Microsoft by an independent inventor. The case was pure BS, but MS ended up paying the guy $4MM as "go away money." (I was on the Microsoft side, fwiw, and my tiny part of this bought me a new car )

There's no lawyer who would take a case on contingency against an independent audio reviewer. Perhaps there's a reason why the Bose-CU case of more than a half century ago is the only US lawsuit for an audio review that I can find.

 

[SIY]

Mind you, I get empty threats routinely.

Ditto, and for areas I've written about outside of audio as well. My response to the charlatans is always, "I look forward to discovery."

 

[pablolie]

Ditto, and for areas I've written about outside of audio as well. My response to the charlatans is always, "I look forward to discovery."

I would not say I look forward to it, because nobody should... but I'll just state I am utterly willing to go to battle. Privately I only had to do that once. Professionally, I have done it via our lawyers.

 

[Emlin]

There seems to be a lot of willy waving going on, with total disregard to the problems faced by an average, let alone vulnerable, person facing this sort bullying.

Please, you superheroes, zip it back up.

 

[SIY]

There seems to be a lot of willy waving going on, with total disregard to the problems faced by an average, let alone vulnerable, person facing this sort bullying.

The point is that in this realm, the "average" person has pretty much nothing to worry about IF he hasn't lied, misrepresented, or committed actual libel. Deep pockets greatly increase the hazard, but I suspect that nearly all audio reviewers are not in that category.

 

[amirm]

Who was "us"? Deep pocket defendants are a different matter;

Me personally with my partner who was a college student (the idea of company was his, I did the product design). Just out of school as my first venture outside day job. Lost our savings, hard work and company over this. No deep pockets whatsoever. After we lost the case, they went after us personally to collect. As I said, the other side was just a guy with his little company as well. This was early 1980s and I estimate between us we spent $100,000 in legal fees and expert witnesses (he had two, we had two). That is $300,000 in today's money!

You don't need my advice but please be careful in dismissing any and all such threats.

 

[amirm]

The point is that in this realm, the "average" person has pretty much nothing to worry about IF he hasn't lied, misrepresented, or committed actual libel.

According to whom? Your opinion does not matter in this regard. Nor potentially the real facts of the case. I remember talking to the attorney that wanted to handle our appeal for the above case. I asked him how judges could possibly understand the real issues involved in our case. He said he used to clerk for a judge. Whenever they got technical cases, they too had little ability to understand the issues involved. The judge's approach to that was: "let's see who is the bad guy and throw the book at him; they will appeal anyway and we let them figure this out!" When we lost our case, the judge's opinion which went for many pages was all nonsense including a sentence saying ruling for the other party helped "advance computer thinking!" I kid you not!

Back to our scenario, all the company owner has to do is show up and say, "look judge/jury, poor me; I was making $XXX money and now, because this snot-nosed youtuber, I am only making $X." You think you can counter that with some Klippel graph???

Not saying it is a hopeless case but you best be prepared to put up an incredible defense. And pay through the nose for expert witnesses and such. Even then, you need to have the money in the bank just in case you lose, lest you want to have them go after your home or cars.

This is why I still strongly believe we need reasonable insurance plans for what we do. And access to specialized legal service to help avoid such conflicts getting out of hand.

 

[SIY]

According to whom?

Start with decades of history of audio reviews with only one actual suit (and the defendant had deep pockets). I am assuming the case you cite was not libel and not in the realm of audio reviews, but please correct me if I am wrong here. I've been on the wrong end of an IP case, and nothing I'm saying here would apply to that, for example.

Back to our scenario, all the company owner has to do is show up and say, "look judge/jury, poor me; I was making $XXX money and now, because this snot-nosed youtuber, I am only making $X." You think you can counter that with some Klippel graph???

No, that is not ALL the company owner has to do. That happens AFTER the plaintiff has spent a pile of money and produced documents in discovery (and the chances of this guy having a pile of money laying around needing to be spent on non-revenue-generating stuff approaches zero). Do you for even a minute believe that this guy had actual contrary measurements? And if in discovery he produces NOTHING to back up his claims of libel, it's sanctions time.

Again, in something like an IP case, this wouldn't be the same unless a plaintiff claimed patent infringement and it turns out that he didn't have a patent! And really, that's what we're talking about here. The last time I was threatened with a suit for audio stuff, it was because of tests of a "magic" device where there was no possible way that the person trying to bully me had any actual data. The D word was invoked and I never heard from them again.

 

[pablolie]

..
This is why I still strongly believe we need reasonable insurance plans for what we do. And access to specialized legal service to help avoid such conflicts getting out of hand.

Agreed. But who is "we" and why should readers pay for it, instead of public reviewers covering their own? You are trying to get eyeballs and some $, don't insult (not you amirm) our collective intelligence claiming this is done for world peace. Even if you do it as a hobby you do it for some noteriety. And doing it without any remote knowledge of potential legal exposure and total unpreparedness for legal backlash is extremely unprofessional IMO.

 

[amirm]

Agreed. But who is "we" and why should readers pay for it, instead of public reviewers covering their own?

We is every online reviewer. And yes, they (reviewers) need to pay it just like some of us pay for hosting services. Just cost of doing business. Readers would indirectly fund that through monetization or donation but no reason go out with hands out for it if the cost is reasonable.

Insurance should also be easier to find. It took my agent weeks to find me one company that would insure me. They covered me for two years and just told me they were no longer in this market. Then another multi-week search started to find another company.