Riding the wind of rebirth

After two more days of negotiations, even the most indifferent investor representative, Freeman of Luhman Private Equity Fund, recognized Tony Huang's abilities and thought that hiring him as a full-power lawyer was a great idea.

Tony Huang rejected almost all of the association's appeals, and almost all of them were accepted by Judge Lewis.

This is very important because the case will serve as a very important reference for other similar cases in the future. As a mediation case of Internet intellectual property rights, this case has actually established many "rules" at the legal level.

For example, the economic and legal relationship between the forum and content providers, the scope of the association's jurisdiction over the forum, and the rights and obligations between members of different identities and the forum are all unprecedentedly concluded for the first time.

Zhou Zhi also understood Lewis's thoughts a little bit. He leaned towards the Practitioners Association on the first morning, in fact, just to ensure that the mediation case could continue.

The subsequent displays of justice were naturally intended to use this case to leave their names in the history of American justice.

Zhou Zhi actually understands this very well. The Western world believes in doing nothing without benefits. Everyone has their own interests and demands, which is normal.

Moreover, Zhou Zhi also saw another benefit of Lewis's doing this, that is, since Lewis wanted to make this case a benchmark for future cases of online intellectual property disputes, he must be extremely fair and cannot leave any flaws, otherwise what might be left behind might not be a good reputation, but a bad one.

At this level, things seem to be going more smoothly.

Tony Huang certainly would not just defend without attacking. After gradually establishing the framework of rules, he suddenly made a statement, claiming that if the association wanted to be the plaintiff, it should obtain the agency authorization from the practitioners. If it filed a complaint against the alliance without obtaining the agency authorization from the practitioners, it would be an abuse of power.

The reason is simple. The existence of the association itself is to coordinate the relationship between practitioners. If the practitioners are not dissatisfied with the forum, or conversely, the forum has not encountered infringement by others, the association's filing of a lawsuit without reason is just "making trouble" out of nothing.

This accusation is a very serious act, and the most amazing thing is that it has the possibility of success.

Because at the beginning the association initiated the lawsuit by taking the forum as the management object, but now Tony Huang has countered it by clarifying the association's management rights over the forum to a very small number of trivial powers.

As for economic disputes or IP ownership disputes, the association, as a third party, must obtain authorization from one of the disputing parties before it can participate.

This is also clearly stated in the association's charter, so when Tony Huang spent a few days setting up the "rules", he suddenly proposed this item, which really caught the association off guard.

However, just when things seemed to be going well, an unexpected incident suddenly turned the mediation case, which had only received some attention within the industry, into a major public opinion emergency known to the world.

A young man named Charles Chenow committed suicide in his apartment. Before he died, he left a suicide note in which he mentioned his love for music. He also mentioned that the income from publishing his works on the Digital Alliance Music Forum was not enough to support himself, so he finally chose to end his life.

Originally, this incident had nothing to do with the ongoing mediation between the Alliance and the Association. However, Malmut, who was in desperation, immediately seized on this point and launched a fierce attack on the Alliance, believing that the Alliance had caused this tragedy.

If the institution has caused death by oppressing and exploiting practitioners, the practitioners' association can of course file a lawsuit against the institution, and Tony Huang's previous protest will be completely ineffective.

Truney immediately held a press conference, tearfully accusing the Alliance Forum of its wrongdoings and expressing deep sorrow for the loss of a young life. This move immediately attracted widespread attention and sympathy, and since the Alliance Forum itself was founded on the Internet, voices of condemnation began to appear on the forum, demanding that the forum come out to clarify the facts, explain the situation, and apologize.

Many small accounts that stir up trouble appeared on the forum, and the attacks and insults became more and more frequent.

The originally good situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and the alliance began to face the trend of cyber violence.

……

In Zhou Zhi's room, attorney-in-fact Tony Huang, legal advisor Huron, alliance president Margaret, vice president Richard Riel, as well as Ikeda Qiu and Zhang Silu were discussing countermeasures.

"It's too much of a coincidence." Zhou Zhi frowned and said, "Whether Charles Chenoy really committed suicide or not, I don't believe that the association had no prior connection with this matter."

"The current situation is that there are many people with ulterior motives who use smurf accounts on the Internet, and then a large number of users who are unaware of the truth post comments, which quickly push the post to the top of the hot post rankings. I think we should take action to control the comments," said Margaret.

"Controlling comments also needs to be done in a proper way," Zhou Zhi said. "We can't just suppress them blindly, otherwise it will only backfire. We should keep those posts that are fair in tone and raise questions based on current evidence, and only control those posts that are fierce and slanderous. At the same time, we must declare the right to retain evidence and prosecute afterwards."

"We also need to cooperate closely with the police in the investigation." Zhou Zhi asked, "What is the latest progress of the case? Is it confirmed to be suicide? Also, have the police come to investigate the evidence? We have to be careful at this time."

"Trooney can manipulate public opinion, and so can we when necessary," said Chadrell.

Huron said, "From the police department, we know that Charles Cheneau committed suicide. The suicide note is being compared with the notes, but we won't be able to get the results in a short time."

"What about his user number?" Zhou Zhi asked, "Since he said he makes a living by posting songs on the forum, he should have published some works on the forum. I think the most urgent thing now is to find his user number and see how he is doing."

"I guess I've found him." Just as he said this, Mai Xiaomiao came out of his room, holding a laptop computer with a familiar music forum screen in his hand: "From this guy called 'The Last Yashkokamut', it's probably him."

"Xiao Miao is an independent investigative consultant I hired to conduct the investigation." Zhou Zhi quickly said, "Tony Huang, is there any problem with the legal aspect?"

"It's better to provide a written authorization certificate." Tony Huang certainly knew the relationship between Mai Xiaomiao and Zhou Zhi: "It's not a big problem if you are not a direct provider of evidence."

This is the law in the United States. It has strict requirements on procedural correctness in judicial and police agencies, but is very lenient towards private detectives investigating incidents.

"Well, Xiao Miao, can you tell me how you found this user and confirmed that he was Charles Chenow?" (End of this chapter)