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weeble1000 wrote:
BloodHawk, the only reasonable explanation for why the Washington state Attorney General would spend oodles of state money to persue this case is to make case law.

I'm sure someone brought the issue to the attention of the AG, but I don't see where Sean claimed that wasn't the case. You don't need to know how people work to understand this, you need to understand how lawyers work, and in particular government attorneys, to understand what is going on in this case.

This AG has a beef with crowd funding and is using this lawsuit as a way to address his issues with Kickstarter. Now, this is not to say whether or not the AG is acting in the public good (if not persuing justice for the 31 Washington state residents - which he knows he isn't). I expect that he believes he is. But whether this lawsuit is in the interest of Washington state residents and US residents in general is very much open for debate.

As I said previously, one should appreciate the context of an issue like this before jumping on a bandwagon.

For example, last year I worked pro-bono on a death penalty case brought against a convicted murder serving life in prison with no possibility of parole (the mandatory sentence for aggrivated murder in the state of Louisiana). That's right, a convicted murderer serving a life sentrnce being charged with another murder, allegedly committed during an escape attempt.

Now, the state was seeking the death penalty even though the defendant was as I said already serving life inprisonment with no possibility of parole and was serving his sentence on death row for security purposes. So, why was the DA seeking the death penalty?

One might say that the reason was the principle that it would be the only way to punish the defendant for the crime. One might also say it was merely a means to death qualify the jury, statistically increasing the odds of a conviction. One might also say it was purely a political motivation, or a mix of all of the above.

The point is that whether the DA was acting in the interests of the citizens of the state of Louisiana was absolutely a matter open for debate. Your conception of justice is not mine, and the laws of a state do not provide a bright line delineating just from unjust. This is why DAs are elected officials, as are state attorney generals in 43 US states. Don't forget that.

I never said that justice is always clear and easy. I am saying that we shouldn't refuse to take certain cases into a court room because of some potential vague threat that some large amount of damage could potentially be done to other people in the future because of the case. What I have issues with is refusing to take any legal action dealing with kickstarters because this somehow could damage kickstarters reputation and the people who use the website. I mean this case could hurt kickstarter, or could end circling the drain, or the AG could lose, or the AG could win and nothing changes. No apolitical scenario where all of sudden the small guy lost another way to make his dream a reality, just another court decision that anyone without a law degree doesn't knows exists.

For this particular case I don't particularly care whether or not the AG wins or not. I have donated to a grand total of 1 kickstarter and it was for warmachine tactics. I donated to that one because I really would like to see warmachine makes its transformation into video games, and I wanted some cool looking journymen warcasters.

As far as the Washington's AG personal motivation how do you or Sean_OBrien know anything about that again? I mean I don't think lawyers, I know several, all have identical motivations for why they became lawyers or choose to pursue certain cases. I mean I wandered on to the guys website, a few minutes there I didn't anything about any vendetta against kickstarter, I did see a lot stuff about protecting people from fraud. Maybe that is it, no BS dealing with hating kickstarter just an AG going after someone for fraud, which one would think is his job. There is even a link on the home page where you contact the AG "If you feel that a business or individual has broken the law or is trying to defraud or scam you, the Office of the Attorney General is here to help." You can apply online and anything, one could guess that is where this started.

I mean unless you guys can read minds or have some first knowledge of the particular AG I fail see how you are doing anything put blindly speculating here.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

As far as the Washington's AG personal motivation how do you or Sean_OBrien know anything about that again? I mean I don't think lawyers, I know several, all have identical motivations for why they became lawyers or choose to pursue certain cases. I mean I wandered on to the guys website, a few minutes there I didn't anything about any vendetta against kickstarter, I did see a lot stuff about protecting people from fraud. Maybe that is it, no BS dealing with hating kickstarter just an AG going after someone for fraud, which one would think is his job. There is even a link on the home page where you contact the AG "If you feel that a business or individual has broken the law or is trying to defraud or scam you, the Office of the Attorney General is here to help." You can apply online and anything, one could guess that is where this started.

I mean unless you guys can read minds or have some first knowledge of the particular AG I fail see how you are doing anything put blindly speculating here.

Because the damages are virtually deminimis, that's why. Because of the expense to the taxpayer. Because of the nigh impossibility of actually making the alleged victims whole. Because Kickstarter and other crowd funding websites are a growing in public attention and present legal ambiguities that would be attractive to an attorney general looking to cause a stir.

weeble1000 wrote:
Because the damages are virtually deminimis, that's why. Because of the expense to the taxpayer. Because of the nigh impossibility of actually making the alleged victims whole. Because Kickstarter and other crowd funding websites are a growing in public attention and present legal ambiguities that would be attractive to an attorney general looking to cause a stir.

So speculation it is then. Good to know.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
Because the damages are virtually deminimis, that's why. Because of the expense to the taxpayer. Because of the nigh impossibility of actually making the alleged victims whole. Because Kickstarter and other crowd funding websites are a growing in public attention and present legal ambiguities that would be attractive to an attorney general looking to cause a stir.

So speculation it is then. Good to know.

Of course it is speculation. The only way it wouldn't be speculation is if we talked with the guy. But it is not wild, unreasonable, irrational, speculation. If all you have to say is "you don't know for certain," then thank you for your contribution and you need not elaborate further.

Otherwise, I believe my speculation is comparatively more reasonable than yours.

As an aside, when did it become unfashionable to speculate when discussing a topic of interest amongst a group of participants none of whom have direct experience with the events under discussion?

weeble1000 wrote:

As an aside, when did it become unfashionable to speculate when discussing a topic of interest amongst a group of participants none of whom have direct experience with the events under discussion?

Whether or not speculation is reasonable depends on the individual. I personally generally draw the line once people start talking about specific individuals and making claims like the AG is just an another government lawyer who doesn't care about these backers and is just out to waste money so he can be the first to mount kickstarters head on his wall when they have zero first hand knowledge or actual facts to back up their claims.

I mean speculate all you want about lawyers as a whole, or government agencies, or plastic toy soldiers or movies or politics or whatever. Specific individuals is where I personally draw the line. I don't except everyone to agree with me but that is what it is.

The Law is good to persue for jagoffs like the "Creator" of Axes and Anvils.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2063410154/axes-and-anvils/comments


I'm not a fan that KS has no responsibility other then to get a cut of the "Crowdfunding".

I agree that this is a foot in the door for the G to get into your wallet. Its a step before these start getting to have to start paying taxes on their funding, or producing some paperwork for the IRS.

Much the same as other funding, KS might have thought itself immune.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

As an aside, when did it become unfashionable to speculate when discussing a topic of interest amongst a group of participants none of whom have direct experience with the events under discussion?

Whether or not speculation is reasonable depends on the individual. I personally generally draw the line once people start talking about specific individuals and making claims like the AG is just an another government lawyer who doesn't care about these backers and is just out to waste money so he can be the first to mount kickstarters head on his wall when they have zero first hand knowledge or actual facts to back up their claims.

I mean speculate all you want about lawyers as a whole, or government agencies, or plastic toy soldiers or movies or politics or whatever. Specific individuals is where I personally draw the line. I don't except everyone to agree with me but that is what it is.

My entire profession is premised on speculating about the behavior of specific individuals. Believe me when I say that it is not only entirely possible, but I provide clients with reliable, reproducible results. Many professions are premised on speculating about the behavior of specific individuals.

You can believe it or not, but when it comes to broad strokes, you are not a unique snowflake.

And you wildly misinterpret me when you presume that I am claiming that the Washington AG is deliberately wasting taxpayer money. I may think it is a waste, but you fail to distinguish my opinions from my speculation about the AG's motivations.

You can never know for certain why a person does something. That is frankly impossible, though neuroscientists are speculating that in the future we may be able to determine the biological processes dictating every action we take in our lives. However, you can make very educated guesses, based on observed behavior of other human beings. If 95 out of 100 people of a certain demographic and cultural background behave in a certain way in a given situation, it would be silly to dismiss the inference that it is likely that a specific individual will behave in that way just because some individuals do not.

Doubtless you will continue to find fault with this reasoning. I speculate that it will be based on my hypothetical 95% probability, whcih you will claim represents an unreasonable degree of accuracy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grot 6 wrote:
The Law is good to persue for jagoffs like the "Creator" of Axes and Anvils.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2063410154/axes-and-anvils/comments


I'm not a fan that KS has no responsibility other then to get a cut of the "Crowdfunding".

I agree that this is a foot in the door for the G to get into your wallet. Its a step before these start getting to have to start paying taxes on their funding, or producing some paperwork for the IRS.

Much the same as other funding, KS might have thought itself immune.

You do need to pay taxes on your funding.

Why the hostility in this thread? We can discuss whether prosecution of crowd funding campaigns that make no attempt to deliver is good, bad, or could go either way depending... but this shouldn't be causing the reactions I'm seeing.

Personally, I think it's good if done right... I hope this Attorney General does it right! I think it's pretty obviously false to insist one way or the other in absolute terms for all cases (not that anyone here was necessarily). But there has been fraud on the platform and a deterrent to that and protection for consumers (or whatever term you'd like to apply) would be very good... if done right.

So here's hoping

Edit: I also missed a campaign and just saw they gave folks a chance to back via "pre-order" on their website... that'd be a fun one to try to make sense of from a law perspective . The line here is more grey than black and white, imo.

weeble1000 wrote:
You do need to pay taxes on your funding.

Many Federal politicians want to identify rewards as investment income (or rather to value them as such) so they can collect income taxes off the backers for their rewards received just like they would off dividend payouts and what not...

Many State politicians want to identify rewards as retail sales so that they can collect sales tax based on the pledge amounts.

Several billion dollars each year are going through crowdfunding right now - and it will likely increase. Governments (not just ours) are looking to figure out how they can get the most out of those transactions. Because most of the sites try to sit between investment and retail law, it is harder for the states to say it is a sale or the Feds to say it is capital gains. Cases like this can force the issue. If the courts call it a sale, then KS becomes a retail agent (much like eBay or the Amazon marketplace). They then are opened up to various additional liabilities beyond an almost meaningless statement that you should get a refund.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
You do need to pay taxes on your funding.

Many Federal politicians want to identify rewards as investment income (or rather to value them as such) so they can collect income taxes off the backers for their rewards received just like they would off dividend payouts and what not...

Many State politicians want to identify rewards as retail sales so that they can collect sales tax based on the pledge amounts.

Several billion dollars each year are going through crowdfunding right now - and it will likely increase. Governments (not just ours) are looking to figure out how they can get the most out of those transactions. Because most of the sites try to sit between investment and retail law, it is harder for the states to say it is a sale or the Feds to say it is capital gains. Cases like this can force the issue. If the courts call it a sale, then KS becomes a retail agent (much like eBay or the Amazon marketplace). They then are opened up to various additional liabilities beyond an almost meaningless statement that you should get a refund.

+100% in agreement here, Sean.

You hit it right on the head.

 Grot 6 wrote:
The Law is good to persue for jagoffs like the "Creator" of Axes and Anvils.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2063410154/axes-and-anvils/comments


I'm not a fan that KS has no responsibility other then to get a cut of the "Crowdfunding".

I agree that this is a foot in the door for the G to get into your wallet. Its a step before these start getting to have to start paying taxes on their funding, or producing some paperwork for the IRS.

Much the same as other funding, KS might have thought itself immune.

That's another great example. He's done three Kickstarters and delivered none of them. Total raised between them: 75K

 RiTides wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
The Law is good to persue for jagoffs like the "Creator" of Axes and Anvils.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2063410154/axes-and-anvils/comments


I'm not a fan that KS has no responsibility other then to get a cut of the "Crowdfunding".

I agree that this is a foot in the door for the G to get into your wallet. Its a step before these start getting to have to start paying taxes on their funding, or producing some paperwork for the IRS.

Much the same as other funding, KS might have thought itself immune.

That's another great example. He's done three Kickstarters and delivered none of them. Total raised between them: 75K

Yeah....

I've backed about 65 projects now, and I do my research on each one.

I don't see why people would have backed this dude and not realized he hasn't delivered yet on his other stuff. Heck, I've seen companies run multiple kickstarters at once for different projects, and I get antsy about backing something like that if they haven't delivered to me yet on something.

Out of all those projects, the one with the longest outstanding past delivery date, is one for hand made wooden dice. He has been in contact with us at least once a month on kickstarter itself, and updates us far more often on facebook with how the project and stuff in the shop is going. One of his biggest mistakes, was letting people put addons in after the project was over. (It was also massively overfunded.) Luckily, this is his second kickstarter, and he's still running the actual business and giving us updates on where he is with were the dice are, and we can't do anything about machines breaking and what not. By letting people put in lots and lots of addons in after the kickstarter ended, it pushed the dates back for everything even further, and make putting order together even more complicated.

So with the experience I've had with backing this many projects now, here's some of the things I've learned and seen(and btw, so far I've still not been scammed. I've also never made a project)

1. Overfunding generally pushes the dates back on project. If you don't plan for that, or plan enough for that, it will screw up all of your delivery dates. Cthulhu 7th ed is a great example. Make the books better, add more artwork....etc. pushes back the project date.

2. You have to plan in for what kickstarter/amazon will take out of your project in fees.

3. If you offer addons, plan for the cost of those addons. T-shirts, wineglasses/mugs, meeples, stickers, whatever.

4. Keep your backers updated. Communication is key. Most of your backers will understand and not feel like they're being completely ripped off if you keep telling them what's going on with the project. The dice project is a great example of this. Some of the backers haven't been happy that you can order dice from him right now and you might get it before you go your kickstarter stuff, but the first time he did the kickstarter, all he did was the kickstarter stuff, and he ran out of money to pay everybody and run the business. The dice project guy has stated where exactly the money from the KS project went. You can see all the pictures of the shop, and new dice and everything. Some of the backers have started to get project, and some of them were KS exclusives. He's also showed us pictures of several of the broken machines when it's happened, and those machines were vital to everybody getting their orders..which sucks.

I've seen stuff get stuck in customs, and watched the project creators make up apology cards that people could print out since stuff wouldn't show up in time for Christmas like originally planned.

5. If you offer KS exclusives, keep them that way.

6. If you're going to offer addons, have a really good way to manage them. Do backer kit or something else after the fact. The KS survery isn't that great at managing big projects, where you can pick and choose lots and lots of things. The dice project actually broke backerkit a couple of times before they got everything sorted out. One of the coin projects I backed set a really long date for people to finalize their orders, so they could see all the coins once they had been finalized.