Entertainment Industry Wants More People To Know About OpenBitTorrent Tracker

from the for-what-reason? dept

The definition of insanity, the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. For the past decade, the entertainment industry has sued one site or service after another that was used for unauthorized file sharing at some time. In every single case, the act of suing that site or service ended up only serving to massively increase attention and usage of those services. Suing Napster made Napster into the service to use. Ditto with Kazaa and Grokster. The Pirate Bay wasn't that big until Hollywood got Swedish authorities to raid the operations and confiscate the servers.

So, here we go again -- except this time it's even more ridiculous. Entertainment industry representatives have filed a lawsuit against the OpenBitTorrent tracker's hosting company (Update: noting that the lawsuit is against the hosting company), which is not a file sharing site or service at all. It's just an open tracker. Now, I recognize that folks in the entertainment industry aren't particularly knowledgeable about how technology works, but at some point, aren't they supposed to at least understand the basics? The tracker alone is not responsible for anything here -- and even more ridiculous is that the OpenBitTorrent guys (despite not being in the US) set up a DMCA-like process for taking down any info_hash if they want (which, by the way, was the reason the industry claimed it didn't sue Google -- because it took down links on request -- but now that OpenBitTorrent does the same thing, it's a problem?). Either way, with the rise of trackerless solutions means that even taking this site down won't much matter. Still, it makes you wonder what they're thinking over in the entertainment industry other than ways to increase their legal bills.

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The More Innovative You Are, The More You Get Sued; Yet Another Patent Lawsuit Over Shazam

from the aren't-patents-great? dept

Earlier this year, we noted that Apple and AT&T had been sued for patent infringement concerning Shazam, the popular service for identifying music. At the time, we noted how this was a clear demonstration of the difference between just the idea and the actual innovation. Shazam has been around for ages, and despite having a good idea (ability to identify music just by hearing it), it struggled for many, many years until the iPhone came along, and there was a platform on which its concept made sense. During that time Shazam kept trying out new things and improving its service. The basic concept behind Shazam (identifying music) isn't that interesting. It was all the work that Shazam kept doing over the years to find the right mix of things that consumers wanted that made it worthwhile.

But, of course, patent holders continue to insist that it's the original idea only that's important.

So, once again, Shazam's service is involved in a patent lawsuit, this time from Digimarc, who has sued Shazam directly, claiming infringement. Now, Digimarc claims that Shazam is infringing on its patents, even though Digimarc does not offer a similar service at all. In fact, Digimarc is in an entirely different business: it's really a DRM company who wants to try to stop people from sharing or appreciating content, by locking it down. More recently, Digimarc has been focused on patenting its watermarking concept (despite plenty of prior art), and going the lawsuit route.

So, we have the tales of two companies who have been around for quite some time. One is focused on providing unique and compelling solutions that make consumers' lives better. And the other is focused on locking things down and talking about its intellectual property. Guess which one's getting sued by the other? So, please, explain again how patents encourage innovation? Once more, it looks like patents are being used to prevent actual innovating by those who prefer to lock up ideas.

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IFPI: If Lawsuits Aren't Working In Denmark, We'll Seize Computers To Get Evidence

from the um,-wow dept

We just wrote about how the Danish anti-piracy group was dropping its lawsuits against individual file sharers after realizing that Danish law made it almost impossible for the industry to win those cases. However, as pointed out by brokep, the international wing of the recording industry, the IFPI, wasted little time in trying to spin the news in its favor (Google translation of the original). The IFPI insists that the lawsuits won't stop, but just that the anti-piracy organization was realizing it needed more detailed evidence -- and this means that it will now start seizing computers to get evidence. Now, the Google translation trips up over the word "beslagslaeggelse," but multiple Danish speakers have confirmed that the word means "seize" or "confiscate." Of course, that raises some questions about why a private organization representing record labels has any right to seize computers of individuals. I think they were better off when they just admitted they were going to give up on the counterproductive legal strategy.

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Danish Anti-Piracy Group Withdraws All Its Lawsuits Against Individuals (After Losing Most Anyway)

from the nice-work dept

While the RIAA has backed down (but not stopped) lawsuits against those accused of file sharing in the US, it looks like the Danish anti-piracy bureau has decided to drop all of its lawsuits after it became clear that individuals were basically winning them all (Google translation of the original, found via brokep). Basically, the courts acquitted most of the individuals accused of private file sharing, with the one exception being the case where the guy confessed. And, the nature of the rulings in the acquittals made it clear that it was virtually impossible to win a lawsuit against individuals for file sharing. Of course, we have no doubt that the industry will continue to use other means, such as via regulatory capture, to continue to look for ways not to give consumers what they want.

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Patent Holder Sues McAfee, Gets $25 Million... But May End Up Losing $5 Million Due To Everyone It Has To Pay Off [Update]

from the this-is-fun dept

A few years ago, we noticed the troubling trend of private equity firms raising capital solely for the purpose of investing in patent lawsuits. Basically, these private equity guys saw the ridiculous awards being handed out to patent holders who did nothing, and realized they wanted in on the game. So they raised funds of hundreds of millions of dollars, and basically approached different small patent holders, examined their patents, and basically promised to bankroll lawsuits against companies who actually did stuff, in exchange for a cut of the winnings. One of the biggest players in this space (perhaps the largest outside of Intellectual Ventures) is Altitude Capital Partners.

Joe Mullin has uncovered some of the details of how Altitude works (and how some of these lawsuits work), because Altitude is upset with the amount of money it got back from one of the patent holders whose lawsuit it "invested" in. Note, here, that it does not appear that Altitude invested in the company in question, DeepNines, but specifically in the lawsuit. Altitude gave DeepNines $8 million for its lawsuit in the structure of a loan. DeepNines sued security firm McAfee and worked out an eventual $25 million settlement. How much did DeepNines actually get? Less than $800,000 -- and even that's in dispute. (Updated in the next paragraph).

Basically, because Altitude had a "model" of what it felt DeepNines should get in a lawsuit, and that model popped out a $200 million award, it felt that it didn't get enough. But the breakdown suggests it did fine. DeepNines paid back the loan at a 10% interest clip, plus another $700,000 as its "contingency fee" on the winnings, adding up to $10.1 million. Then DeepNines ended up having to pay its lawyers at Fish & Richardson over $11 million in fees, plus another $1.25 million to local lawyer (and former federal judge) Robert Parker. DeepNines also had to pay additional expenses for travel and other legal costs, adding up to another $2.1 million. In the end, it was left with less than $800,000. Doesn't seem quite worth the effort. (Update: Good discussion in the comments suggesting that the math here doesn't quite add up, and DeepNines may have actually ended up with about $8.8 million, because you have to add the original $8 million investment to the $25 million in counting in the inflow. That makes sense, so the numbers may be off. I was initially relying on the report claiming $800k was leftover, but it may have actually been higher. The rest of the story does make sense however).

Especially since Altitude is demanding another $5.3 million, saying that DeepNines should have calculated its contingency fee based on the overall award, not after subtracting legal fees. Of course, if it did that, then DeepNines -- despite having "won" $25 million, will have lost nearly $5 million on the overall deal. Be careful who you partner with. This should be a huge warning to any patent holders who think about accepting money from a firm like Altitude. Even a $25 million "win" can turn into a huge loss, if you're not careful.

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Court Tells Pirate Bay Founders They Can No Longer Work On The Pirate Bay

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

You can't say the entertainment industry isn't persistent in their attempts to shut down The Pirate Bay (though, a portion of the site's popularity can be attributed to their neverending campaign against the site). While the industry won its lawsuit against four of The Pirate Bay's founders earlier this year, the ongoing appeals process is taking too long for the industry -- and the court had not issued an injunction against the site, so it's still running (though, plenty of users have since bailed out due to concern about the failed attempt to sell the site). Still, the entertainment industry has been trying a bunch of different ways to shut down the site in the meantime. Initially it got an ISP serving the site to stop, which caused a brief downtime. However, the latest, as pointed out by brokep, is that the industry appears to have convinced the court to bar two of the defendants -- Gottfried Svartholm-Warg and Fredrik Neij -- from doing any work on the site (Google translation from the original, so would appreciate any detail corrections if the translation isn't accurate).

It's difficult to see what this accomplishes. Brokep points out that the two aren't involved with the site in the first place, and don't live in Sweden any more as well, so it's not clear what this does. On top of that, even if they were involved, it's not like others wouldn't quickly take their place anyway. The whole crusade continues to be a massive waste of time and resources by the entertainment industry for no clear gain.

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Italian Politician Tries To File Charges Against 4,609 YouTube Commenters

from the thin-skin,-much? dept

Boing Boing points us to a story coming out of Italy, concerning what appears to be a former politician with a... colorful past, Salvatore Cuffaro (he was apparently found guilty of helping the Mafia), who is upset about the comments on a YouTube video that involves himself, but which is from the early 90s. So, he's "laid charges" against all 4,609 commenters (since then, many more have commented). I'm not familiar enough with the legal system of Italy to quite understand what these charges mean, but the link above comes from an Italian political party, Italia dei Valori, which apparently is considered "anti-corruption." Apparently, that party is offering to cover the legal defense of any of the commenters who need the help. The translated text from Italia dei Valori isn't entirely clear -- and I'm not even sure what's wrong with the video or the commenters, or what people are being charged with exactly -- so please help fill in the blanks in the comments. However, any time you have a politician even threatening to sue thousands of YouTube commenters, you know something has gone wrong.

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Law Students Suing Law Students Ends In Settlement

from the precedent-missing dept

We've covered the lawsuit over comments on the site AutoAdmit for the past couple years. The quick summary is that AutoAdmit is an online forum for law school students where, like many online forums, sometimes the conversations get pretty mean. Two female Yale law students sued the site and a bunch of anonymous commenters, after they posted some mean things about them. There's no denying that the comments were pretty obnoxious, though it's not clear that, given the context, anyone took them seriously. The women claimed that they had trouble getting jobs because of the comments, but there was little evidence to support that either. Still, you had a bunch of law students angry with each other, so of course lawsuits were filed -- some very badly (such as against one of the guys who helped run the site and was clearly protected from liability).

Some were hoping that this lawsuit would create new rules concerning online defamation or other "mean" content online. For example, there's been a push for a DMCA-style "takedown" system that would require sites to take down such content. However, in this case, it looks like no precedent will be set at all, as the parties have all settled and the terms of the settlement are confidential (found via Thomas O'Toole).

The issue is a tough one, certainly. It's no fun to be on the receiving end of such speech -- but should it be illegal or should there be an automatic takedown system on such content? That seems extreme and questionable when it comes to the First Amendment issue. In the end, I think the context of the content remains important -- and content in such a forum, where it was pretty obviously ridiculous, is the sort of thing that's better left ignored, rather than filing a lawsuit over it.

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Negotiating Through Lawsuit Continues: EMI Drops Lawsuit, Signs Deal With Grooveshark

from the all-in-the-negotiation dept

We've noticed a troubling trend in how legitimate online music services are being pressured into deals with the major record labels. The labels begin the negotiations on licenses... and then sue the company. That, of course, makes life difficult for the startup, which is then pressured to offer even better (read: ridiculously onerous) terms to the labels. We've seen it happen over and over again, and saw it happening when EMI sued Grooveshark this past summer. And, of course, a few months later, the lawsuit is dropped and a licensing deal has been reached, though you can bet the terms are not quite what Grooveshark originally intended. That's what happens when part of the "negotiation" involves a lawsuit.

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Guy Uploads Book To Google, Selects Wrong Option... Sues Google For Infringement

from the that'll-go-far dept

Eric Goldman alerts us to yet another lawsuit concerning Google's book scanning project -- even as it's deep in negotiations to come up with a new settlement with authors and publishers. Somehow... I doubt this new lawsuit is one that will cause too much turmoil within Google, however, as it appears to be a self-published author (representing himself in the lawsuit as well) who uploaded his own book to Google and then was confused about how the controls worked... so he decided to sue for copyright infringement. The full lawsuit is here:

It includes such gems as the following line of reasoning:

Listing my entire book on the internet minimized my chances of finding other chances of finding publishers and buyers because they listed the entire book on the internet.

But, as you read through the supporting documents, including the helpful emails from Google staff, it becomes clear that the guy misunderstood how Google Books works. After uploading his own book, there's an option to choose how much of the book is made available. He chose 100%, incorrectly believing that 100% meant none of the book would be published. Instead, he just keeps demanding that only the specific pages he wants Google to publish should be published. Google doesn't appear to have that functionality... so the guy is suing for copyright infringement. Somehow, I don't expect this case will get very far.

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Even After Being Disbarred, Jack Thompson Can File Misguided Mistargeted Lawsuits

from the good-luck,-Jack dept

Ah, Jack Thompson. The lawyer who made a name for himself years ago by trying to misdirect the blame for pretty much any violent action by any teenager by claiming that it was "the video games' fault" has since been disbarred, and last we heard was getting scolded by Utah state politicians -- the one state where politicians were still putting up with his unsubstantiated claims. And, of course, through it all he continues to claim that everyone is out to get him -- with various video game blogs being a favorite target.

Of course, even though he's been disbarred, it doesn't mean he can't continue filing misguided lawsuits on a pro se basis -- and that's what he's done now. Eric Goldman alerts us to the news that Jack Thompson is now suing Facebook because some people on Facebook have said some mean stuff about him. Now, there's no doubt that some people online have said incredibly mean and hateful things about Jack, and may have made statements that are potentially threatening. But, apparently, while filing all of these lawsuits and getting disbarred, Jack Thompson never bothered to read Section 230 of the CDA, which protects the service provider (such as, say, Facebook) from the actions of its users. Details, apparently, are not Thompson's strong suit:

There's a bit in there where he suggests that there's some massive organized campaign against him, rather than just a bunch of random people having fun with him, because they appear to think he's a bit out to lunch.

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Is Ignoring RIAA Lawsuit Cheaper Than Going To Trial?

from the isn't-that-what-they-count-on? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Nate Anderson's article about how ignoring an RIAA lawsuit may be "cheaper" than going to trial. It makes for a nice storyline, but it's really not entirely accurate. It's based on the fact that Judge Gertner, who was the judge in the Joel Tenenbaum trial, just handed out some default judgments against people who never bothered to respond at all to an RIAA lawsuit over file sharing. In each case, Gertner chose the statutory minimum of $750 per song, much less than Jammie Thomas got in her two trials and Joel Tenenbaum received in his trial.

But, of course, these aren't apples-to-apples comparisons (not to mention that we're dealing with a classic "small sample size" problem). Specifically, the three trials involved a combination of poorly argued defenses that made the defendants look worse, combined with defendants themselves who both admitted to lying. And, add to that the fact that they're jury trials, where juries tend to give out larger awards than a judge does, and it's really not a huge surprise. If you had defendants who actually had a real case, combined with a defense team that actually argued the specific points, things might have been different. But, it looks like, with both Thomas and Tenenbaum, the goal was to create a bigger case that can get attention at higher levels to take on certain aspects of copyright law itself.

And, of course, as an addendum on the article notes, it's still probably cheaper to settle up in the first place, but that's exactly how the RIAA intends things to be. It's the same principle on which an extortion scam works: it's cheaper to pay up than to fight it. But, that doesn't mean it's right to just shut up and pay -- especially if the accused is innocent. As much as the RIAA must love Anderson's article, because it encourages people not to fight its lawsuits, the reality is a lot more complicated.

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Pirate Bay Appeal Lay Judge Employed By Spotify?

from the a-bit-of-bias dept

There have been all sorts of questions about unfair bias in the Swedish trial against The Pirate Bay and its founders, and the latest claim is that one of the "lay judges" on the appeal is employed by Spotify, currently a music industry darling trying to set up a licensed, authorized online music streaming system. Given that Spotify could reasonably see sites like The Pirate Bay as somewhat competitive, and that it counts major record labels among its ownership, it's hard to see how allowing an employee to be on the lay judge panel (sort of, but not really, the equivalent of a jury) is even close to fair.

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How Not To Do Things: Redskins Suing Over 100 Fans

from the that'll-convince-them dept

We've been talking about ways that individuals and organizations can better connect with fans... while also highlighting examples of what not to do, so it should come as little surprise that many of you sent over the news that the Washington Redskins have sued well over 100 season ticket holders, after those fans faced financial hardship and were unable to pay up for new season tickets, despite having signed long-term contracts at some point. The article is long and detailed, and reading through the examples, the Redskins management appears about as heartless as can be. The Redskins chief lawyer tries to come up with excuses on each case, and it just makes the team look petty. Even worse, is that he claims that every team does this, but the Washington Post found most of the teams they contacted do not, and the few that do, only do so in the rarest of circumstances.

Meanwhile, the local baseball team, the Nationals, refuses to sue fans, and notes that it's pretty simple to deal with people who fail to live up to their contract: you take away their tickets and resell them. And, just for comparison purposes, we're talking about the Nationals, who are averaging one of the lowest average attendance rates in all of baseball. Compare that to the Redskins, who have a stunning record of selling out every home game since 1968. In other words, if anyone had a reason to go after those not paying, it would be the Nationals. The Redskins can easily resell the tickets.

And... actually, it is reselling those tickets for a nice profit while still collecting huge cash awards from those who couldn't pay -- some of whom are now declaring bankruptcy and blaming the team they used to love. On top of that, there are suggestions in the article that the Redskins used surreptitious (and potentially illegal) tactics to trick some fans into signing long term contracts when they thought they were signing yearly contracts. In at least one case, it appears that the team checked off a box for a fan, committing him to six years. In other cases, the team appears to be totally heartless. For example, the team was informed that a delinquent fan was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic -- and two months later they sued him.

If you want a lesson in how not to treat fans, check out the Redskins.

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Intellectual Ventures' Patents Starting To Show Up In Lawsuits

from the the-beast-awakens? dept

Intellectual Ventures, of course, is the Nathan Myhrvold company that has been building up a huge portfolio of patents with which to get big tech companies to pay many millions of dollars to not get sued -- and, according to many, to get a cut of future deals as well, making the whole thing sound suspiciously like a pyramid scheme. However, the company has been quite careful to avoid actually suing anyone (despite setting up all sorts of shell companies commonly used in such lawsuits). From what we've heard from people who have been in or around IV, this has been a conscious decision to avoid attracting too much ill will and scorn. It lets the company pretend to take the high road, when people point out that its actions seem like the commonly defined "patent troll" on steroids. "But we haven't sued anyone" it can claim. As if the threat of being sued isn't a big enough weapon.

But, a year ago, we noted that the company appeared to be getting antsy. While it was bringing in some hefty fees from a small group of companies who bought into the equity pyramid (which neatly lets the world outside be confused over what's "investment" and what's "revenue"), there was concern that investors were getting impatient. Pouring billions of dollars into a company that isn't doing much can make some investors a little anxious. And while we still don't know of any direct lawsuits, Zusha Elinson has noticed that Intellectual Ventures' former patents are starting to show up in court, often involving some of the most well known names normally associated with "patent trolling." Now, it's clear that IV sold the patent, but what's not clear is if it still has a financial interest in it. The thinking is that IV may have "sold" the patent, with part of the terms being that it gets a cut of any money obtained via that patent. This way, IV gets to have its cake and eat it too. It still can claim it doesn't sue anyone, but it brings in revenues from exactly those types of lawsuits.

As Joe Mullin notes in the last link above, this is one of the massive problems with the way patent infringement lawsuits work today. Via different shell companies, those who have an interest in a patent can be hidden to protect their "good name" while still allowing them to actively have companies sued via that patent.

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Serial Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filer Loses Appeal... And His Possessions

from the time-to-get-a-job dept

Back when CAN SPAM was passed, one of the (many) parts that annoyed anti-spam fighters was that the law was quite clearly limited in who could bring lawsuits. It was basically designed so that only the government or ISPs could bring lawsuits -- not individuals. This was done on purpose, as lots of marketing companies freaked out that they'd end up dealing with constant spam lawsuits from people upset about receiving their marketing messages. However, some anti-spammers worked on ways to get around this by setting themselves up as "ISPs," though only for the purpose of trying to sue spammers. This strategy backfired. A couple of years ago, one of the most fervent supporters of using this trick (his only "job" was filing these lawsuits against spammers) lost his case, and the court even told him to pay $110k to the firm he had sued.

He appealed, and the appeals court came down even harder on the guy for clearly abusing the law, pointing out that he was clearly a professional litigant, and not someone running a real ISP. But, perhaps even more fascinating is that the guy, James Gordon, didn't just lose the lawsuit, it appears he lost most of his possessions as well. Remember that ruling telling him to pay the $110k to Virtumundo? He refused. The company sent the debt to a collections agency, but told Gordon they'd call off the collections agency if he dropped the appeal. Gordon didn't:

When Virtumundo's collections lawyer showed up at Gordon's house with a moving van and a sheriff, Virtumundo again offered to stop its pursuit of Gordon's assets if he would drop his appeal, and he refused again, according to Newman.

Virtumundo's collections agency then cleared out Gordon's house, according to Newman.

He added that after seizing the contents of Gordon's home, Virtumundo offered to return Gordon's belongings if he would drop his appeal and again, Gordon refused.

As much as I thank anti-spam activists for trying to stomp out spam, that doesn't mean they get to ignore what the law allows, and set up what was effectively a professional anti-spam litigation service.

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New Lawsuit Against Facebook From People Who Just Don't Like Facebook

from the what's-your-cause-of-action? dept

Another day, another bizarre lawsuit. Eric Goldman points us to a lawsuit against Facebook that is best summarized as "we don't like Facebook, and we're sure it's doing something bad." It involves a few different plaintiffs who all have very different complaints, combined with some weird claims about Facebook violating their privacy, and that it's really a data mining company in disguise. But, of course, there's an easy way to avoid any such issue. It's called not using Facebook. The lawsuit also seems to rely on the fact that lots of people don't like the terms of service that Facebook has used, but not liking the terms don't necessarily make them against the law. There's also a poorly explained copyright claim -- but it's so unclear that I can't tell if the complaint is that Facebook is violating copyrights by showing the photos that one of the plaintiffs themselves uploaded (which would be flat out ridiculous), or that the issue is other users uploading photos (which would be pre-empted by the DMCA's safe harbors). The whole thing seems like a group of people suing Facebook for the hell of it and hoping to get some cash out of it.

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Porn Studios Sue 10,000 Korean File Sharers

from the that'll-work dept

Apparently some porn studios haven't realized what a disaster the RIAA's "sue 'em all" strategy has been. A bunch of US- and Japan-based porn studios have supposedly decided to sue 10,000 individuals in South Korea for uploading unauthorized porn. Do they actually think this will help their business models? On top of this, they're asking the police to investigate as well, hoping to get some of the lawsuits to lead to jailtime. I'm sure that South Korean citizens are happy their gov't signed a "free trade" agreement with the US that included a bunch of provisions put there by US entertainment industry lobbyists, resulting in these strict new copyright laws.

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Remind Me: Why Do We Let Patent Lawsuits Go On Even As USPTO Has Doubts About The Patents?

from the shouldn't-things-wait? dept

While plenty of people are familiar with the fact that NTP got $612.5 million from RIM in a patent dispute a few years back (which drew tremendous scrutiny into the realm of patents), one of the most interesting details that many people didn't follow was that at the same time as the lawsuit was going on, the US Patent Office was re-examining those same patents, and issuing rejections of the very same patents. Despite the USPTO even rushing to announce its problems with the patents way ahead of schedule, the judge chose not to wait for the final rejections and pressured RIM into paying up.

This sort of thing happens all the time.

For example, just weeks after TiVo was practically dancing in the streets over its latest wins over EchoStar in a patent dispute over basic DVR functionality, the USPTO has given an initial rejection on some of the claims at issue in the case. While TiVo is quick to downplay this as just the first step in a long process (which it gets to respond to), it's being a bit misleading in suggesting that this sort of thing happens all the time. Sure -- it happens a lot, but to questionable patents. It seems that, if the USPTO has agreed to review a patent and clearly the examiners have serous questions about the patentability of certain claims, shouldn't any lawsuits that hinge on those patents be put on hold?

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Sued Over Twitter Message? Can You Defame Someone In 140 Characters Or Less?

from the sue-first,-ask-questions-later dept

Tom writes in to alert us that a woman in Chicago has been sued for defamation by the company that manages her apartment over a Twitter message. The message she put on Twitter read:

"Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

And, rather than address a concern of one of their residents, the company brought out the lawyers, and sued for over $50,000. A little investigation reveals that the woman had all of 20 followers, which makes you question just how much actual damage was done by this message.

Still, for my money, the best single paragraph/statement about Horizon Group Management has to be the following one, in the Chicago Sun-Times, quoting Jeffrey Michael, speaking for Horizon Group (and a member of the family that runs it):

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

I'm curious as to how being a "sue first, ask questions later kind of organization" meshes with having "a good reputation it wants to preserve." I'd argue that (1) suing a tenant of a meaningless tweet (and drawing much more attention to the complaint) and (2) claiming that you're a "sue first, ask questions later kind of organization" in the national media are going to do a hell of a lot more damage to any "good reputation" (if it existed in the first place) than some random woman with 20 followers bitching about mold in her apartment.

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