Instagram is apparently the teen and tween social network of choice. That means parents who want to do the responsible thing and monitor their children’s Instagram accounts may be tempted to demand that their children “hand over the keys” to their accounts. But accessing your child’s Instagram account is — technically, at least — a violation of federal law.
Under the terms of the settlement reached in several class actions against Midland Funding for its (apparently past) practice of employing robo-signers to execute affidavits for debt buyer lawsuits, each class member would receive under $20 — and that’s it. The Sixth Circuit rightly decided this was unfair (pdf).
Unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit seemed to think the settlement was unfair primarily because the named plaintiffs (i.e., those whose names actually appeared on the complaints) would receive $8,000 plus the elimination of their debts. The class members who opted into the settlement just got $17.38 each, and still owed their debts:
While there are a lot of people you can blame for the state of the US economy, government regulators are at the top of the list. So it’s satisfying that someone has finally taken them to task. Elizabeth Warren, finally on the Senate Banking Committee where she belongs, had some hard questions for banking regulators yesterday, specifically on why they are happy to accept pennies on the dollar to settle claims against banks.
What she got in response was a lot of hemming and hawing by the spineless regulators in question, none of whom seemed to know the last time anyone took a bank to trial.
I’m a little concerned that too big to fail has become too big for trial.
“At Senate Hearing, Warren Comes Out Swinging” (NYT) (via Reddit)
Right now, you have a right to a free credit report, but not a free credit score. That’s annoying, because the score is what really matters whenever you apply for credit. Consumer Union wants to make it easier for consumers to get their score, and is putting in motion a grass-roots campaign to put free credit scores on Congress’s agenda.
So contact your representatives, and let them know you want a free credit score. Here’s where you can find out how to contact them:
(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_ninjamonkey/3448476109/)
Americans spend nearly $6 billion on digital music every year, and that number is growing fast. That is an already-huge and fast-growing pile of digital things. But there is a problem with all those digital assets. Even though you can take your digital music, movies, and books with you everywhere you go, they are much harder than the physical version to give to someone else.
That is because digital things and physical things are treated differently. When you buy a digital thing, it’s more like you are paying for the right to use it in ways specified by the creator of that thing. When you buy a physical thing, on the other hand, you own that thing. You can sell it, loan it, or give it away. Eventually, we all die and give everything away. Maybe our kids aren’t thrilled to get a complete set of Fleetwood Mac records, but someone else might want them — and be willing to pay money for them.
But you cannot pass on most of your digital assets. Not legally, anyway.
The case, which was investigated by the Attorney General’s office and Hazlehurst Police Department, eventually saw King plead guilty to the sale of the five DVDs and one CD. But despite his apparent cooperation, King received the harshest sentence for a copyright infringement offense that we’ve ever seen.
Judge Lamar Pickard in Copiah County Circuit Court ordered King to serve a total of 15 years in jail to be followed by three years supervised release.
Look, profiting from illegally-copied movies and music may be piracy, but 15 years is absurd. You’d get less time for burglary. Here’s the response from the RIAA:
This sentencing demonstrates that theft of intellectual property is treated as a serious crime in Mississippi and highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others.
We extend our thanks and appreciation to Attorney General Hood for his leadership in IP enforcement and to the dedicated law enforcement officers and prosecutors who worked on the case.
It’s interesting to see the RIAA say that movie and music pirates are “frequently serial criminals,” since it also acknowledged that file-sharers/pirates are also the biggest fans of its artists, and spend more money on movies and music, in general. Also felons, apparently.
Read “RIAA Celebrates 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Pirate” on TorrentFreak (thanks, Danny!).
Harvard law professor, originator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and consumer-advocate-in-chief Elizabeth Warren will be a U.S. senator.
Everyone agrees that a consumer plaintiff who prevails in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuit is entitled to get his or her attorney fees and costs paid by the debt collector defendant. But in Marx v. General Revenue Corporation, the question is whether, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a debt collector can collect costs from an unsuccessful plaintiff. In other words, does the FDCPA apply, or do the rules of civil procedure?
This is a Really Big Deal, because if debt collectors can collect costs from unsuccessful plaintiffs, it will make it riskier to sue debt collectors. Quite apart from the law, the whole point of the FDCPA is to provide a formidable check on debt collection abuses. Damages in these cases are small, so if they cannot recover attorney fees and costs — or if they risk having to pay substantial costs — they will not sue.
If you want people to be able to stop debt collection abuses, then you cannot increase the risk. Doing so will render the FDCPA far less effective as a check on debt collection abuses. If you think consumers and consumer lawyers are running amok, then I suppose you favor the debt collector’s position.
Read Argument preview: Court considers litigation expenses in debt-collection disputes on SCOTUSblog. (Thanks, Graham!)
Before you get all excited, this decision is just one federal district court judge’s opinion. That said, here’s the deal. The Zappos website had a little link at the bottom to its terms of use, which said that, by merely browsing the website, you agree to submit to mandatory binding arbitration of any disputes — like if you had a problem with the big Zappos security breach that potentially affected 24 million consumers. Zappos tried to rely on its browsewrap agreement, but the court said no way.
According to the National Law Journal*, the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section filed comments (PDF) with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau objecting to its latest move to assume jurisdiction over debt collectors — plenty of which are lawyers and law firms. Lawyers don’t like anyone regulating us but other lawyers, generally through state professional responsibility boards, which hear complaints and dole out punishment for ethical infractions. Judges can also punish lawyers for misusing the legal system.
But those options don’t seem to have stemmed the tide of complaints about debt collection abuses, some of which surely come from law firms with more than $10 million in annual receipts from debt collection — the ones now subject to the CFPB’s jurisdiction. Exempting debt collectors from the CFPB’s jurisdiction just because they happen to work for a law firm would be just as silly as exempting them from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Which they aren’t.
