The scheduled date of Chad and Steve’s depositions.
Google's lawyers delayed us with claims of being busy. We agreed to extensions for them. It was all a ruse.
Then, Google threatened us with Rule 11 sanctions. My attorney had $3000 worth of airfare and hotel accommodations already purchased which were non-refundable. He was prepared to spend $15000 on the depositions, and we were going to leak them on YouTube. Lawyers from 3 different states were poised to descend on Palo Alto, CA. Then, Kramer called and accused them of ludicrous things, snagged my private YouTube videos and mailed them to the Judge, along with claims that I was delusional, dangerous and somehow out to hurt (physically) Chad and Steve.
The judge stayed the depositions and basically gave Google special privileges - he granted them a way to file a Rule 11 motion even though one couldn't be filed until several weeks after the depositions were to take place. I guess appearing in your bathrobe on your NASA memory foam couch in a YouTube video claiming to have invented YouTube appears "delusional" or "dangerous" . . . my attorneys, initially, were certain they would beat the Rule 11 filing, but the road ahead seemed tough. It still does. I deserve my little 1%.
Rule 11: Legal Kryptonite
Cases that head toward settlement quickly need not in the U.S.: simply invoke Rule 11 motions to dispel any legal team. Sure, there is an off-chance that the motion would be denied, but for Google's attorney it seems to work magic on any unheard voice. Anything about a case that is questionable or controversial can involve hefty sanctions against Plaintiff's teams. Under the moniker "controversial" falls anything that requires extensive expertise, involves complex argument or statements categorized as "unbelievable" by attorneys who are merely projecting a jury outcome based on their own prior experience. The nuts-and-bolts of it is basically that juries do not necessarily make logical decisions and are not apt to believe testimony that has been legally coached or involves omissions. In fact, modifying testimony is technically illegal, but happens all the time and Rule 11 was designed to specifically counteract that.
Chad Hurley’s Perjury
The supplemental sworn declaration provided by Chad Hurley after Attorney Monts haggled with Google's legal team over court costs. The case was heading toward Google's standard "Rule 11" filing which had been promised by David Kramer, the lead counsel for Google. My attorney called it a "lawyer's trick" - essentially it made further discovery impossible until the Rule 11 motion was dealt with. They've used this in several cases. See other posts about the case and our strategy, as well as the Google defense strategy and the special privileges the judge allowed Google.
This document was required by Google's attorney at Chad's request (most likely) to have the case dismissed without prejudice (dismissed such that both parties paid their respective costs). In other words, to get the case dismissed without costing us for the Google legal team, we had to permit Chad to lie. So, here is the document and the reasoning behind it being a contrivance:
Note the highlighted text above where Chad states he had no connection to the company after 2002. We all know the famous Foundation Myth about how "three former PayPal employees" started the company, but Steve Chen in the interrogatories as part of our case stated that he was still at PayPal in 2005. If Steve worked at PayPal in 2005, how did Chad start a company with him without interacting with at least 1 employee of PayPal?
Here is an excerpt from a Fortune article entitled "The PayPal Mafia" published in 2007:
"And then things got interesting. The eBay deal, remarkable only because it happened in the bleakness of 2002, wasn't so much an exit as an explosion. Most of PayPal's key employees left eBay, but they stayed in touch. They even have a name for themselves: the PayPal mafia. And the mafiosi have been busy."
Chad and Steve went to Sequoia Capital and Roelof Botha is reported as advisor and integral in securing $3.5M in funding for YouTube when it was still in its infancy. Since Botha was a founder of PayPal, and Steve was an employee, how could it be true that Chad Hurley had absolutely no connection to PayPal whatsoever after 2002?
Anticipating this, our discovery team (read as: me, myself and I) contacted PayPal to "dig" around and see what could be found out about transferring calls. Why? Because a PayPal manager transferred me to a switchboard operator in November 2004 (or possibly, January 2005, we'll never know without discovery of evidence [subpoenas] which will never happen), who in turn transferred me to Chad Hurley's personal telephone contact number. This is when I told him about the YouTube domain name. Later, in 2005, I received a call back from Steve Chen (via either Hurley's, Chen's [most likely] or Jawed's cellphone). How did he get my number? Chad must have written it down when we talked the first time.
Someone flagged the Carson video above <g> .. it was a famous Carson bomb where he grabs the boom mic and says "Attention K-mart shoppers ..."
Here's another one -> Mel Blanc on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, most likely from the 1980s:
Case Dismissed Without Prejudice
Well, here are the stipulations of dismissal in all their glory.
The basic deal was:
They got: Let Chad assert he wasn't there one last time in a sworn declaration.
We got: Get out of the case, avoid paying for their court costs and exit cleanly. I paid about $600 and spent countless hours over 7 months (November 13, 2009 to May 13, 2009) digging through my files, debating with my legal team over minute details of what happened, 2 polygraph tests which showed I wasn't lying (or, rather, "believed" my own story), harassing former roommates for phone records and arguing with companies. Poor Attorney Monts spent half a million dollars and was prepared to spend even more. I never appeared in court, no jury will ever hear my testimony, no money will be awarded, and no official record will be made of any of the evidence I wanted to bring to light.
I wanted the case to continue. Attorney Monts wanted the case to continue. Attorney Monts, even after the case was dismissed, said he believed me and that he knew I was the guy who invented YouTube, the core business model and brand - and started the revolution that YouTube enabled. The other lawyers, Steve, Dave, and two colleagues of Monts, all voted for "withdraw as counsel" . . . I had little choice but to agree. To contest it would have cost more money than I had ($0 legal fund, what most Americans have), to continue without them the case would have cost considerably more than my net worth ($100,000 to depose a few people myself, plus subpoena costs, assuming the pressure of million dollar sanctions didn't drive me to suicide - Attorney Monts, 'Britt' at this point, strongly advised me not to continue pro se in a Federal lawsuit).
For the hopes that only you will believe me, further, I might pay for the fMRI deception detection test (on myself only, obviously, since they refuse to submit) regarding this matter, but it has become a moot point. I'll never receive dime 1 of the 1% from Chad, Steve, Jawed, Google or anyone else who isn't feeling charitable, even if it is the right thing for them to do.
Thanks for all the insults!
Since approaching Chad Hurley, and his two friends at PayPal, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, YouTube's creator, H. Elwood Gilliland III, has been called a variety of negative things. Obviously, the truth is an unpopular view. Who is impartial when everyone uses it?
“Here’s to 21 million dollars, YouTube”
Paraphrased by this video: Hiding a Zombie Bite
Ironic coincidence: Tribune Cancels Little Orphan Annie After 86 Years
I didn't lose the case, I merely backed out and on the way out the "stipulation" required by Google was to allow Chad to sign a sworn declaration. If I didn't drop out by May 17, 2010, Google would have moved to impose sanctions (fines) on my attorneys. My attorneys were attempting to withdraw as counsel, so that would have left only one attorney - myself - to absorb whatever costs. Without counsel and $100000 to complete discovery, I could not proceed. While some of my legal team wanted to continue forward, I was dealing with so much noise in my life that it made focusing on the case almost impossible given the circumstances. Google should have sought the truth, but their legal team was just there to bully us.
Google announces “Google TV”
Conan O’Brien is on my side.
"I'm not being paid for this? [sic] It's not like you can make money on the Internet . . . it's just for some nerd you've never met in Palo Alto to make money . . ." - Conan
YouTube reaches 2 billion views per day
SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube has said that the number of videos watched daily at the website has broken the two-billion mark as the service begins celebrating its fifth birthday.
"Thanks to you, our site has crossed another milestone and now exceeds over two billion views a day," YouTube team members said in a blog post.
"That's nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. television networks combined."
http://www.canada.com/entertainment/YouTube+billion+viewers/3037972/story.html