webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) (10/11/87)
In article <4614@videovax.Tek.COM>, stever@videovax.Tek.COM (Steven E. Rice, P.E.) writes: > ... If a broad lawsuit were filed against the USENET in general, > or against a few prominent site owners and administrators, the results > would be catastrophic! ... This is an interesting claim, but your application is to small. Think of the profits being lost to Commercial Networks due to the number of people that prefer to use the ``freebee Usenet.'' Think of the Communications Services that have lost money becauses it is cheaper to send a message over Usenet than it is to pay for overnight delivery. Think of the journals that have lost readers because it is cheaper to subscribe to a micro group than to subscribe to a micro journal. Think of the headhunters that have lost customers to misc.jobs.wanted. Think of the companies that have lost business due to messages on misc.consumers. Recall the businessman who was accused of fraud on news.announce.important earlier this year. All of these groups don't rent lawyers, they own them. They regularly use those lawyers as a part of corporate strategy to maximize profit. Now, you tell me that they don't even have to go to court, just file papers and their troubles will be over. And you think the big threat is participants in a flame war over on soc.women????????????????????? ----- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)
daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown) (10/13/87)
In article <467@brandx.rutgers.edu> webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) writes: | [list of quasi-competitors to usenet] |All of these groups don't rent lawyers, they own them. They regularly |use those lawyers as a part of corporate strategy to maximize profit. | |Now, you tell me that they don't even have to go to court, just file |papers and their troubles will be over. And you think the big threat |is participants in a flame war over on soc.women????????????????????? Real companies restrict legal actions to situations where: 1) the absolute cost is low enough to budget for, 2) the advantage of a win is significant, and 3) the suit will not be seen as an attempt to use the courts to establish competitive advantage. The last is what kept one of our local shysters from starting a suit against a supplier of goods/services to him: even though he could put the supplier out of business by a bit of carefully-applied barratry (which see), he would have run too great a risk of having the local bar association burn him at the stake. If he was an employee, the state tends to do the stakeing... -- David Collier-Brown. {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind) CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.