Enigma Software Group Resolves Bleeping Computer Litigation

uninfected1

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The court only ruled on BC's claim of ESG's case being spurious due the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

This case has established no precedent. Both parties chose to settle and therefore the court dismissed the case. And it is almost a certainty that BC settled so as not to incur excessive legal fees from a drawn-out case. However, it is a virtual certainty that if BC had the financial means and had chosen to pursue the case further, that the outcome would have been different. The deciding factor in this case was obviously one of an inability to pay the ongoing legal expenses to pursue the case to the fullest.

The bottom line is Enigma got pretty much everything they could reasonably have hoped for, bar a grovelling apology from BC. All of BC's counter claims were dismissed, all of the contentious posts were removed, and public criticism of Enigma products, in fact, public discussion of Enigma full stop, is no longer permitted on BC. I therefore think it is inevitable that this case will establish very significant precedents, and not just from a legal standpoint.

From the point of view of a plaintiff who doesn't much like the idea of their products being criticised, they are going to look at this case and fancy their chances. Any future court will also naturally pay a lot of attention to this case. And unfortunately the likes of BC (let's hope MT will never find themselves in such a position) will be more reluctant to contest any lawsuit if all that happens is they end up having to make humiliating concessions and lining the pockets of lawyers.
 
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Deleted Member 3a5v73x

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They will sue me if I say their product is bad? Oh wait, I just did.. what year is this where companies can't take criticism and like sissies go cry in court? People aren't even allowed on their own forum to express their own opinion about 3th party software/vendor, what's up with that #####? I can't think of a more parasite company, getting under your skin sucking you dry $, maybe my mobile carrier offering new phones every month.. :D
 
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Deleted member 178

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@davisd you are just a member, your voice doesn't count. However, if one of the mods here start bashing it, it would be different.
The guy at BC was a staff member, BC has large audience and influence people.
This is a business issue, nothing to do with Enigma being a sissy.
If BC was an obscure forum with only 500 members, Enigma wouldn't even care.
 
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509322

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The bottom line is Enigma got pretty much everything they could reasonably have hoped for, bar a grovelling apology from BC. All of BC's counter claims were dismissed, all of the contentious posts were removed, and public criticism of Enigma products, in fact, public discussion of Enigma full stop, is no longer permitted on BC. I therefore think it is inevitable that this case will establish very significant precedents, and not just from a legal standpoint.

From the point of view of a plaintiff who doesn't much like the idea of their products being criticised, they are going to look at this case and fancy their chances. Any future court will also naturally pay a lot of attention to this case. And unfortunately the likes of BC (let's hope MT will never find themselves in such a position) will be more reluctant to contest any lawsuit if all that happens is they end up having to make humiliating concessions and lining the pockets of lawyers.

It did not establish a legal precedent. That isn't how it works. And a court will never look at this case as it was dismissed permanently upon settlement between both parties.
 

uninfected1

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It did not establish a legal precedent. That isn't how it works. And a court will never look at this case as it was dismissed permanently upon settlement between both parties.
Please don't take this personally because that is not how it is intended, but this is mindless, ill informed nonsense. Anyway, I don't see anything to be gained from further discourse with you, but it might be prudent for you to consider sticking to IT matters in future.
 

cruelsister

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Truth is an absolute defense against a libel claim. To my knowledge there was no backing evidence for the Mod's claims other than opinion.
 
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509322

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Please don't take this personally because that is not how it is intended, but this is mindless, ill informed nonsense. Anyway, I don't see anything to be gained from further discourse with you, but it might be prudent for you to consider sticking to IT matters in future.

It was dismissed because both parties agreed to a settlement. When two parties agree to a settlement, and the case is dismissed because of that mutual agreement, that does not establish a precedent in the common use of the word.

And about the questions on matters of law in the case, they have been extensively established outside this case. What happened in this case is nothing new. There was no new legal precedent.

The case isn't that big of deal. It is now case law that can be cited as precedent. Cited as precedent is not the same as being a precedent.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

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Basically a forum staff can't say a product is crap , USA..."land of freedom" .

They can say whatever they want as long as it doesn't broach the libelous. Libel cases are notoriously hard to win and easy to defend against because in order for the libelous claim to be validated the person filing suit has to prove the defendant made KNOWING false accusations and had malicious intent as a motivator. Usually these cases need to result in a substantive claim of loss of revenue and generally aren't litigated unless that is such a case and why they are usually constrained to competitors.

This is why some people around here (me specifically) will almost always use clever words and phrases to insulate me from litigation. For example I usually won't say 'AVIRA SUCKS!' as much as I will say 'In my experience Avira is pretty buggy and poor quality', further I will usually follow it up with experiential evidence such as 'because often it will fail to update for me and other things, see look at this screenshot'.

Let's say Avira comes along and sees it, any good attorney knows it's not libelous because: 1) It's my personal experience, and is stated as such. 2) Substantive proof of the reason for the statement was offered willingly (as experiential evidence along with the statement) 3) There is no evidence of intention of substantive financial harm. Most lawyers only take cases with the law on their side, at least smart lawyers. There are bully lawyers who do things to silence people but they usually constrain themselves to scary sounding letters and initial filings but never usually amount to much more. I've thrown out more attorney letters (scary sounding ones too) and ignored more initial filings than I care to admit to and over decades not a single one of them amounted to a hill of beans because the law is on my side. Bluffing only works against the weak willed and someone that is inexperienced in such matters. You can't threaten hell and damnation to someone that doesn't believe in hell.

It also helps that I am a ghost. You can't serve someone papers that doesn't - generally speaking - exist in any tangible form to serve those papers to. Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney, but we have a Constitutional Lawyer in the direct family, and we talk about many such things over dinner and on long road trips.
 
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Deleted Member 3a5v73x

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Ya don't need to break down for me polaris, I donated ma money just to show I'm on BC side even I don't hung out there, they didn't deserve what they had to get through. I don't live in a USA nor I give a damn about that snake oil which has prolly more money than top 3 AV vendors combined. Even if BC had like 500, not thousands of members, like rating product bad from mod would hit Enigma sales, give me a break :cautious: Enigma users aren't in these type of forums..
 

plat

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Sep 13, 2018
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Yeah, I also donated a few bucks to the BC cause. To be fair, this was an opportunity for Enigma and it was taken. That's business and an opportunistic attempt at free advertising by playing the bully/victim card. You see iffy stuff like this all the time--look at Vipre and its tactics with Kaspersky users. But just the idea to try to level the playing field via an anti-malware software versus Bleepingomputer's vast knowledge base and talented forum staff--it is to laugh.
 

Behold Eck

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Jun 22, 2014
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Basically a forum staff can't say a product is crap , USA..."land of freedom" .

Well yes you can but only if you can afford the lengthy court proceedings and costs.

It`s standard business brute force procedure i.e. sue their ass off and when they see the crippling costs mount they`ll likely settle for out of court.

If that does n`t work give them a job to shut them up.

Regards Eck:)
 
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