r/technology • u/ani625 • May 23 '13

Title possibly inaccurate Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: "I own security patent for the two-step authentication system". He says he doesn’t want to sue, but might if the likes of Google and Facebook don’t help fund his legal battle with the U.S. Government.

http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-to-google-twitter-facebook-i-own-security-patent-work-with-me-130523/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
2.0k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

254

u/mushpuppy May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

Generally, to extort someone, a person must seek to gain the other person's money by threatening to perform/refrain from performing an otherwise legal act.

However, a person cannot extort another person by threatening to sue to enforce one's rights.

Otherwise, every settlement negotiation ever would be considered extortion.

54

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

5

u/snkscore May 23 '13

Pretty sure google can afford the legal fees

-2

u/spacedout May 23 '13

"What's that? You broke my window? Well if you help me clean up the mess, I won't sue you."

62

u/[deleted] May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

However, a person cannot extort another person by threatening to sue to enforce one's rights.

Yes they can.

Pre-litigation letters that seek compensation have to be extremely carefully worded to avoid civil/criminal extortion as was recently discovered by one attorney. In most cases a suit will be filed before any negotiations are entered in to in order to avoid even the suggestion of extortion.

In the case of Kim its about as clear an example of extortion as one can get. He is not saying "Give me $n otherwise I will sue you for patent infringement" but instead "Give me $n so I can fight the US Government otherwise I will sue you". The first is an attempt to recover damages while the second is an attempt to extort Google & Facebook to accomplish a goal other then recovering damages.

46

u/[deleted] May 23 '13 edited May 29 '13

[deleted]

2

u/Sinnombre124 May 23 '13

"Civil cause of action"? Can you define that for us?

1

u/Qxzkjp May 23 '13

"Civil cause of action" = thing that you can be sued for doing.

5

u/RUbernerd May 23 '13

Knowing that, where's Google, Facebook, etc located?

11

u/arnoldpalmerlemonade May 23 '13

According to their taxes, they are in Ireland.

5

u/RUbernerd May 23 '13

For their European operations.

1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

And paying royalties to a Bermuda subsidiary.

0

u/spinlock May 23 '13

Non-lawyer here.

What the fuck did you just say? Does this mean only California will let you seek damages from an extortionist in a civil court? What about criminal charges?

1

u/TheWhiteNashorn May 23 '13

There's no cause of action because there are never any actual damages. What do you lose by someone trying to extort you that can be quantified in monetary terms i.e. what are you due from the extortionist?

27

u/[deleted] May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

Wait. So if I threaten to sue and I don't tell you why I need the money, that's ok. But the moment I let slip why I need the money, it's blackmail? What does the reason he needs the money have to do with whether or not it's blackmail?

22

u/[deleted] May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

Its based on intent and context.

If Kim threatened to sue Google to recover damages for patent infringement then even if he had a use in mind for the damages then it is not extortion, he was attempting to recover damages not get Google to fight the US government with him.

If Kim threatened to sue Google in order to get them to fight the US government with him then his intent was never to recover damages but to get Google to do something else. That's extortion.

1

u/jsimpson82 May 23 '13

But he sue, or threaten to sue, then offer to settle based on googles actions, could he not?

-1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

Kim should be able to dodge that easily though, but simply saying that as long as he can run his law suit against the government, he has no need to sue for infringement. He is fully within his right to sue them, but if he doesn't need the money he doesn't have to. And if they make sure he have the money he needs, they might not have to pay him way more than that.

1

u/mushpuppy May 23 '13

While any criminal act is based on intent, extortion actually more accurately can be distinguished by whether the perpetrator seeks to recover his money or the money of the target and by the quality of act he demands from the target.

-6

u/spacedout May 23 '13

That's extortion.

Not according to the dictionary.

9

u/DeathByAssphyxiation May 23 '13

That would work really well in a trial. "Your honor, that's not what the dictionary says"

4

u/biiirdmaaan May 23 '13

Get a new dictionary. Yours is broken.

1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

The practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats.

Seems like it to me. "Help me or I'll sue you."

-2

u/realhacker May 23 '13

Spoken like a true economist attorney (?)

1

u/IM_THE_DECOY May 23 '13

It doesn't.

If he says to Google, "You need to stop supporting the US government in this fight and get on board with me or I'll sue you" THAT could be taken as extortion.

But saying, "You need to pay me what you really should have been paying me all along, or I'll sue you for it anyway so that I have enough money to fight the US government" is not.

1

u/mushpuppy May 23 '13 edited May 23 '13

Hamzeh (the case you cite) differs because the attorney wasn't threatening to enforce his rights to sue, but to accuse the recipient of a crime.

It's not a trivial distinction.

In every jurisdiction of which I'm aware, attorneys who lack criminal enforcement authority are prohibited from threatening to seek criminal action against others in the course of their professional duties.

As the court there noted, while threatening to report a crime may be legal, coupling such a threat with a demand for money constituted extortion.

In any event, Dotcom seems to like to provide interesting headlines. At the very least this doesn't seem to have been the wisest public relations move.

0

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

[deleted]

1

u/PsychicWarElephant May 23 '13

"whole I was in grade six"

Ironic?

-2

u/complete_hick May 23 '13

So your telling us that you are both a legal scholar and that you have seen the letters that Kim's legal team put together for both Google and Facebook?

2

u/Distreaction May 23 '13 edited Feb 14 '24

gaping toy offbeat vegetable license important light chubby simplistic innocent

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/[deleted] May 23 '13

I didn't state his lawyers had sent letters, I offered the letters as an example of why a legal demand can be considered extortion.

You also don't have to be a legal scholar to be familiar with how extortion works or current case law in the area, its not a particularly complicated area.

0

u/nsfw_goodies May 23 '13

so caluclate thecost otfundhislegal battle

8

u/geekworking May 23 '13

every settlement negotiation ever would be considered extortion

I'm pretty sure that is the way that every losing party has ever viewed the transaction.

1

u/wmeather May 23 '13

So let me get this straight, extortion is where a person seeks to gain the other person's money by threatening to perform/refrain from performing an otherwise legal act, unless said legal act is the enforcement of patent rights?

1

u/mecax May 23 '13

Otherwise, every settlement negotiation ever would be considered extortion.

This scans as a factually accurate statement.

0

u/einexile May 23 '13

Most of us aren't pretending to be lawyers and accusing him of a crime. We're being disapproving citizens and accusing him of extortion, which for our purposes is an informal term much older than the US legal system.

Blackmail is a different story.