🚀 go-pugleaf

strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>
>Arthur Rubin discusses the possibility of PKP going after end users.
>It's worth noting that in such a case, they can ask for legal fees
>as well, and if they win, the result could be very damaging to some

Not here in the US they can't. We don't follow the UK rule concerning
recovery of legal fees. Judges can award such compensation, but rarely
do. 

>Others think that the legal costs of going after someone are high
>and thus not worth it for PKP. It should be noted that PKP has
>in-house as well as retainer counsel, and that the costs might
>be quite low.

So would the damages, however. Reasonably, PKP can't recover more than
they are charging for a particular kind of damages, and prehaps a
punitive damage award which won't in practice be more than a small
multiple. Given the cost of MailSafe (under $100), lets say,
optimistically, that they manage to collect $1000 from you in the
suit. Its highly unlikely that any reasonable suit, even one that was
settled out of court, would take so little time that $1000 would be a
reasonable payback.

Caution: I'm not a lawyer, so in spite of my familiarity with the
legal system its unlikely to be a good idea to follow my advice. On
the other hand, Sternlight hasn't proven to be a reliable source,
whereas a professor at Columbia Law HAS argued that it would be
impractical to sue end users.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
Laissez faire, laissez passer. Le monde va de lui meme.