August 21, 2023 • 22 mins
This week I’m trying to figure out why my Star Trek subtitles contain a cryptic call to action about something called Clearway Law. What is Clearway Law and why does someone need to stop them? Let’s make a mountain out of this molehill.
Show Notes:
- What is the Clearway Law Controversy About?
- About Clearway Law (YouTube)
- Clearway Law
- Alistair Vigier and Clearway Law using lawyer profiles without the consent of lawyers (Reddit)
- Clearway Law ???? In my subtitles (Reddit)
This episode of Mount Molehill was written, produced, and edited by Chris, with music by Chris and Alex Bainter / CC BY. Any voices featured on the podcast are computer generated unless otherwise noted. This podcast features materials protected by the Fair Use guidelines of Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All rights reserved to the copyright owners.
If you have a molehill that you’d like us to turn into a mountain, email us at mountmolehillpodcast@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
For most of my life, I was a die hardStar Wars fan, and without getting
too deep into it, as of a few yearsago, that is no longer the case.
But losing my love of Star Warsleft a big, sarlacc pit sized void
in my heart just waiting to befilled by another sci fi franchise.
And so, I set out on a missionto find my next sci fi obsession.
(00:33):
I started with Planet of the Apes.
I watched all nine films, the entirelive action television series,
and all of the animated seriesreturned to the Planet of the Apes.
I loved it.
Planet of the Apes does not havenearly as rabid a fanbase as Star Wars.
There is no Planet of the Apes expandeduniverse, as far as I'm aware, and so,
(00:56):
After you've watched all the moviesand TV shows, that's kind of it.
But there has always been anothermajor sci fi franchise that rivals and,
depending on who you ask, surpassesStar Wars in both the breadth of its
content, And the dedication of its fandomCaptain's log started 4 1 3 8 6 0.4.
(01:18):
We are in pursuit of aStarship of Farge design.
Our mission is to intercept andrecover a T nine energy converter,
which the Farge stole from an unmannedmonitor post on Gamma Tower four.
That's audio from the fifthepisode of season one of Star
Trek The Next Generation.
This episode, entitled The LastOutpost, is an important one in the
(01:41):
greater history of the Star Trekfranchise, as it marks the first on
screen appearance of the Ferengi.
A species of large eared humanoidsfrom the planet Ferenginar that
would serve as frequent antagoniststo the crew of the Enterprise D.
Our power systems are failing.
Deflector shield failing.
Phasers going inoperative, Captain.
(02:02):
Captain, something iscompletely immobilizing us.
It's a classic setup foran episode of Star Trek.
Both the Enterprise ship and the Ferengiship are drained of power by a mysterious
source on a nearby planet, and each vesselbeams down on a way team to participate
in a cooperative investigation.
Hopefully, forging some sort ofunderstanding in the process.
(02:25):
I would love to sit here and gushover Star Trek The Next Generation,
but it wasn't the episode itselfthat provided this week's mystery,
rather it was something I saw in thesubtitles during this opening scene.
In a moment of silence between linesof dialogue from Patrick Stewart as
Captain Jean Luc Picard and JonathanFrakes as Commander William Riker,
(02:48):
a message appeared in the subtitles.
An ominous message that simply read,Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Welcome to Mount Mole Hill.
A place where even the smallestmysteries become mountains.
I'm Chris and this week I'm trying tofigure out why my Star Trek subtitles
(03:10):
contain a cryptic call to actionabout something called Clearway Law.
What is Clearway Law and whydoes someone need to stop them?
Let's make a mountainout of this molehill.
Unlike most of the mysteries I'llbe covering on this season of
(03:31):
Mount Molehill, this whole ClearwayLaw thing isn't something that
I had a previous interest in.
Rather, Take care.
It's something that was foisted uponme while I was attempting to unwind
one evening and watch some Star Trek.
And so, I didn't really have a good placeto start with this one other than simply
doing a Google search for the phrase,someone needs to stop clearway law.
(03:54):
And the first thing that poppedup was an article published on
September 20th, 2022 on lawnews.
co.
uk titled, What is theClearway Law Controversy About?
The article begins by describing arecent defamation judgment in favor
of a British Columbia Canada basedconstruction materials business against a
(04:15):
customer who was leaving negative reviewsfor the business on Google and Yelp.
The article uses this case as an exampleof why, quote, this should make people who
try to tear down businesses with untruestatements online worried, end quote.
The article then quickly pivots to theso called Clearway Law controversy, and
(04:36):
the author of the article recounts howtheir business, Clearway Law, a website
that allows people to rate the performanceof their lawyers, has allegedly
been defamed online by the marketingmanager of a law firm in Toronto.
This marketing manager, the authoralleges, had been making inflammatory
posts on Reddit about Clearway Law,And even went as far as hiring a
(04:57):
company that runs reddit bot accountsto harass reddit members of a
particular subreddit and leave one starreviews for clearway law on google.
It's all very confusing, and reading thearticle feels as though I've walked into
the middle of a three hour movie and I'mstruggling to make heads or tails of it.
The byline of the article claims thatit was written by one Helen Greeney, but
(05:19):
the bottom of the article states, quote,Author, Alastair Vigier, is the CEO of
Clearway Law, a company that wants tochange the legal industry via lawyer
reviews and a legal question forum.
End quote.
I can already tell that this whole thingis going to be very difficult to parse.
And the fact that all of this has to dowith lawyers and law firms is making me
(05:42):
a bit uncomfortable because obviously, Idon't want to say anything that can get
myself into any sort of legal trouble.
So, I'm going to be verycareful here not to make any
claims or draw any conclusions.
I'm simply going to compile theinformation that is available to
me about this so called controversyand allow you, the audience, to
(06:02):
come to your own conclusions.
First things first, whatexactly is Clearway Law?
According to statements made by AlastairVigier, CEO and founder at Clearway
Law, in a YouTube video titled AboutClearway Law, posted on September 16,
2022 by an account named Clearway Law,the goal of Clearway Law is to, quote,
(06:25):
matchmake between people that areserious about hiring a lawyer, end quote.
In the video, when asked howClearway Law accomplishes this goal,
Vigier states, quote, The primaryway is through a rating system.
We want to get as many ratingsfor lawyers as possible.
We're really just looking, at the end ofthe day, for lawyers that want to make a
(06:45):
difference and want to actually help out.
End quote.
So basically, it's likea Yelp for lawyers.
I decided to jump on clearwaylaw.
com and have a look for myself.
There's a search engine where,ostensibly, you can search for an
attorney by name, what type of law theypractice, where they practice, etc.
(07:08):
After selecting a lawyer's profilefrom the list of results, you can
see some basic information about themsuch as their education, practice
areas, firm name, and firm location.
You can also leave reviewsfor lawyers, which is the main
selling point of the site.
However, the search function does notallow you to sort or filter results
(07:29):
by lawyer rating or number of reviews.
So I found it difficult to find alawyer that would be recommended
based on the Clearway rating system.
In fact, I clicked on a bunch oflawyer profiles on the site and was
unable to find any that actuallyhad any reviews on the site.
That aside, the website does appear tofunction as described by Alastair Vigier
(07:52):
in the aforementioned YouTube video.
Okay, so we'll take the answerto the question of what is
Clearway Law at face value.
It's a website where people cansearch for, rate, and review lawyers.
The next questions to tackle arewhy does someone need to stop them?
How are they inserting thismessage into subtitles for
(08:13):
Star Trek The Next Generation?
And who is behind the someone needsto stop Clearway Law campaign?
In order to answer this, I decidedto check out the Reddit post that
was referenced in the lawnews.
co.
uk article.
The post submitted by user Jack themoff on December 29th 2022 to the Law
(08:35):
Canada subreddit is titled AlistairVigier and Clearway Law using lawyer
profiles without the consent of lawyers.
The body of the post is as follows,quote, Alistair Vigier puts lawyers
on his website, https (08:49):
clearwaylaw.
com, without their consent and refusesto remove the profile upon request.
This should discourage anyone lookingto work with him or seek his services.
He has poor morals and ethics.
Stay away.
Should do something about himand take down his website.
(09:12):
He is piggybacking onthe hard work of others.
https (09:15):
clearwaylaw.
com I hope this gets thecoverage it deserves.
Edit.
No, I am not the onebehind the open subtitles.
Stop asking me.
Update October 2022.
The LSO has confirmed they alreadyhave a case file number and is
currently investigating the situation.
(09:35):
So, based on this post, the answer towhy clearway law should be stopped is
because the website allegedly postsinformation about lawyers without
their consent and then refuses toremove their profiles upon request.
The responses to the post rangefrom supportive of clearway law to
antagonistic towards CEO AlastairVigier to, like myself, Bewildered as
(10:00):
to why a subtitle about Clearway Lawhad been inserted into the subs of
their favorite TV shows and movies.
Apparently, Star Trek The Next Generationis not the only piece of media in which
the Someone Needs to Stop ClearwayLaw message appears in the subtitles.
Reddit users listed a variety of othershows and movies such as Better Call
(10:21):
Saul, Ted Lasso, Ghost in the Shell,Twin Peaks, La Brea, King of the Hill,
Atlanta, Bones, Survivor, and others.
Well, Reddit user Anticino has atheory about that, which he posted
as a response to a separate Redditthread posted to the piracy subreddit
(10:42):
on August 16, 2022 titled ClearwayLaw?
in my subtitles.
Anticino posits quote, If you werereally trying to stop somebody from
doing something, you wouldn't makeyour one key point in limited available
space something that is obviously notan issue and should be widely accepted.
(11:04):
Like reviewing a business or lawyer.
It's worded specificallyso I go, What the f Why?
And look it up.
Then, finding their website oran article, most likely by them,
about the fabricated conspiracy.
Add on the fact that Clearway Lawitself has been posting articles titled
things like, What is all the ClearwayConspiracy about that are basically
(11:27):
just advertisements and it's clear?
They're trying to act like there issome big controversy to get people to
check out who they are and hopefullystart using the services to stick
it to the big baddies trying tostop them from reviewing lawyers.
Anybody can request whopaid for advertising on open
subtitles or anywhere else.
I'm pretty sure that if I contactedthem about this, user Clearway Law
(11:51):
would be the one that placed the ads,or somebody affiliated with them.
So it seems that the answer tohow this message ended up in
subtitles is paid advertising.
And here's basically how that works.
Pretty much everyone is familiarwith how a streaming service such
as Netflix or Paramount Plus works.
(12:14):
You pay a monthly fee in exchangefor video content that this streaming
service has produced or licensed.
But there are other streamingservices, most notably one called
Plex, where that is not the case.
With Plex, the contentis provided by the user.
Let's say that I have the DVD box setof Everybody Loves Raymond, and I want
(12:36):
to be able to watch it without thehassle of actually using a DVD player.
That's where a service like Plex comes in.
I would rip my Everybody Loves RaymondDVDs onto my computer, set up a Plex
media server, set up the Plex app on mysmart TV, and then I'd be able to stream
the show in pretty much the same way thatI would on any other streaming service.
(13:00):
The main difference is that Iam the one hosting the content,
not the streaming service.
That's not the only differencewhen you turn on subtitles on a
movie using a traditional streamingservice such as Netflix, the
subtitles are provided by Netflix.
Plex does not providesubtitles of its own.
(13:20):
Rather, it pulls subtitles froma variety of online sources, one
of which is open subtitles.org.
And Opensubtitles.
org uses paid advertising in theirsubtitles as a revenue stream.
The way this works is someone paysfor ad space on Open Subtitles, and
their ads are dynamically insertedinto empty spaces in subtitles when
(13:43):
there is nobody speaking in the film.
Like that brief pause in theepisode of The Next Generation.
by the damn fringes.
I need more information.
What the hell are they using?
(14:06):
Obviously we've underestimatedtheir technology, Captain.
Considerably.
So the final question to answeris, who is behind all of this?
Let's go back to that very first articlewritten by Clearway CEO Alastair Vigier.
If you'll remember, the articleclaims that the Clearway Law smear
campaign is being perpetuated by,quote, the marketing manager of
(14:29):
a law firm in Toronto, end quote.
The article goes on to say, quote, Hecontacted me and demanded I took down the
profiles of all the lawyers at his firm.
He said only he could control theonline reputation of his lawyers.
He also posted that I was amolester on Google Maps, which
was later removed by Google.
(14:51):
A few of the lawyers who got bad reviewson Clearway now leave posts all over
the internet which say things like,someone needs to stop Clearway law.
It's unbelievable, but one lawyereven took out an advertisement
on a subtitle website.
Their advertisements have been successful.
Once they started the advertisements,the Google searches for my company went
(15:14):
from 1, 000 people a month to 35, 000.
While I was writing this article, JackTheMov, the same person who is posting the
Reddit posts and emailing us weekly, Reuploaded a review that Google has removed
three times for being false, end quote.
The article provides a screenshot ofthe Google review from Jack the Mob,
(15:37):
which says, quote, Alastair Vigierand his law firm were shut down
for securities fraud in Vancouver.
He uses lawyer profiles withoutconsent to act like he's a
big legal service provider.
This accusation of securities fraud,along with various other personal attacks
on Alastair Vigier, is repeated on theReddit post submitted by JackTheMov.
(16:01):
I was unable to find any evidenceregarding any such incident.
But there were some otherclaims of professional
misconduct leveled against Mr.
Vigier in the Reddit threadmade by user MontrealLaw.
They claimed, quote, Alistair Vigierhas deceived people throughout his life.
He was a weekend warrior inthe military for a year and
(16:23):
barely served in the military.
He created chaos with multiplebusinesses in Victoria.
He hangs his hat on the whole 30under 30 BS, but it was based on lies.
He literally bankrupteda law firm in Victoria.
He expended his father's money on apipe dream with nothing to show for it.
And I can go on and on.
(16:45):
End quote.
Again, I was unable to findany evidence to support this.
Now the reason that I bring all ofthis up is because there are so far
two explanations for the questionof who is behind all of this.
One is the explanation providedby Alistair Vigier, that his
website has ruffled some feathersand now there is someone leading
(17:06):
a smear campaign against him.
The other, provided by Reddit userAntocino, is that this is all a publicity
stunt masterminded by Vigier himself.
Although that may sound cynical, it'snot outside the realm of possibility
in this day and age of viral marketing.
But if a person were trying to promotetheir business, would they really
(17:27):
pay for sockpuppet accounts to leavereviews and comments calling them a
molester, fraud, or weekend warrior?
Sure, it might get some publicity, andeven Vigier himself stated in his article
that traffic to his website had increaseddramatically, but, I don't know, it just
doesn't sound like that's 100% the case.
And I think the positive responses tothe Reddit post also provide further
(17:51):
support that the whole someone needsto stop Clearway law controversy is not
totally perpetuated by fake accounts.
One, from user newblackberry6623,says, quote, Doesn't sound unethical,
leaving reviews from the public.
Sounds like a great idea.
Something the lawyer can'tmodify or spam with fake reviews.
(18:13):
A lawyer and their phone numbersounds like yellow pages.
Public knowledge.
I've used several attorneys and hadsome s t service, so I'd like to find
accurate reviews from a working manwhen I'm spending a week's paycheck
for one hour of their work that theypay an assistant or paralegal 20 for.
My best lawyer was a public defender.
(18:34):
Most of them morons with no clue.
I actually had to educatemyself and guide them.
America's justice systemreally needs reform.
End quote.
Another response from user DesperateTrip9says, quote, It's just a site that
reviews lawyers, and lawyers are superscared of people giving accurate reviews
of how they've conducted themselves.
(18:56):
Also, I saw at one point, somebodysaid that as officers of the
court, you shouldn't be able topost reviews about them because
they're officers of the court.
But following that logic, if you're sayingthat being officers is the court is some
kind of legal standing, that you are apart of the court that makes you a part
of the legislative branch, which de factosays that you consider yourself a part
(19:20):
of the government, which means that youare a public person, which means that you
can't shut down people for speaking aboutyou because it is protected by the First
Amendment, which specifically says...
And while neither of those responsesis particularly eloquent or even
(19:42):
at times coherent, I did chooseboth of them for a specific reason.
Because it's important to point outthat both of these responses reference
the American legal system and thatClearway Law is a Canadian company that
catalogs and rates Canadian lawyers.
If someone were paying sockpuppet accountsto defend their business in the midst of a
(20:03):
manufactured controversy, wouldn't they atleast make sure that their comments were
pertinent to the business in question?
There is a third possibility that'ssort of a combination of the other two.
It is possible that the someone needsto stop clearway law controversy was
a manufactured one, but that once itwas put out into the world, It took
(20:26):
on a life of its own and started togenerate some actual controversy and
negative publicity for Clearway Law.
I don't think we'll ever really know.
And that's pretty much it for thisweek's mystery, which I apologize if it
(20:47):
feels like it didn't really go anywhere.
I did find some other informationabout this, but like I said at
the beginning of this episode, Ireally don't want to get myself into
any sort of legal trouble, so...
Again, I'm not making any claims.
I'm just presenting you guys with some ofthe information that I found and opening
(21:07):
it up to the Mount Mole Hill audience.
Let me know what you think.
What is going on with the socalled Clearway Law controversy?
Mount Mole Hill iswritten, produced, Bainter.
(21:30):
All other voices featured in this episode,apart from my own, are computer generated.
All of the sources used in thisepisode can be found in the show notes.
This podcast features materials protectedby the Fair Use Guidelines of Section
107 of the Copyright Act, all rightsreserved to the copyright owners.
If you have a molehill that you'd likeme to turn into a mountain, whether it's
(21:54):
a mystery that you just can't solve,or just an interesting topic you'd like
me to delve into, please reach out.
You can email me at Mountain Molehillpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call
and leave me a voicemail at 5 0 5.
218 6894.
Follow us on Instagram to see updatesand supplemental material for the show.
(22:17):
Thanks for listening, I'll be backwith another episode in two weeks.
For most of my life, I was a die hardStar Wars fan, and without getting
too deep into it, as of a few yearsago, that is no longer the case.
But losing my love of Star Warsleft a big, sarlacc pit sized void
in my heart just waiting to befilled by another sci fi franchise.
And so, I set out on a missionto find my next sci fi obsession.
(00:33):
I started with Planet of the Apes.
I watched all nine films, the entirelive action television series,
and all of the animated seriesreturned to the Planet of the Apes.
I loved it.
Planet of the Apes does not havenearly as rabid a fanbase as Star Wars.
There is no Planet of the Apes expandeduniverse, as far as I'm aware, and so,
(00:56):
After you've watched all the moviesand TV shows, that's kind of it.
But there has always been anothermajor sci fi franchise that rivals and,
depending on who you ask, surpassesStar Wars in both the breadth of its
content, And the dedication of its fandomCaptain's log started 4 1 3 8 6 0.4.
(01:18):
We are in pursuit of aStarship of Farge design.
Our mission is to intercept andrecover a T nine energy converter,
which the Farge stole from an unmannedmonitor post on Gamma Tower four.
That's audio from the fifthepisode of season one of Star
Trek The Next Generation.
This episode, entitled The LastOutpost, is an important one in the
(01:41):
greater history of the Star Trekfranchise, as it marks the first on
screen appearance of the Ferengi.
A species of large eared humanoidsfrom the planet Ferenginar that
would serve as frequent antagoniststo the crew of the Enterprise D.
Our power systems are failing.
Deflector shield failing.
Phasers going inoperative, Captain.
(02:02):
Captain, something iscompletely immobilizing us.
It's a classic setup foran episode of Star Trek.
Both the Enterprise ship and the Ferengiship are drained of power by a mysterious
source on a nearby planet, and each vesselbeams down on a way team to participate
in a cooperative investigation.
Hopefully, forging some sort ofunderstanding in the process.
(02:25):
I would love to sit here and gushover Star Trek The Next Generation,
but it wasn't the episode itselfthat provided this week's mystery,
rather it was something I saw in thesubtitles during this opening scene.
In a moment of silence between linesof dialogue from Patrick Stewart as
Captain Jean Luc Picard and JonathanFrakes as Commander William Riker,
(02:48):
a message appeared in the subtitles.
An ominous message that simply read,Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Welcome to Mount Mole Hill.
A place where even the smallestmysteries become mountains.
I'm Chris and this week I'm trying tofigure out why my Star Trek subtitles
(03:10):
contain a cryptic call to actionabout something called Clearway Law.
What is Clearway Law and whydoes someone need to stop them?
Let's make a mountainout of this molehill.
Unlike most of the mysteries I'llbe covering on this season of
(03:31):
Mount Molehill, this whole ClearwayLaw thing isn't something that
I had a previous interest in.
Rather, Take care.
It's something that was foisted uponme while I was attempting to unwind
one evening and watch some Star Trek.
And so, I didn't really have a good placeto start with this one other than simply
doing a Google search for the phrase,someone needs to stop clearway law.
(03:54):
And the first thing that poppedup was an article published on
September 20th, 2022 on lawnews.
co.
uk titled, What is theClearway Law Controversy About?
The article begins by describing arecent defamation judgment in favor
of a British Columbia Canada basedconstruction materials business against a
(04:15):
customer who was leaving negative reviewsfor the business on Google and Yelp.
The article uses this case as an exampleof why, quote, this should make people who
try to tear down businesses with untruestatements online worried, end quote.
The article then quickly pivots to theso called Clearway Law controversy, and
(04:36):
the author of the article recounts howtheir business, Clearway Law, a website
that allows people to rate the performanceof their lawyers, has allegedly
been defamed online by the marketingmanager of a law firm in Toronto.
This marketing manager, the authoralleges, had been making inflammatory
posts on Reddit about Clearway Law,And even went as far as hiring a
(04:57):
company that runs reddit bot accountsto harass reddit members of a
particular subreddit and leave one starreviews for clearway law on google.
It's all very confusing, and reading thearticle feels as though I've walked into
the middle of a three hour movie and I'mstruggling to make heads or tails of it.
The byline of the article claims thatit was written by one Helen Greeney, but
(05:19):
the bottom of the article states, quote,Author, Alastair Vigier, is the CEO of
Clearway Law, a company that wants tochange the legal industry via lawyer
reviews and a legal question forum.
End quote.
I can already tell that this whole thingis going to be very difficult to parse.
And the fact that all of this has to dowith lawyers and law firms is making me
(05:42):
a bit uncomfortable because obviously, Idon't want to say anything that can get
myself into any sort of legal trouble.
So, I'm going to be verycareful here not to make any
claims or draw any conclusions.
I'm simply going to compile theinformation that is available to
me about this so called controversyand allow you, the audience, to
(06:02):
come to your own conclusions.
First things first, whatexactly is Clearway Law?
According to statements made by AlastairVigier, CEO and founder at Clearway
Law, in a YouTube video titled AboutClearway Law, posted on September 16,
2022 by an account named Clearway Law,the goal of Clearway Law is to, quote,
(06:25):
matchmake between people that areserious about hiring a lawyer, end quote.
In the video, when asked howClearway Law accomplishes this goal,
Vigier states, quote, The primaryway is through a rating system.
We want to get as many ratingsfor lawyers as possible.
We're really just looking, at the end ofthe day, for lawyers that want to make a
(06:45):
difference and want to actually help out.
End quote.
So basically, it's likea Yelp for lawyers.
I decided to jump on clearwaylaw.
com and have a look for myself.
There's a search engine where,ostensibly, you can search for an
attorney by name, what type of law theypractice, where they practice, etc.
(07:08):
After selecting a lawyer's profilefrom the list of results, you can
see some basic information about themsuch as their education, practice
areas, firm name, and firm location.
You can also leave reviewsfor lawyers, which is the main
selling point of the site.
However, the search function does notallow you to sort or filter results
(07:29):
by lawyer rating or number of reviews.
So I found it difficult to find alawyer that would be recommended
based on the Clearway rating system.
In fact, I clicked on a bunch oflawyer profiles on the site and was
unable to find any that actuallyhad any reviews on the site.
That aside, the website does appear tofunction as described by Alastair Vigier
(07:52):
in the aforementioned YouTube video.
Okay, so we'll take the answerto the question of what is
Clearway Law at face value.
It's a website where people cansearch for, rate, and review lawyers.
The next questions to tackle arewhy does someone need to stop them?
How are they inserting thismessage into subtitles for
(08:13):
Star Trek The Next Generation?
And who is behind the someone needsto stop Clearway Law campaign?
In order to answer this, I decidedto check out the Reddit post that
was referenced in the lawnews.
co.
uk article.
The post submitted by user Jack themoff on December 29th 2022 to the Law
(08:35):
Canada subreddit is titled AlistairVigier and Clearway Law using lawyer
profiles without the consent of lawyers.
The body of the post is as follows,quote, Alistair Vigier puts lawyers
on his website, https (08:49):
clearwaylaw.
com, without their consent and refusesto remove the profile upon request.
This should discourage anyone lookingto work with him or seek his services.
He has poor morals and ethics.
Stay away.
Should do something about himand take down his website.
(09:12):
He is piggybacking onthe hard work of others.
https (09:15):
clearwaylaw.
com I hope this gets thecoverage it deserves.
Edit.
No, I am not the onebehind the open subtitles.
Stop asking me.
Update October 2022.
The LSO has confirmed they alreadyhave a case file number and is
currently investigating the situation.
(09:35):
So, based on this post, the answer towhy clearway law should be stopped is
because the website allegedly postsinformation about lawyers without
their consent and then refuses toremove their profiles upon request.
The responses to the post rangefrom supportive of clearway law to
antagonistic towards CEO AlastairVigier to, like myself, Bewildered as
(10:00):
to why a subtitle about Clearway Lawhad been inserted into the subs of
their favorite TV shows and movies.
Apparently, Star Trek The Next Generationis not the only piece of media in which
the Someone Needs to Stop ClearwayLaw message appears in the subtitles.
Reddit users listed a variety of othershows and movies such as Better Call
(10:21):
Saul, Ted Lasso, Ghost in the Shell,Twin Peaks, La Brea, King of the Hill,
Atlanta, Bones, Survivor, and others.
Well, Reddit user Anticino has atheory about that, which he posted
as a response to a separate Redditthread posted to the piracy subreddit
(10:42):
on August 16, 2022 titled ClearwayLaw?
in my subtitles.
Anticino posits quote, If you werereally trying to stop somebody from
doing something, you wouldn't makeyour one key point in limited available
space something that is obviously notan issue and should be widely accepted.
(11:04):
Like reviewing a business or lawyer.
It's worded specificallyso I go, What the f Why?
And look it up.
Then, finding their website oran article, most likely by them,
about the fabricated conspiracy.
Add on the fact that Clearway Lawitself has been posting articles titled
things like, What is all the ClearwayConspiracy about that are basically
(11:27):
just advertisements and it's clear?
They're trying to act like there issome big controversy to get people to
check out who they are and hopefullystart using the services to stick
it to the big baddies trying tostop them from reviewing lawyers.
Anybody can request whopaid for advertising on open
subtitles or anywhere else.
I'm pretty sure that if I contactedthem about this, user Clearway Law
(11:51):
would be the one that placed the ads,or somebody affiliated with them.
So it seems that the answer tohow this message ended up in
subtitles is paid advertising.
And here's basically how that works.
Pretty much everyone is familiarwith how a streaming service such
as Netflix or Paramount Plus works.
(12:14):
You pay a monthly fee in exchangefor video content that this streaming
service has produced or licensed.
But there are other streamingservices, most notably one called
Plex, where that is not the case.
With Plex, the contentis provided by the user.
Let's say that I have the DVD box setof Everybody Loves Raymond, and I want
(12:36):
to be able to watch it without thehassle of actually using a DVD player.
That's where a service like Plex comes in.
I would rip my Everybody Loves RaymondDVDs onto my computer, set up a Plex
media server, set up the Plex app on mysmart TV, and then I'd be able to stream
the show in pretty much the same way thatI would on any other streaming service.
(13:00):
The main difference is that Iam the one hosting the content,
not the streaming service.
That's not the only differencewhen you turn on subtitles on a
movie using a traditional streamingservice such as Netflix, the
subtitles are provided by Netflix.
Plex does not providesubtitles of its own.
(13:20):
Rather, it pulls subtitles froma variety of online sources, one
of which is open subtitles.org.
And Opensubtitles.
org uses paid advertising in theirsubtitles as a revenue stream.
The way this works is someone paysfor ad space on Open Subtitles, and
their ads are dynamically insertedinto empty spaces in subtitles when
(13:43):
there is nobody speaking in the film.
Like that brief pause in theepisode of The Next Generation.
by the damn fringes.
I need more information.
What the hell are they using?
(14:06):
Obviously we've underestimatedtheir technology, Captain.
Considerably.
So the final question to answeris, who is behind all of this?
Let's go back to that very first articlewritten by Clearway CEO Alastair Vigier.
If you'll remember, the articleclaims that the Clearway Law smear
campaign is being perpetuated by,quote, the marketing manager of
(14:29):
a law firm in Toronto, end quote.
The article goes on to say, quote, Hecontacted me and demanded I took down the
profiles of all the lawyers at his firm.
He said only he could control theonline reputation of his lawyers.
He also posted that I was amolester on Google Maps, which
was later removed by Google.
(14:51):
A few of the lawyers who got bad reviewson Clearway now leave posts all over
the internet which say things like,someone needs to stop Clearway law.
It's unbelievable, but one lawyereven took out an advertisement
on a subtitle website.
Their advertisements have been successful.
Once they started the advertisements,the Google searches for my company went
(15:14):
from 1, 000 people a month to 35, 000.
While I was writing this article, JackTheMov, the same person who is posting the
Reddit posts and emailing us weekly, Reuploaded a review that Google has removed
three times for being false, end quote.
The article provides a screenshot ofthe Google review from Jack the Mob,
(15:37):
which says, quote, Alastair Vigierand his law firm were shut down
for securities fraud in Vancouver.
He uses lawyer profiles withoutconsent to act like he's a
big legal service provider.
This accusation of securities fraud,along with various other personal attacks
on Alastair Vigier, is repeated on theReddit post submitted by JackTheMov.
(16:01):
I was unable to find any evidenceregarding any such incident.
But there were some otherclaims of professional
misconduct leveled against Mr.
Vigier in the Reddit threadmade by user MontrealLaw.
They claimed, quote, Alistair Vigierhas deceived people throughout his life.
He was a weekend warrior inthe military for a year and
(16:23):
barely served in the military.
He created chaos with multiplebusinesses in Victoria.
He hangs his hat on the whole 30under 30 BS, but it was based on lies.
He literally bankrupteda law firm in Victoria.
He expended his father's money on apipe dream with nothing to show for it.
And I can go on and on.
(16:45):
End quote.
Again, I was unable to findany evidence to support this.
Now the reason that I bring all ofthis up is because there are so far
two explanations for the questionof who is behind all of this.
One is the explanation providedby Alistair Vigier, that his
website has ruffled some feathersand now there is someone leading
(17:06):
a smear campaign against him.
The other, provided by Reddit userAntocino, is that this is all a publicity
stunt masterminded by Vigier himself.
Although that may sound cynical, it'snot outside the realm of possibility
in this day and age of viral marketing.
But if a person were trying to promotetheir business, would they really
(17:27):
pay for sockpuppet accounts to leavereviews and comments calling them a
molester, fraud, or weekend warrior?
Sure, it might get some publicity, andeven Vigier himself stated in his article
that traffic to his website had increaseddramatically, but, I don't know, it just
doesn't sound like that's 100% the case.
And I think the positive responses tothe Reddit post also provide further
(17:51):
support that the whole someone needsto stop Clearway law controversy is not
totally perpetuated by fake accounts.
One, from user newblackberry6623,says, quote, Doesn't sound unethical,
leaving reviews from the public.
Sounds like a great idea.
Something the lawyer can'tmodify or spam with fake reviews.
(18:13):
A lawyer and their phone numbersounds like yellow pages.
Public knowledge.
I've used several attorneys and hadsome s t service, so I'd like to find
accurate reviews from a working manwhen I'm spending a week's paycheck
for one hour of their work that theypay an assistant or paralegal 20 for.
My best lawyer was a public defender.
(18:34):
Most of them morons with no clue.
I actually had to educatemyself and guide them.
America's justice systemreally needs reform.
End quote.
Another response from user DesperateTrip9says, quote, It's just a site that
reviews lawyers, and lawyers are superscared of people giving accurate reviews
of how they've conducted themselves.
(18:56):
Also, I saw at one point, somebodysaid that as officers of the
court, you shouldn't be able topost reviews about them because
they're officers of the court.
But following that logic, if you're sayingthat being officers is the court is some
kind of legal standing, that you are apart of the court that makes you a part
of the legislative branch, which de factosays that you consider yourself a part
(19:20):
of the government, which means that youare a public person, which means that you
can't shut down people for speaking aboutyou because it is protected by the First
Amendment, which specifically says...
And while neither of those responsesis particularly eloquent or even
(19:42):
at times coherent, I did chooseboth of them for a specific reason.
Because it's important to point outthat both of these responses reference
the American legal system and thatClearway Law is a Canadian company that
catalogs and rates Canadian lawyers.
If someone were paying sockpuppet accountsto defend their business in the midst of a
(20:03):
manufactured controversy, wouldn't they atleast make sure that their comments were
pertinent to the business in question?
There is a third possibility that'ssort of a combination of the other two.
It is possible that the someone needsto stop clearway law controversy was
a manufactured one, but that once itwas put out into the world, It took
(20:26):
on a life of its own and started togenerate some actual controversy and
negative publicity for Clearway Law.
I don't think we'll ever really know.
And that's pretty much it for thisweek's mystery, which I apologize if it
(20:47):
feels like it didn't really go anywhere.
I did find some other informationabout this, but like I said at
the beginning of this episode, Ireally don't want to get myself into
any sort of legal trouble, so...
Again, I'm not making any claims.
I'm just presenting you guys with some ofthe information that I found and opening
(21:07):
it up to the Mount Mole Hill audience.
Let me know what you think.
What is going on with the socalled Clearway Law controversy?
Mount Mole Hill iswritten, produced, Bainter.
(21:30):
All other voices featured in this episode,apart from my own, are computer generated.
All of the sources used in thisepisode can be found in the show notes.
This podcast features materials protectedby the Fair Use Guidelines of Section
107 of the Copyright Act, all rightsreserved to the copyright owners.
If you have a molehill that you'd likeme to turn into a mountain, whether it's
(21:54):
a mystery that you just can't solve,or just an interesting topic you'd like
me to delve into, please reach out.
You can email me at Mountain Molehillpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call
and leave me a voicemail at 5 0 5.
218 6894.
Follow us on Instagram to see updatesand supplemental material for the show.
(22:17):
Thanks for listening, I'll be backwith another episode in two weeks.
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