"wood pellet salesman and convicted felon"
There's something about that phrase that gets a laugh out of me. Don't ask me why.
Paul Ceglia has been fined $5,000 for failing to produce the evidence that he is the owner of half - or 84 per cent as he first claimed - of Facebook. US Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio ordered Ceglia to pay the fine, and a proportion of Facebook’s hefty legal costs, as a punishment for prevarication over producing the …
He may be a convicted felon, and a fraud, but the court evidence[1] is quite compelling - if it's not found to be fake, and apparently a law firm has investigated it's origin and testified that it is genuine, then he's going to be a very rich man. Alternatively, he'll be doing a very, very long stretch in chokey.
Chances are the evidence *is* all faked, but given the past duplicitous behaviour of Zuckerberg I would NOT put it past him to have actually pulled the strokes outlined in the evidence[1]. I would laugh if he loses this case and is once and for all proven to be one of the shadiest businessmen in technology.
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-lawsuit-paul-ceglia-new-evidence-2011-4?op=1
Your eight month old article appears to be talking about the same evidence that has failed to turn up in court.
The law firm that has "investigated the evidence" is the very same one that first decided to no longer represent Ceglia.
Are you sure you have read and understood both articles and the timeline?
At this stage, I'd guess he's not going to be a very rich man.
Read this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-lawsuit-paul-ceglia-new-evidence-2011-4?op=1
So how come Business Insider has it, but the courts don't?
The article also describes this as "filed", which means the court DOES have it.
So is Business Insider lying?
I don't even see anything here that suggests the court rejected evidence, it merely states it didn't get any.
Colour me confused.
So a person or entity with personhood asserts IP rights over a work that someone else has produced; provides no evidence to back up the claim and has been fined $5000.
I for one would like to see this rare outbreak of good judgement applied to similar cases in an automated fashion.
And if you string the courts through hundreds of hours for nothing, aren't the two related in some way ?
Frankly, as a judge in a civil case (there is no murder here, so no last-minute revelations are admissible if I'm not mistaken), if the accusation (Ceglia is accusing Zuckerberg of owing him money, right ?) does not give proof of its claims within the first two hours of court arguments, I'd call it off until proof is on the table.
IANAL, obviously, but I do seem to remember some vague notion about civil cases being based on putting everything on the table first, then letting both parties discuss over what thing has what importance. If the accusation comes to the table without proof, then there is nothing to discuss.