I am assuming you are referring to my letter where I made that legal entity distinction. You have to remember back in 2008, there was no resource like ELI to discuss such matters and I barely knew Oscar at that point.
Strategically, I ascertained that Chloe was NOT anywhere close to being a lawyer and I found out the she and her peers were largely collection clerks regurgitating the corporate kool-aid. Hence, it was my way of letting her know that SHE could not necessarily outlawyer me. In any case, I made the argument that it was my corporation that owned the website in case there was a lawsuit or judgment, it gave me the option to abandon the corporation and not me personally. If they came after me personally, I could defend pro se. There were pros and cons either way.
Having said all that, Annalise, you seem to have a recurring theme in your line of questioning. If you want to pursue a divergent line of thinking, that is fine. But I want to ask some simple questions.
Do you truly understand what is involved procedurally in filing and winning a lawsuit from beginning to end? Have you ever directly participated in one from beginning to end? Have you ever spent money, energy, or time in one? What is your real-life experience with lawsuits beyond the discussion of it?I ask this because in the other threads of discussion, several of us have stated to you in one form or another, going the lawsuit road is the LAST option to pursue for several reasons. While it is an option to pursue, it is time-consuming and expensive even doing it pro se. The filing cost alone is $350 without any lawyer costs.
There is a reason why so many lawsuits get dropped and/or settled along the way. The road to an entire lawsuit process and winning is long, uncertain, and difficult otherwise Getty and the other copyright trolls would have actively pursued it en masse long ago. Those few that have pursued an aggressive lawsuit strategy, have gotten and continue to get spanked in a very embarrassing, public way and attained relatively little success.
And so, in most cases, we tell people the threat of a lawsuit is actually much worse than the reality.
As I said, the point of the discussion forum is to entertain all kinds of thinking and lines of discussion but before I spend any of MY time to answer any more of YOUR questions, I want to know how much real-life legal experience and knowledge you have. You don't have to be a lawyer or paralegal but many of us as non-lawyers have lived with this subject for years now and the consensus is at AVOID the lawsuit process, not go plunging into it.
You can ask your questions but I am getting a little worn out from trying to explain how your various angles of attack is overly legalistic and still trying to "outlawyer" the other side. You seem to be trying to find a magical legal pill that says "Aha! That is what we need to say that will legally stun them into submission and back off!" I can promise you greater legal minds (such as Oscar) have tried and failed exclusively on that premise. Besides, there is no shortage of legal intelligence on the opposing side. The chances of a group of non-lawyers discovering a singular magical legal "gotcha" argument is not likely to happen.
Most of us here are here to help by delivering free (or near free) simple, practical, effective solutions. Simplicity is king here, not complexity. Certainly, as non-lawyers, we have to step up and learn enough vocabulary and concepts to make an intelligent legal argument. But the goal is NOT for any of us to BECOME lawyers or to LAWYER up by hiring them (with total respect to Oscar here).
I am not trying to squelch open dialog here but your insistence in pursuing a legalistic strategy actually feeds into the fear and overly complicates matters. You may say your piece but I feel compelled to openly challenge your rationale. If you are asking your questions as an intellectual exercise, that is fine except that you are burning a couple of us out. We volunteer our time and energy to answer questions to help, not because we are bored and need the intellectual stimulation.
I don't think you mean any harm in asking your questions because you have gotten your share of interesting responses but I would say that unless you start qualifying your questions a bit more, I am not going to engage any more. I suspect there might be another person or two that will not answer your questions much more either. Personally, I think your questions (while an interesting intellectual exercise) takes new readers and newcomers to the wrong track.
I think you should give more thought to some of the questions you are asking and understand there is a finite amount of time and energy to devote to any individual person's questions. If you don't, don't be surprised if your questions go unanswered.
In one of the letters posted here, the point is brought up that the demand letter sent by the trolls is addressing the person individually and not the company that actually owns the website.
Wouldn't it be better to not point out this glaring mistake? I.E. the trollers file a lawsuit against an individual, then the individual goes to court (individuals can represent themselves correct?) and say they don't own the site and file motion to dismiss. Would this be the standing to sue?