Time zone database suit withdrawn

[Posted February 23, 2012 by corbet]

Here's a press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation announcing the end of Astrolabe's lawsuit against the managers of the time zone database and a covenant not to sue again in the future. "In a statement, Astrolabe said, 'Astrolabe's lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a flawed understanding of the law. We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property and, accordingly, are withdrawing our Complaint. We deeply regret the disruption that our lawsuit caused for the volunteers who maintain the TZ database, and for Internet users.'"

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 0:49 UTC (Thu) by eigenstr (guest, #5205) [Link] (2 responses)

I was hoping to read something further, like "In light of our error, we have made a substantial donation to the EFF [or the TZ db maintainers]."

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 3:31 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

My reading of that press release is that a settlement with an NDA was involved. They aren't going to voluntarily admit that they sued and didn't know the law, that was a condition of the settlement. I'm also willing to bet there a payment to the EFF to cover the legal expenses. We won't ever know for sure because of the NDA but that sort of behavior (an apology and admission of wrong doing along with covenant not to sue) doesn't happen without a settlement document to make it all formal.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 4:11 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Not an NDA. A covenant not to sue.

EFF threatened to file a Rule 11 proceeding against Astrolabe, which is how you penalize both the attorney and the client for a frivolous suit. They wrote the entire proceeding, it's on their web site here. Astrolabe read the proceeding and decided to settle before EFF filed it.

Astrolabe's apology is on the EFF site. I'll quote it:

In a statement, Astrolabe said, "Astrolabe's lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a flawed understanding of the law. We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property and, accordingly, are withdrawing our Complaint. We deeply regret the disruption that our lawsuit caused for the volunteers who maintain the TZ database, and for Internet users."

I think the way this ended is that both parties agreed to dismissal. It seems that Astrolabe never served notice of the suit upon Olsen and Eggert. What they did do is send them an improperly written DMCA takedown letter. Either this means they didn't keep paying their attorneys to work on the case, or the attorney realized that they should not go ahead.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 0:50 UTC (Thu) by ipilcher (guest, #73401) [Link] (9 responses)

And their lawyers have been disbarred, right?

Right?

Sigh.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 1:44 UTC (Thu) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] (4 responses)

Unfortunately, disbarment probably wouldn't serve as much of a deterrent.

At the end of the day, the only way to stop frivolous lawsuits like this is to make it financially painful such that ALL lawyers quickly understand that they end up PAYING out money if they get it wrong.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/loserpays/overview.php

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 4:16 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

EFF's Rule 11 proceeding would have had Astrolabe and its attorneys pay Olsen and Eggert's court costs, yes. They probably did pay them as part of settlement.

"Loser pays" isn't such an innovative idea. There are ample ways to make it happen in court today, and it's done quite routinely.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 23, 2012 23:08 UTC (Thu) by zenaan (guest, #3778) [Link] (2 responses)

Actually disbarment probably _would_ serve as _quite_ a deterrent.

The threat of potential change-of-career as in loss-of-license-to-practice-law (assuming I'm not misunderstanding what being disbarred means) would certainly be a financial disincentive to lodging "embarrassingly frivolous" cases. Change of career for lawyer is disruption and therefore disincentive.

Bring it on!

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 24, 2012 1:56 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] (1 responses)

I believe disbarment pretty much requires you to do something criminal. Simple stupidity/ignorance wouldn't do it. Frivolous lawsuits won't do it (and yes, I know a lawyer who files a lot of frivolous suits can be sanctioned, etc). In any case most other lawyers simply wouldn't pay attention to a disbarment, even if it was for stupidity.

Loser pays on the other hand, would pretty much do away with lawsuits like this as any lawyer still practicing would actually look at the merits of the suit before filing. Vs simply filing suit, essentially trying to shake down people.

And I know loser pays is not innovative - it's almost as old as the practice of law itself. It's plain common sense, AND it's effective - certainly more than whatever ad-hoc mechanisms may be in place.

It says something about the US justice system that it's pretty much the only legal system IN THE WORLD that does not have loser pays as the standard.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 24, 2012 21:12 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

Loser pays is as smart a policy as zero tolerance. It takes intelligence and mitigating circumstances out of the equation and applies a ham-fisted rule that more frequently than not imposes penalties far beyond the harm.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 24, 2012 22:23 UTC (Fri) by SecretEuroPatentAgentMan (guest, #66656) [Link]

In the legal world people normally work hard to build and maintain reputation and there are several ranking lists, several are also published. These are important when you are looking for a reputable person in a jurisdiction you are not familiar with. These are also important for getting a promotion.

What happened in this case was rather dramatic, a case that will not be forgotten in the legal community. While not disbarred I do not expect anyone involved will be involved in any high profile case for quite a while, if ever.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 25, 2012 9:14 UTC (Sat) by ghane (guest, #1805) [Link] (2 responses)

While I share the ill-feeling towards Astrolabe, please go easy on their lawyers. You will be glad of having a lawyer who takes on your case the next time you are in trouble.

I understand the "First, kill all the lawyers" sentiment. What do we have next? Defence counsels being sent to prison if their client is "obviously guilty" in retrospect?

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
--- A Man for All Seasons, 1966 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060665/quotes?qt=qt0429616

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 26, 2012 18:06 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

While I share the ill-feeling towards Astrolabe, please go easy on their lawyers.

Why? The Astrolabe folks might, out of ignorance of the law, have thought that they had an open-and-shut case against the TZ database folks, but their lawyers should have set them right 10 minutes after the Astrolabe folks had come into their office for the first time. The whole embarrassment is really more the Astrolabe lawyers' fault than anybody else's.

There is nothing wrong with lawyers as such. What we don't need are ignorant and greedy lawyers.

Time zone database suit withdrawn

Posted Feb 27, 2012 23:48 UTC (Mon) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

There is such a thing as contempt of court, and filing frivolous lawsuits just to waste someone else's resources. I would argue that this case came very close to that.

Future of the TZ database?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 14:31 UTC (Thu) by tstover (guest, #56283) [Link] (2 responses)

When this story first broke, the other part of it was that many of us were surprised to learn that the TZ database had been maintained by just one unsponsored person (perhaps "Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert"). Someone correct me on the details.

Anyway is this the case? Did they get anything out of this? Are they still the only maintainers?

Future of the TZ database?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 14:37 UTC (Thu) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link] (1 responses)

If someone does a good job, you don't even notice they're doing it.

And a lot of people rallied round, including ICANN, and took control of the database in the meantime. And, additionally, there was never anything stopping anyone making their own TZ database or continuing on the work that had already been done, license-wise or technically.

That's *why* it's not actually that big a deal.

And ICANN handle it now, I believe.

Future of the TZ database?

Posted Feb 27, 2012 21:00 UTC (Mon) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]

Indeed. The new canonical location for the TZ database is http://www.iana.org/time-zones.