Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spellwin, the EliteFitness.com Site & Our Members

[Bill Llewellyn]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

Sometimes a commercial view has to be taken as with any litigation it is very expensive for all involved just on legal fees never mind if you win or not as you have to pay to get to court. Litigation can go on for months / years before you even get to court and there is considerable expense preparing.

Especially federal IP cases, such as copyright. Been in business for 7 years now, and have spent a few of these in federal litigation protecting my intellectual property. This industry can be disgusting, actually, and not enough people/companies have the proper respect for others' IP rights.

I learned a long time ago what a federal suit entails. I wouldn't initiate one unless I was committed to seeing it through, which could be several years for even a simple case. You also need to be prepared to spend far more money protecting IP rights that you'd ever expect to recover. Courts VERY RARELY force the losing party to cover expenses of the victor, unfortunately.

 

[access]

As an adjunct to Bill's comments I can testify to exactly what he is saying with a case I was involved with several years ago now. Not to go into too much detail but it was over copyright infringment and ended up in federal court. It took 3 years to actually get it into court to begin with and I spent in the vicinity of $120,000 over those 3 years in "legal wrangling". I ended up winning my case before the federal court and had costs awarded for me (i was defendant) but the court has a scale of costs and relates directly to actual court time and does not cover associated costs leading up to trial so I was awrded $20,000 in court costs leaving me out 100K plus there were other issues concerning confiscated stock etc that was held for 3 years and was then practically worthless after trial.

So in the end the lawyers certainly do get richer but the parties involved, even when you win end up servely out of pocket.

 

[GUARDIAN]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

So basically to file suit it would be merely on principal and not monetary.

Especially federal IP cases, such as copyright. Been in business for 7 years now, and have spent a few of these in federal litigation protecting my intellectual property. This industry can be disgusting, actually, and not enough people/companies have the proper respect for others' IP rights.

I learned a long time ago what a federal suit entails. I wouldn't initiate one unless I was committed to seeing it through, which could be several years for even a simple case. You also need to be prepared to spend far more money protecting IP rights that you'd ever expect to recover. Courts VERY RARELY force the losing party to cover expenses of the victor, unfortunately.

 

[Bill Llewellyn]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

So basically to file suit it would be merely on principal and not monetary.

In my experience, cases like this should be initiated on principal mostly (ie protecting your Intellectual Property). If you go into a case like this expecting a big pay-out at the end, you are probably going to be very disappointed.

 

[George Spellwin]

George, is there any truth in these comments? Surely you would not settle with these bastards? I'm sorry I have not read all 37 pages on this thread so if this has been raised before my apologies.

As many of you know, our servers are located outside of the US. Digger is trying to set up a second presence in another data-center in another country. The goal is to prevent EF from going down if our ISP went bankrupt, experienced a natural disaster, had a catastrophic power failure etc. All these events are incredibly unlikely to happen, but you can never be too protected. Setting this up is very expensive and everyone would much rather we spend the company's money on a new second data center presence than on a lawsuit. Of course we have the money to fight Steroid.com and RoidStore.com, but I cannot think of a more stupid use of money... Unless it was the decision to sue us in the first place over a book we did not write so you could attempt to capture all of our ad space for your RoidStore.

 

[MichaelScott]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

In my experience, cases like this should be initiated on principal mostly (ie protecting your Intellectual Property). If you go into a case like this expecting a big pay-out at the end, you are probably going to be very disappointed.

its kinda like the insurance companies and big business it is cheaper and less hassle to pay out a sum than go through the court and fees, etc. it is not that you are acknowldging guilt just the cheaper way out from a business standpoint

 

[George Spellwin]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

Sometimes a commercial view has to be taken as with any litigation it is very expensive for all involved just on legal fees never mind if you win or not as you have to pay to get to court. Litigation can go on for months / years before you even get to court and there is considerable expense preparing.

Also you have to look at what you can win. If you win and get awarded damages can the defendant or claimant actually pay them. If the organisation is liquidated as a result then what benefit to you get other than proving your point at a considerable cost of legal fees.

The ones that are certain to win are the legal teams as they get their money on account pre doing any work so if possible and negotiation can bring a resolve then its always worth investigation and trying to agree.

Wrongun!

Wrongun!,

You always make great points - thank you for your support.

It appears that what Brian Clapp/RoidStore wants is tons of ad space for the Roid Store and cash as a distant second.

And unfortunately, it appears that all Anthony wants is to spend his boss Brian's money so he can claim he powned EF and me.

 

[Bill Llewellyn]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

its kinda like the insurance companies and big business it is cheaper and less hassle to pay out a sum than go through the court and fees, etc. it is not that you are acknowldging guilt just the cheaper way out from a business standpoint

Exactly. It would be nice to fight over principles, but usually it is better to look at the big picture. GS is a reasonable guy, so I am sure he is making his decisions with the EF community in mind.

 

[Bill Llewellyn]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

Wrongun!,

it appears that all Anthony wants is to spend his boss Brian's money so he can claim he powned EF and me.

Its PWNED. No O. Get yer' video game slang in order there George. Don't make me bring my X-Box over and show you a real PWNING!

 

[GUARDIAN]

Re: Discuss EliteFitness.com News: How Anthony Roberts & Steroid.com Raped George Spe

Its PWNED. No O. Get yer' video game slang in order there George. Don't make me bring my X-Box over and show you a real PWNING!

I would like to see a youtube clip of this event.