Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/19/mark-zuckerberg-sues-over-100.html
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What’s he gonna do, build a telescope?
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Zuckerberg is really pushing for that role as the next Bond villain, huh?
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oh, fuck off, Mark.
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Zuckerberg has filed “quiet” lawsuits to force the owners of more than 100 of these parcels to sell to him. His lawyer says it’s the easiest way to figure out who has title to these family lands so he can make them an offer. Hey, when I want to find out who someone is, I always sue 'em.
It’s not a “quiet” lawsuit, it’s a “quiet title” lawsuit, with “quiet” here not meaning any sort of secrecy but rather an attempt to “quiet” challenges to the title. And yes, the lawyer is right, when real estate ownership is ambiguous and complicated (300 owners of two acres? Yikes!) this sort of suit is a standard way of sorting things out. According to the Honolulu Star Register story many of the defendants didn’t even know that they had a claim until they were served with the suit, and some of the shares are as small as 17/333,396.
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I hope Cory fixes this rather fundamental error in his post.
Hey, it could happen… 
To me the the tougher aspect is that the defendants, all of whom lack Zuck’s level of resources, only have 20 days to respond, and if they don’t respond in time (which will cost them hiring a lawyer at their own expense) that their titles will be sold off to the highest bidder at a county auction. Hmm…I wonder who has the cash to be sure he’s the highest bidder…
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Hmm. Soros?
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Don´t really see the problem here. Nobody is getting evited, only ONE of this properties was in use currently, and it’s owner is working with Zuckerberg on this lawsuit.
This way, even people who didn’t know they had claims to land can find out, and choose if they want to try to keep it, sell it, or just relinquish it to county auction. As the law was written to facilitate, because of the complexities of Hawaiian property laws.
This is getting blown out of proportion because of Zuck’s and his peer’s past attitudes towards neighbours and passerbys. But if you knew that in 20 years somebody could demand passage through your house because he owns a square foot of your bathroom, wouldn’t you want to clear up that situation preemptively?
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What? What!! How dare you rain on our rage with your “facts?” Go back to Harvard, mister egghead professor!
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He already built a panopticon, what would he need a telescope for?
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This is also a funny definition of “Ancestral Lands”
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Incendiary, poorly researched, click-bait article.
A big “thank you” to the commenters for fact checking and providing clarity.
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Everyone needs to be really skeptical of any information they get from Cory Doctorow. This isn’t an isolated occurrence or an infrequent event. It is a pattern.
Doctorow consistently redirects left/liberal outrage from real and important problems into nonsense finger-pointing trash without a factual or moral basis like in this post. This is something he does consistently. And he never engages with criticism on this score.
Being charitable, Doctorow is an incredibly bad fact-checker. Read BB for the gadgets and pop culture stuff, but get your news elsewhere.
Every time a Doctorow post mentions “fake news” remember that he is a prolific author in that genre himself.
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Hubertus Bigend’s days are numbered.
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Nope - because before I bought that land, I would have done a thorough title search that would have turned up the ownership or easement, and either would not have bought the land, or would have accepted the inconvenience. I have always always always hired a title search company, you couldn’t even get a mortgage without clear title last time I bought land. And if I, of modest means, can do it, you can bet Zuck knew damn well the situation long before buying his land. And did it anyways.
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I live in the north woods, where lots of folks have bought a few acres with the idea of someday building a little cabin and retiring/snowbirding. Much as I’d love to scoop up all their property in an auction, giving them 20 days notice, should I really be able to do this? Seems to be a lot of people in this thread that are opposed to private property rights.
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That’s after being served. Yes?
The Zuck is a piece of shit, nothing new about that.
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Zuckerberg’s lawyer, Keoni Shultz of the firm Cades Schutte, in a statement to CNBC said, “It is common in Hawaii to have small parcels of land within the boundaries of a larger tract, and for the title to these smaller parcels to have become broken or clouded over time.”
“In some cases, co-owners may not even be aware of their interests,” Shultz said. “Quiet title actions are the standard and prescribed process to identify all potential co-owners, determine ownership, and ensure that, if there are other co-owners, each receives appropriate value for their ownership share.”
More importantly:
One suit, according to the Star-Advertiser, was filed against about 300 people who are descendants of an immigrant Portuguese sugar cane plantation worker who bought four parcels totaling two acres of land in 1894.
One of that worker’s great-grandchildren, Carlos Andrade, 72, lived on the property until recently, the paper said. But the retired university professor told the Star-Advertiser that he is helping Zuckerberg’s case as a co-plaintiff in an effort to make sure the land is not surrendered to the county if no one in his extended clan steps up to take responsibility for paying property taxes on the plots.
The only person with title to this property who actually lived there and actively used the land is a co-plaintiff in the suit. He wants to make sure the other owners are notified that they are owners and to be paid a fair price for their inheritance.
Acknowledging all this is not being “opposed to private property rights”. Just the opposite, in fact. Right now, Zuckerberg has defacto ownership of property that he does not own de jure, and apparently he wants to buy it outright so that he is not violating someone else’s property rights without their knowledge.
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