Let’s say a corporation issues a false DMCA takedown request, which is perjury, which is a criminal offense. The takedown request is signed by the corporation and from the corporation and of the corporation, by the corporation, and from the corporation… sorry.
I know there’s likely to also be a lawsuit involved, and that that is a civil matter and that I am a silly person. I want to know what happens if a prosecutor wants to go after someone for the criminal charge.
Corporations can be charged with crimes, but they end up being fined rather than imprisoned. They may also be subject to a range of other penalties, such as having licenses revoked.
Officers of corporations may be charged with the crimes of the corporation, but it is much more difficult to prove that an officer had the requisite mens rea to support a conviction, as is required by US criminal law (in nearly all cases). If it can be proved, however, then they are often subject to not only the charge for the crime itself, but potentially conspiracy, racketeering, or other charges.
But wait. Now that corporations are people . . . .
They’ve been treated as people in many ways for quite some time
LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI & CHARLESTON R. CO. V. LETSON, 43 U. S. 497 (1844)
Corporations can’t sign anything. When a signature is needed, an officer or agent of the corporation signs it, not the corporation itself – that officer or agent being a “natural person”, or in lay terms a real person.
(Nevertheless, the corporation itself might still have criminal liability, if the officer or agent had the right authority to sign the document on behalf of the corporation.)
True in the paper world, but a DMCA takedown request can be an email.
Darth Panda: Very interesting.
Yeah, I know. I was referring to the SCOTUS case that gave them the right to political speech. I’m guessing you aren’t a Colbert fan.
Any DMCA notice must include a signature. Electronic, in the case of email. cite.
All of the uses of ‘signature’ in that document are in terms of ‘person’ or ‘complaining party’; nowhere does it say ‘natural [del]woman[/del] person’. Is that implied by something?
Even if the act is in the name of the corporation, the act itself is performed by a physical person and that physical person cannot avoid criminal liability.
In the same manner, if, as CEO, I hire a hitman to take out my competition, signing everything as CEO in the name of the company using company funds, I’ve committed a criminal act. I can’t say “the company did it, not me!”.
Corporate personality acts as a shield against most instances of civil liability*, not criminal liability for the acts you perform, even in the name of the corporation.
When Giles says that a corporation can’t sign anything, I think he means the physical act of signing rather than the judicial act which triggers legal consequences. For example, a corporation can enter into a contract. It doesn’t sign the contract in the physical sense but it does in the judicial sense of obligating itself.
I also don’t think that the term “signature” can apply to a corp. That term grew out of a need to identify physical persons by the variations in the manner in which they signed their name; not really applicable to an immaterial legal fiction.
I would have said it’s implied by the word “signature”. Do you know of another kind?
Regardless (my emphasis):
I believe “electronic signature” refers to the ESIGN act, and effectively means “type your name at the bottom”.
Sorry, adding on:
Something often missed by non-lawyers is that criminal liability isn’t zero sum. A prosecutor can go after both the physical person and the corp.
MichaelEmouse: All of your arguments certainly make sense.
tellyworth: Well, that’s the problem with the word ‘person’ in this context; ‘corporate personhood’ a real legal concept even if Firefox’s spell-checker doesn’t like the words ‘personhood’ or ‘personhoot’. Law is all about close reading and extracting meaning from places most people never realize you can grab and twist. That said, I’m pretty sure MichaelEmouse is correct here.
If anyone is really interested in this topic, I would recommend reading a few cases:
United States v. Hilton Hotels, 467 F. 2d 1000 (9th Cir. 1972)
State v. Chapman Dodge Center, 428 So. 2d 413 (La. 1983)
United States v. Park, 421 US 658 (1975)
United States v. Hong, 242 F.3d 518 (4th Cir. 2001)
United States v. Svoboda, 347 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2003)
Pinkerton v. United States, 328 US 640 (1946)
Best read in that order. They’re actually all pretty short, too. It’s tough to explain the combined effect on a message board (either that or I’m too lazy 
), but if you read through these you’ll understand the subject pretty well.
I am and I got the reference. But in fairness to GQ, the extension to political speech wasn’t really surprising from a legal point of view.
1 USC 1.
Literally, the first law on the books 
And from oral arguments during the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (118 U.S. 394) case in 1886:
What I want to see is a corporation have to register as a sex offender.
with cooperations as stated above the company can be fined and it’s officers and agents sent to jail. It however might not be easy to link a person to the crime.
Well, IDK. Maybe, maybe not. It did overturn more than 100years of precedent.
Under Sarbanes-Oxley, certain US corporations have a legal obligation to retain items like internal emails and other electronic messages (for 7 years, IIRC).
If compnay A issues a DMCA takedown, then it came from an account - who sends from that account, who (digiatlly?) signed it?
If Officer B says “it was not me” then is he lying, obliviously allowing others to send on his behalf, or was it someone impersonating him? Somehere buried in all that misbehavoiur or lying to cover it up is a perjury or obstruction charge, too.
If the sum total of emails from A show that the group enforcing copyright intended to send the (incorrect) takedown, then company A is liable for the error. If the discussion indicates B was told to send a signed takedown, B inists he did not but a notice was somehow sent from B’s email, then there may or may not be enough to hold him responsible - but he better hope the corporation pays for the lawyer to defend him from the takedown and possible perjury/obstruction charges. Otherwise its what we call a pyrrhic or OJ victory, where you win but go broke trying.
So that’s another likely outcome. If you say “it wasn’t me” then they will (a) make you tell that under oath to a grand jury, then (b) see how well the snarkey attitude and obvious stupid story fools a judge and jury.
I live in Ohio, and here it outlines this for here;