When we broke the news two days ago, it’s amazing how many domainers with uneducated opinions attempted to instantly crucify the original registrant of CamRoulette.com – the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty‘ seems to not apply to those that possess mob mentality.
The frivolous lawsuit against the CamRoulette.com registrant was thrashed by popular and respectable IP attorney “slash” domainer, John Berryhill, Esq.
Delivering a series of monumental comments at DNForum, John Berryhill essentially re-enforced what we already stated from day #1:
That the lawsuit against the original CamRoulette.com registrant is full of legal and factual holes.
John Berryhill stated:
[…] what everyone is latching onto here is that the domain name later sold to someone else for $150K, and that this is somehow a “loss” to the non-breaching party. It isn’t, and there are several reasons for that. First of all, in any contract dispute, it is nigh unto impossible to get a court into issues of what the “real value” of something may be. The reason for that is that every economic transaction is based on the fact that the two parties have differing perceptions of value in the first place. If I sell you a widget for one dollar, the only reason that sale takes place is that I believe the widget is worth marginally less than $1, and you believe it is worth more than $1. If everything was priced at what it is “worth” in some absolute sense, then nothing would ever be sold.
It’s important to also note that the lawsuit was brought under the pretense that the CamRoulette.com registrant is an established, publishing career veteran and a financially endowed individual. Unfortunately, in reality he is a 20 year old with barely – in his own words – four figures in his bank account; the plaintiff Googled the wrong man!
John Berryhill noted that, stating:
[…] it is my understanding that this “reputable” lawyer did not perform due diligence to even grasp that the proposed seller is not the person identified in the complaint. This is a violation of federal rule 11, and if that “reputable lawyer” doesn’t fix that, pronto, then there is the possibility of sanctions here. Tenuous legal theories in civil complaints are fine. Alleging facts which are false upon due investigation, is far from fine.
You can read the rest of John Berryhill’s excellent analysis at this DNForum thread.
John Berryhill is an outstanding attorney and a fun person to be with at a domainer meeting. He knows what he’s talking about, no doubt.