A year ago that firm would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars, at the moment it’s a fire sale. They’re almost surely losing millions on the deal.

They’re leaving basically with whatever they were already paid as a partner for the years they were there. Law firms don’t operate like or pay like traditional businesses. Partners at firms like this almost always have to be offered a partnership, and buy their way in. Some partnerships at prestigious firms can have buy-in fees upwards of a million dollars.

The partners then are paid a percentage of the business, depending on seniority and managing status. If there is no business, there is no pay. If the firm goes under, or is bought out, there is little pay because the firm isn’t worth much, if anything.

They’re basically leaving with what they’ve already squirreled away and not spent with potentially lavish lifestyles over the years.

Two options really…

1. Scared by Trump’s threats and not willing to fight like other firms.
2. Support Trump.

Here’s the thing, at firms like this, the prestige of being a partner at a firm that’s been around since 1792 is a primary reason for being there. The money is secondary. And being known as the partners that destroyed the oldest firm in NYC, is a dishonor none of them want to be known for. It’s what they’ll be remembered for, not anything else they’ve done.

If I’m looking at dates correctly, Disney filed the strike AFTER it was in the public domain already. So it was a bullshit strike from the beginning, not just something that was struck before it entered the public domain and was left over.

The DMCA needs to be updated with fines for clear bullshit claims like this. As it is, there is no penalty for a company to just claim everything. I’d even be okay with platforms like Youtube receiving a portion of that fine for having to be in the middle of the bullshit copyright claims that were overturned because. Give the platforms an incentive to make the process streamlined and straight forward instead of the crap we have now.