RICO Suit Filed Against Skype Founders

Stitch_Surfs writes "Defendant Skype Technologies S A, Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, Kazaa, Bluemoon Ou and a slew of others have been named in a Rico Suit Filed by StreamCast Networks, of Houston, Texas. StreamCast is the company credited with the development of the Peer to Peer Technology called Morpheus. From the little information the courts have released, StreamCast is claiming that the group engaged in corrupt business practices."

Query...

[Illbay]

Is it possible that SteamCast is a surrogate for a larger organization or consortium?

Well said!

[bobalu]

Exactly right, it was originally intended to recover $$$ salted away in mob compounds on Long Island.

Now they'll use it against kids opening a lemonade stand if they feel like it.

Re:No way

[MBCook]

I read a great piece on that whole debacle. I think it was in Forbes.

They made that software Intel only when it didn't need to be. This was found out (much to no-one's surprise) and they looked terrible.

But did it have to be that way?

The article posited it this way. They should have made that same software, but only bundled it with Intel computers. They wouldn't offer it for download. Other people would find it and put it up for download and it would be discovered that the limit was there and it worked just fine on AMD processors when the limit was removed.

At this point, Skype could say that they made it for Intel and not the general public, and that it was Intel only becuase that was all they tested it on (after all, they made it for Intel). They could then "test it" on AMD processors and release a version that let ANYONE do the 12 person conference a week later.

By doing this, they wouldn't have looked like a bad guy, and may have earned some praise.

Instead they looked like they sold out (which they did) and earned a lot of scorn.

Only Skype?

[anonymous22]

This is interesting. Also listed as defendants are other companies that seem to have nothing to do with each other, ie Kazaa, Brilliant Digital Entertainment, etc. Anyone?

Re:Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization

[Tim C]

It's kind of like the False Claims Act, which essentially allows private individuals who have knowledge of defrauding of the Federal Government to become, in essence, civil law vigilantes.

Technically, every citizen has a duty to uphold the law and to report any wrongdoings to the relevant authorities. The difference between a private citizen and a police officer is that the police do it as their job and have greater powers of arrest, etc. (Here in the UK at least, private citizens can make an arrest under certain circumstances - see for example the final paragraph of this article [bbc.co.uk])

Re:that's hard to believe.

[Karma Farmer]

I stopped reading it after the old man died and it turned into a mouthpiece for Steve's celebration of unearned wealth.

If it's been turned around again into a real magazine, that would be wonderful. It would have been a shame to see a great magazine run into the ground by a giant douchebag like Steve Forbes.

Re:RICO use and abuse - Or Not - Wrong is Wrong!!!

[kthejoker]

To add to this, RICO is designed to go after organizations that have IRS filings, be they corporate or NPO. So the users of Slashdot would not constitute a RICO act, because we are merely a loose affiliation of (possible) confederates. And since Slashdot site owners are pretty much hands-off on any sort of endorsements of activity on the site, they will never be charged with RICO for encouraging piracy or civil disobedience or what have you.

If the PETA officially sanctioned or condoned civil disobedience (or outright wanton criminal activity), they would be charged under the RICO. But the official front of PETA is very much just "don't you feel sorry for the animals?", and rarely extends into the "do something about it" beyond "stop buying the following companies' products." They never suggest that illegal activities which result in increased animal freedom or animal rights are a good thing. They never applaud ALF (officially and publicly), because to do so would constitute a RICO violation.

Whereas Operation Rescue actively promotes civil disobedience and the illegal protests of abortion clinics (and uses funds to do so, in the form of printing literature and maintaining websites), so they are a RICO violator. End of discussion.

Skype would have to do the same thing under an official front. There would have to be evidence that the corporate officers - acting as such (and not as rogue agents) - encouraged some illegal activity and that Skype, directly or indirectly, provided the money to do so through corporate channels, and that this activity directly hurts StreamCast's business ventures.

My guess here is that Skype will be able to demonstate enough plausible deniability to avoid a RICO conviction. With most criminal RICO stuff, the money trails and the linking evidence (phone calls, emails, meetings) are all recorded and filed under valid search warrants, and the cases are usually very clear-cut before they go to trial. With civil RICO, you are essentially accusing first based on gut instinct (and perhaps you "know" that they did it, but you don't know the gory details), and then attempting through legal discovery to prove it. Which, needless to say, is hard to do.