Greer v. Moon, No. 20-cv-00647 (D. Utah Sep. 16, 2020)

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

On the surface, the denial seems like a monkey's paw: Good news - We get a ruling; Bad news - It's something not in the site's favor.

However, this is just one ruling and there are plenty of other opportunities for the case to be dismissed or end favorably. I wont pretend to be optimistic enough to say that we might start seeing more movement with the case but both sides can now respond accordingly moving forward.

 

[FamicomGorby]

We get a ruling

It was not a ruling, it was a recommendation from the magistrate to the judge.

 

[AnOminous]

The talk of "embedding" is making me want to strangle everybody. Do Hardin or the judges not have a single 13-year-old Junior Coder niece or nephew or grandkid who can explain tech and web terms?

They don't actually care about the facts or the law. They're just fucking with us at this point.

 

[Debbie Macomber]

How can discovery reopen when we're past the date it would've concluded? Will the judge give a new date for end of discovery, or will one side or the other have to ask for a retroactive extension of the discovery deadline?

 

[DavidS877]

How can discovery reopen when we're past the date it would've concluded? Will the judge give a new date for end of discovery, or will one side or the other have to ask for a retroactive extension of the discovery deadline?

I think we'll get everyone's favorite... a scheduling conference.

 

[Pedophobe]

I think we'll get everyone's favorite... a scheduling conference.

We need six failed attempts at a meet & confer first.

 

[AnOminous]

How can discovery reopen when we're past the date it would've concluded? Will the judge give a new date for end of discovery, or will one side or the other have to ask for a retroactive extension of the discovery deadline?

They'll do whatever they have to do to guard the tard, no matter how against the law it is. These fucking idiots will do anything to harm the Farms.

 

[Bridgeburner]

It's all over.

 

[Sneed Force One]

or will one side or the other have to ask for a retroactive extension of the discovery deadline?

Time travel has always been the preferred excuse in this case. Causality was the first victim.

 

[Bill Evans 45]

The talk of "embedding" is making me want to strangle everybody.

You are not alone. The basic misunderstanding of linking v hosting makes me want to scream. This case has unearthed a lot of memories for me. I remember email arriving in the commercial world in the 90's. I was contracting* at the time and every time a new department/business got access, the first few weeks would have people send a mail to someone 30 feet away, wait a bit then call them on the phone to check they'd received it. People printing out every email they received regardless of content*. Reams of paper for things like 'The production meeting scheduled for 9 am will now begin at 10 am'.

I don't think these judges ever got out of that phase.

*I had one guy ask me how he could print out the emails he sent. I said I'd get with him after lunch and never did. For all I know he's still at a desk waiting like Miss Havisham. Contacting as the Internet made it's way in to the real world was a hell of a time.
<Gazes into the middle distance, eyes unfocused. Draws hard on a Marlboro Red> You weren't there man, you weren't there...

 

[Bridgeburner]

I really want to strangle Judge Bowtie. How can an educated person who read a couple of Greeee's filings think there's a case here? No witnesses, no evidence, no following HIS orders for over a year. So frustrating. It's going to be another scheduling conference in May and then Russ is going to continue dragging his feet until the end of the year and before you know it'll be 2027 with absolutely nothing being done.

 

[Lapsus of the bepsus]

I really want to strangle Judge Bowtie. How can an educated person who read a couple of Greeee's filings think there's a case here? No witnesses, no evidence, no following HIS orders for over a year.

youre right but unfortunately all that is irrelevant to the motion being ruled on here. the judge has to construe greers complaint as though it were 100% true and proven for the purposes of this ruling, the fact he has no witnesses and no evidence also doesnt matter here

 

[Sneed Force One]

This case still has another year or more before trial.
Russell's all-encompassing incompetence will drag out every stage with 200 motions, replies, counter-replies, sanctions, counter-sanctions, supplementals, emergency motions for being a meanie poo poo head, and whatever else comes to his deformed mind. If its not dismissed for a myriad of reasons and reaches trial, I expect this case to reach document number 1000.

 

[m1ddl3m4rch]

They don't actually care about the facts or the law. They're just fucking with us at this point.

Interlocutory appeal is looking more and more attractive. Go above Barlow's head. He's already hostile.

 

[AnOminous]

You are not alone. The basic misunderstanding of linking v hosting makes me want to scream. This case has unearthed a lot of memories for me. I remember email arriving in the commercial world in the 90's.

This kind of stupidity was understandable in the '90s. Not optimal, but understandable. But mountains of case law have come down in the decades since that absolutely make that distinction, so disregarding the voluminous case law to the contrary and making this idiotic finding cannot mean anything other than incompetence or malice or both.

Interlocutory appeal is looking more and more attractive. Go above Barlow's head. He's already hostile.

Unfortunately, as bad as this is, it isn't really interlocutory material and worse, it would be to an appeals court as stupid and incompetent at IP law as the judges in this case.

youre right but unfortunately all that is irrelevant to the motion being ruled on here. the judge has to construe greers complaint as though it were 100% true and proven for the purposes of this ruling, the fact he has no witnesses and no evidence also doesnt matter here

This but also Bowtie completely ignored the option offered by Hardin to treat the motion as a motion for summary judgment since there is no possible evidence.

To repeat a dad joke from earlier in the thread.

Why does Bennett wear a bowtie?
To hold back the foreskin.

 

[Dixieland Buckaroo]

How soon are we likely to get a ruling from the Supreme Court on Cox v Sony? May or June this year? Maybe April? I mean, even Kagan seemed skeptical of Sony's arguments. I guess it's a sticky situation (thanks, Congress), so maybe late June is possible?

So I'm guessing we won't hear shit in this case until late spring/early summer. They can't even react to (hysterical) emergency motions, I can't imagine what else they could be waiting for. I guess other than the all-too-common institutional / bureaucratic apathy.

 

[FamicomGorby]

This case still has another year or more before trial.
Russell's all-encompassing incompetence will drag out every stage with 200 motions, replies, counter-replies, sanctions, counter-sanctions, supplementals, emergency motions for being a meanie poo poo head, and whatever else comes to his deformed mind. If its not dismissed for a myriad of reasons and reaches trial, I expect this case to be past document number 1000.

If discovery reopens then I can't wait for flood of depositions that Greer will get ChatGPT to try and block or somehow get Null/Hardin to pay for him to depose them.

 

[Harvey Danger]

This but also Bowtie completely ignored the option offered by Hardin to treat the motion as a motion for summary judgment since there is no possible evidence.

Neither judge has shown any indication they want to wrap this up quickly, they only want it done properly. They're trying to turn a lolsuit into a vanilla lawsuit, by the book, no weird detours into IFP or jurisdiction or fake dead witnesses or Winnemucca hotels or a 3rd jurisdiction transfer or anything special.

I think they both recognize Greer is going to instantly appeal whatever winds up throwing this case out. It's already come back down from the 10th once, they probably don't want to send it up a second time before discovery is even finished. And the 10th has already demonstrated willingness to bend over backwards to pretend there's any possibility Greer has a case; that's a real signal the judges have to consider, that they need to send back a case where there is no possibility for Greer to succeed.

Deathmarch to trial, etc ad nauseum. But we always knew this MtD was a longshot. It's not enough for Hardin to be technically correct, he has to be finally and completely correct here. I still believe Null ultimately wins this, that the tard-guarding is to get Greer through the setup, not through the merits.

It's just frustrating the judges aren't matching their ruling and docket-clearing speed to that expected of a vanilla lawsuit.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

Neither judge has shown any indication they want to wrap this up quickly, they only want it done properly. They're trying to turn a lolsuit into a vanilla lawsuit, by the book, no weird detours into IFP or jurisdiction or fake dead witnesses or Winnemucca hotels or a 3rd jurisdiction transfer or anything special.

I think they both recognize Greer is going to instantly appeal whatever winds up throwing this case out. It's already come back down from the 10th once, they probably don't want to send it up a second time before discovery is even finished. And the 10th has already demonstrated willingness to bend over backwards to pretend there's any possibility Greer has a case; that's a real signal the judges have to consider, that they need to send back a case where there is no possibility for Greer to succeed.

Deathmarch to trial, etc ad nauseum. But we always knew this MtD was a longshot. It's not enough for Hardin to be technically correct, he has to be finally and completely correct here. I still believe Null ultimately wins this, that the tard-guarding is to get Greer through the setup, not through the merits.

It's just frustrating the judges aren't matching their ruling and docket-clearing speed to that expected of a vanilla lawsuit.

I just can't see Greer getting a coherent case together without lying so egregiously that this eventually gets dismissed before trial.

 

[Uncle Buck]

How soon are we likely to get a ruling from the Supreme Court on Cox v Sony? May or June this year? Maybe April? I mean, even Kagan seemed skeptical of Sony's arguments. I guess it's a sticky situation (thanks, Congress), so maybe late June is possible?

So I'm guessing we won't hear shit in this case until late spring/early summer. They can't even react to (hysterical) emergency motions, I can't imagine what else they could be waiting for. I guess other than the all-too-common institutional / bureaucratic apathy.

Aside from the general concept of "contributory" infringement, the facts and circumstances of Sony v. Cox bear no resemblance to the fact-pattern in this dumpster fire.

Sony is attempting to create a seismic shift in the application of IP law by making an ISP responsible for "contributory" infringement by allowing alleged infringers to still access the Internet. I suppose they do kind of come off like Greer, REEEEEEEEing over the fact that they "begged" Cox in some cases "multiple" times to "do something" about those mean "infringers" - you know, as opposed to Sony actually doing something about it under the existing law by going after the infringers themselves.

Comparatively, it sounds ridiculous when you think that a victim of an alleged crime perpetrated by a criminal using a telephone should be allowed to sue the phone company for allowing the criminal to have phone service.

But, according to Sony, the tubes are "different". Recall that, supposedly, "net-'neutrality'" was going to guard against this sort of thing. But nevermind that now.

If you ask me it was a mistake to tie any resolution in this case to Sony.