Class action against GitHub Copilot

Posted Nov 11, 2022 11:27 UTC (Fri) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334)
Parent article: Class action against GitHub Copilot

> In recent decades, though, the class-action lawsuit seems to have become mostly a vehicle for extorting money from a business for the enrichment of lawyers.

That is a quite uncool things to say. Yes, of course, payments to the class members are usually just a pittance, but that is not the point of the class actions lawsuits. The main point of class actions is on the side of the balance sheets: what the defendant has to pay for the lost suit, and that class actions lawsuit are by far more powerful tool for product liability and consumer protection than any government action (comparing to for example Europe). Do you remember Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Corvair and other cars which resulted in class action lawsuits (and long list of other industries changed for better by class actions lawsuits could follow)? Yeah, nobody would dare to make such cars any more, because of those.

Concerning the payments made to the lawyers involved in class actions. Do you know how much these litigations usually cost? Do you know how many law firms went into bankruptcy because of class action lawsuits?

I don’t want this thread to fall into political discussion (so I probably won’t follow on any replies to this comment), and I easily admit that the system is often abused, but I would like it to stand here, that it is one of strongest tools “normal people” have against corporate interests and you would be sorry to loose it. We, who don’t have it (I live in Europe) are now struggling to create something similar (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/sta...).

Class action against GitHub Copilot

Posted Nov 11, 2022 12:19 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> The main point of class actions is on the side of the balance sheets: what the defendant has to pay for the lost suit, and that class actions lawsuit are by far more powerful tool for product liability and consumer protection than any government action (comparing to for example Europe)

Are you sure? In the UK we have Trading Standards, who's bite is pretty bad. The trouble is, like so many such Quangos, they are seen by the Treasury as a dead cost, and as such are badly hamstrung by inadequate budgets. If their budget bore any relationship to their value, they would rapidly rise ...

Cheers,
Wol

Class action against GitHub Copilot

Posted Nov 12, 2022 8:10 UTC (Sat) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

I am sorry, I did myself: forgetting that the United Kingdom has nothing to do with Europe. I really don’t know enough about the British law, and I really don’t know what was the UK position on the collective redress initiative.