American Bar Association Urges Against File Sharing Lawsuits

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Am I reading this right? Lawyers advising other lawyers to steer clear of file sharing suits to avoid PR problems?

Finally, while it is technically possible for trademark and copyright owners to proceed with civil litigation against the consuming public who affirmatively seek out counterfeited products or pirated content or engage in illegal file sharing, campaigns like this have been expensive, do not yield significant financial returns, and can cause a public relations problem for the plaintiff in addressing its consuming public.
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damicatz said:
It isn't profitable for a lawyer to sue someone with no money.
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Also, keep in mind we have reached peak lawyer. We have lots of unemployed and underemployed lawyer like objects that have passed the bar. Lawyers suing lawyers for being bad lawyers has gone form a nonexistent thing to being a niche industry.

Advising your clients to do something that will not be financially beneficial to them or you while it may actually harm their presence in the market is like sticking a sign on your ass saying kick here as hard as you can.
 
damicatz said:
It isn't profitable for a lawyer to sue someone with no money.
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Small point of correction...

For the lawyer its profitable, they usually get paid no matter what the result is. Corporate Lawyers who work for big companies are paid an hourly fee + all expenses (and everything from photocopies to even Champagne are expense'd back to the client).

Its not the Lawyers, its the Plaintiffs like the MPAA and the RIAA that are the losers. I've seen the payouts to the plaintiffs and its peanuts, its usually negotiated to a couple of thousands, which is eaten up by legal fees within a few days.

The only reason they did it was as an attempt to scare people by making a few examples, it was never to try and recuperate lost income. The MPAA/RIAA knows perfectly well that most individuals don't have the several tens/hundred of thousand dollars these suits are asking for and they have now realized that publicly suing them causes great harm than good which is why these lawsuits are on the decline

The courts around the world have constantly ruled that ISPs cannot be accountable for copyright infringement so that's a dead end too for the Plantiffs...

Which is why most of the prestigious law firms advise their clients NOT to sue as the end result will be bad PR and a financial loss.
 
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