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Megaupload Founder Causes Uproar Over Lawyer Choice
#2
justchris2010 
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Posted 14 April 2012 - 11:31 AM
Ain't that the truth BIG GOVERNMENT spending tons of our tax payers money to bring Dotcom to the US and see him put in jail over owning a file sharing site that had both legal and illegal files on it witch none of the files were even his and there is no way he or the few people he had working admin for his site could search every file for the ones that were illegal and when a file was reported it would get kicked but the government thinks it can tell people what they can and can't do even if they move to a different country. I think it is the government that should exclude themselves since they take payouts from media corporations to pass copy write laws and new provisions that protect the media corporations and screw everyone else.
Oh and as for the attorney he picked he got a lawyers that specialize in intellectual property law that is what people do, they find the best in the field they want to be protected in and hire them! But in the governments side you have cops, FBI, CIA, LAWYERS, PI's and the people in the government above them pressing them to convict .com if that is not stacking the deck and a ton of conflict of interest then I don't know what is.
Oh and as for the attorney he picked he got a lawyers that specialize in intellectual property law that is what people do, they find the best in the field they want to be protected in and hire them! But in the governments side you have cops, FBI, CIA, LAWYERS, PI's and the people in the government above them pressing them to convict .com if that is not stacking the deck and a ton of conflict of interest then I don't know what is.
#3
justchris2010
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Posted 14 April 2012 - 11:58 AM
justchris2010, on 14 April 2012 - 11:31 AM, said:
Ain't that the truth BIG GOVERNMENT spending tons of our tax payers money to bring Dotcom to the US and see him put in jail over owning a file sharing site that had both legal and illegal files on it witch none of the files were even his and there is no way he or the few people he had working admin for his site could search every file for the ones that were illegal and when a file was reported it would get kicked but the government thinks it can tell people what they can and can't do even if they move to a different country. I think it is the government that should exclude themselves since they take payouts from media corporations to pass copy write laws and new provisions that protect the media corporations and screw everyone else.
Oh and as for the attorney he picked he got lawyers that specialize in intellectual property law that is what people do, they find the best in the field they want to be protected in and hire them! But in the governments side you have cops, FBI, CIA, LAWYERS, PI's and the people in the government above them pressing them to convict .com. If that is not stacking the deck and a ton of conflict of interest then I don't know what is.
Oh and as for the attorney he picked he got lawyers that specialize in intellectual property law that is what people do, they find the best in the field they want to be protected in and hire them! But in the governments side you have cops, FBI, CIA, LAWYERS, PI's and the people in the government above them pressing them to convict .com. If that is not stacking the deck and a ton of conflict of interest then I don't know what is.
The only people the government is hurting is the people with the legal files! Just Google any of the files the government thinks was infringing on megaupload.com and you will find there still out there being downloaded, listened to and seen by thousands of people every hour. Bringing down Dotcom did not effect that at all, since all the people with the illegal files had backup's and just found a new file hosting site to put the files on or got there own servers. The government did not even hold back torrenting a hole 24 hours but there still going to waist money if they can. A monkey could do there job better.
#6
Yargs
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Posted 15 April 2012 - 09:17 PM
The issue of conflict of interest on an attorney's part with regard to duty to former clients is addressed in the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.9 (http://www.americanb...er_clients.html). The relevant sections of the rule in this instance are b and c:
b. A lawyer shall not knowingly represent a person in the same or a substantially related matter in which a firm with which the lawyer formerly was associated had previously represented a client
(1) whose interests are materially adverse to that person; and
(2) about whom the lawyer had acquired information protected by Rules 1.6 and 1.9© that is material to the matter;
unless the former client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.
c. A lawyer who has formerly represented a client in a matter or whose present or former firm has formerly represented a client in a matter shall not thereafter:
(1) use information relating to the representation to the disadvantage of the former client except as these Rules would permit or require with respect to a client, or when the information has become generally known; or
(2) reveal information relating to the representation except as these Rules would permit or require with respect to a client.
Since Andrew Schapiro's law firm has in the past or is now representing multiple Megaupload "victims" or "potential witnesses" (according to the government's filing about Schapiro's possible conflict of interest in representing Dotcom)--including YouTube, Google, Disney, Fox, Time Warner, Warner Bros,. HBO, Broderbund Software, and Bulletproof Software--it seems to me fair to ask (as the government does) how Schapiro can represent Dotcom zealously and to the full extent of the law without encountering, and having the temptation to exploit, relevant information that his law firm obtained while representing the so-called victims of Megaupload.
The ABA Rules seem to put the burden on an attorney or law firm challenged on grounds of potential conflict of interest either to establish that the new representation will not put the former clients at a disadvantage or [as Rule 1.9b specifies] to obtain a consent waiver from each of the former clients who may be at risk of having privileged information that is material to the case exposed to their current adversary. I think it's a sensible way to deal with potential conflicts of interest.
Codes of legal ethics tend to make much of the importance of avoiding "even the appearance of impropriety." A cynic might say that a more accurate formulation would be "only the appearance of impropriety." But regardless, I think it's a mistake to dismiss lightly any ethical rules that attempt to insulate attorneys and law firms from the temptation to abuse information they have derived from previous clients.
b. A lawyer shall not knowingly represent a person in the same or a substantially related matter in which a firm with which the lawyer formerly was associated had previously represented a client
(1) whose interests are materially adverse to that person; and
(2) about whom the lawyer had acquired information protected by Rules 1.6 and 1.9© that is material to the matter;
unless the former client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.
c. A lawyer who has formerly represented a client in a matter or whose present or former firm has formerly represented a client in a matter shall not thereafter:
(1) use information relating to the representation to the disadvantage of the former client except as these Rules would permit or require with respect to a client, or when the information has become generally known; or
(2) reveal information relating to the representation except as these Rules would permit or require with respect to a client.
Since Andrew Schapiro's law firm has in the past or is now representing multiple Megaupload "victims" or "potential witnesses" (according to the government's filing about Schapiro's possible conflict of interest in representing Dotcom)--including YouTube, Google, Disney, Fox, Time Warner, Warner Bros,. HBO, Broderbund Software, and Bulletproof Software--it seems to me fair to ask (as the government does) how Schapiro can represent Dotcom zealously and to the full extent of the law without encountering, and having the temptation to exploit, relevant information that his law firm obtained while representing the so-called victims of Megaupload.
The ABA Rules seem to put the burden on an attorney or law firm challenged on grounds of potential conflict of interest either to establish that the new representation will not put the former clients at a disadvantage or [as Rule 1.9b specifies] to obtain a consent waiver from each of the former clients who may be at risk of having privileged information that is material to the case exposed to their current adversary. I think it's a sensible way to deal with potential conflicts of interest.
Codes of legal ethics tend to make much of the importance of avoiding "even the appearance of impropriety." A cynic might say that a more accurate formulation would be "only the appearance of impropriety." But regardless, I think it's a mistake to dismiss lightly any ethical rules that attempt to insulate attorneys and law firms from the temptation to abuse information they have derived from previous clients.
#7
AJohnTurner
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Posted 16 April 2012 - 12:54 AM
File sharing makes a lot of people nervous. Even justchris2010 would be nervous if he had eight figures in equity tied up in an electronically-redistributable property such as music, film, literature or software.
That said, most of the people losing money on electronic distribution have fundamentally misread a changing market and decided to "fight rather than switch" -- fight the seachange like King Canute ordering back the sea (Google it kids).
The music industry fought and fought against media-less distribution. "You'll buy a CD or we'll sue you," went the battlecry.
Then they caved and customers got what they had wanted all along -- slick, painless sourcing for their earcandy at impulse-buy prices. Casting, shipping, storing and glorying over twenty-cent discs of screenprinted polycarbonate is now as passe as greenstamps.
Pirates? They hold onto a diehard marketplace of masochists, people who enjoy being called "leeches" and "newbs" and being cursed out for posting what seem simple requests; the rest of us click our dollars away into the aether without a backward glance.
The movie industry is still pulling a King Canute, insisting they are losing millions in sales of (twenty cent) DVDs and (eighty cent) BluRays thanks to lawless file sharers....when all that has happened is that eighteen-gram plastic lumps have ceased to be the best way to receive movies, even if the studios still like to press them and store them and ship them and fill bargain bins at Big Lots with them.
That said, most of the people losing money on electronic distribution have fundamentally misread a changing market and decided to "fight rather than switch" -- fight the seachange like King Canute ordering back the sea (Google it kids).
The music industry fought and fought against media-less distribution. "You'll buy a CD or we'll sue you," went the battlecry.
Then they caved and customers got what they had wanted all along -- slick, painless sourcing for their earcandy at impulse-buy prices. Casting, shipping, storing and glorying over twenty-cent discs of screenprinted polycarbonate is now as passe as greenstamps.
Pirates? They hold onto a diehard marketplace of masochists, people who enjoy being called "leeches" and "newbs" and being cursed out for posting what seem simple requests; the rest of us click our dollars away into the aether without a backward glance.
The movie industry is still pulling a King Canute, insisting they are losing millions in sales of (twenty cent) DVDs and (eighty cent) BluRays thanks to lawless file sharers....when all that has happened is that eighteen-gram plastic lumps have ceased to be the best way to receive movies, even if the studios still like to press them and store them and ship them and fill bargain bins at Big Lots with them.
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