Tee-hee.
Mayhap the legal system is starting to catch a few clues :-)
Judge hands copyright troll an epic smack-down
In a judgement peppered with criticism for the various entities clustered around the troll-machine known as Prenda Law, a US judge says the court “went to battlestations” and has passed information to various US agencies for investigation. The judgement is peppered in equal parts with Star Trek references and unflattering …
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 04:47 GMT Shannon Jacobs
Fraid not
All it proves is that Prenda Law wasn't smart enough and rich enough to bribe the right (AKA cheapest) politicians. I'm not saying that most businesspeople are bad. Most of them just want to play the game by the rules--but the rules are encoded into law by the most cheaply bribed politicians working for the greediest and least ethical businessmen... If there were only enough law firms of the ilk of Prenda, you can bet they would have lobbied to legalize their scam. Their only "sin" was that they weren't big enough. You know, to the point where you're basically compelled to become more evil over time just to survive.
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 21:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Fraid not
"What do politicians have to do with the judgements made under Common Law?"
Surprising question. Is it what do politicians have to do with judges, or what do politicians have to do with any law? And if it is both as you have worded, wouldn't it be everything? Yeh, so I'm bullshitting you a bit, but I can't see how politicians wouldn't be able to pull the strings of judges.
With verdicts like this, it could be very quickly chalked up as a win for Mrs. Justice. However, if I stop and look around, I'll notice an alarming sum of patent lawsuits happening. Some of these lawsuits have billion dollar price tags on them, seems like they are Weapons of Massive Corporations (W.M.C.'s :-). So I have to wonder, is it really that the courts didn't know of such corrupt business practices, or is that the big boys want a bigger share of the pie, so time has come to knock out the little players?
As you can tell, I like to play antagonist. But can you state honestly, positively and undoubtedly that you don't at all think or feel, for even a second, that there is something a little "off" about the timing of all this?
-
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 09:06 GMT keithpeter
Re: Tee-hee.
"Born in Tuskegee, Alabama,[1] Wright received a B.A. from California State University at Los Angeles in 1976 and a J.D. from Southwestern Law School in 1980. He was in the United States Marine Corps from 1963 to 1966, remaining in the United States Marine Corps Reserve until 1969. He was a deputy sheriff in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department from 1969 to 1980. He was a deputy attorney general in the Office of the Attorney General, California Department of Justice from 1980 to 1983. He was in private practice in Los Angeles, California from 1983 to 2005." -- wikipedia
Given his place of birth, and subsequent career, Judge Wright probably has plenty of clues.
-
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 03:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
The scum fleecing the dumb
There is no end to what unscupulous paid liars will do for money. As for those viewing pirated porn or any other copyright protected works, they too will be held accountable. Just because a patent troll is repremanded doesn't mean those viewing or downloading pirated porn will escape punishment and public exposure. If you're dumb enough to pirate you're dumb enough to go to jail. Japan has the proper approach with mandatory jail time of 2 yrs. for piracy plus large fines.
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 05:57 GMT A Non e-mouse
Re: The scum fleecing the dumb
As for those viewing pirated porn or any other copyright protected works, they too will be held accountable
First off, I don't think Prenda actually prosectuted anyone for copyright infringement, so none of its targets have been found guilty in a court of law. I believe that once a defendant started to put up a defence, they backed off. (Sorry, can't find the source for this right now)
Second, the Ars Technica has an interesting excerpt from the Judge's order:
"[Prenda] offer to settle—for a sum calculated to be just below the cost of a bare-bones defense."
Prenda's aim does not appear to have been to prosecute people for copyright violations: It was just a scheme to make money. Hence the Judge's suggestion that:
"[Prenda] boldly probe the outskirts of law, the only enterprise they resemble is RICO."
No mater what you think of the current copyright rules and the MPAA/RIAA, copyright violation is a crime. But so is blackmailing people.
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 17:27 GMT Andrew Norton
Re: The scum fleecing the dumb
"First off, I don't think Prenda actually prosectuted anyone for copyright infringement, so none of its targets have been found guilty in a court of law. I believe that once a defendant started to put up a defence, they backed off. (Sorry, can't find the source for this right now)"
Wrong.
I know of at least one case where they went for it, and got a default judgement. Of cours,e less than a week later, the defendant had got his stuff together, hired an attorney and filed a response and a request to re-open the case. That was 2 months ago. Then Prenda decided to drop the suit (after getting a default win, just after the March hearing, and before the judge ruled on re-opening) so there was a sanctions motion filed. that's still ongoing, with the prenda lawyer firing any and all personal attacks on the defendants lawyer possible. The latest document there should be filed today
*disclaimer* I've been working with said defense lawyer.
-
Thursday 9th May 2013 23:01 GMT Oninoshiko
Re: The scum fleecing the dumb
If you are working with a defense lawyer, I woud assume you know exactly what a default judgement is:
One party shows up, the other doesn't. The one that showed up automatically wins.
When the other party DID show up, they dropped the suit. That sounds EXACTLY like: "I believe that once a defendant started to put up a defence, they backed off."
yes, there where declared guilty, but decided to drop when there was even a whiff of a defense. In that case Prenda would have been in a BETTER position, because they already had a default judgement. I've never heard of a judge allowing a case to be re-opened after a default judgement exempting cases where notice was improperly (not)given or possibly some kind of act of god.
-
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 07:44 GMT jake
@Buckaroo_Banzai (Re: The scum fleecing the dumb)
"Isn't one of the questions as yet unanswered by courts in the US is whether porn actually even is a copyrightable work?"
No. Porn is, in general, an "original work" (::snort::), and thus if I take a picture (or a series of pictures) of one or more people doing whatever local custom declares "porn", I own the copyright.
Even if the "porn" variation of the day is illegal in any given jurisdiction, I might ad.
I'm not a porn aficionado, but that's one hell of a slippery slope ...
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 17:29 GMT JLV
Re: The scum fleecing the dumb
> Japan has the proper approach with mandatory jail time of 2 yrs. for piracy plus large fines
Happy to see your tax dollars/pounds/euros/drachmas providing shelter for 2 years for what is essentially the equivalent of petty shoplifting? Followed by a criminal record that will ensure the guilty party will only get crappy jobs and be a burden to society?
Who benefits, except the incarceration industry and an entertainment industry too thick to provide digital content in a customer-friendly way?*
* Four effin' years and I still cant' get mp3s legally from Amazon, since I live in Canada and we need to protect our Celine Dions.
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 18:01 GMT Eguro
Re: The scum fleecing the dumb
We could just refer to the honourable Judge in the discussion of whether or not they did much actual prosecution:
"5. For defendants that refused to settle, the Principals engaged in vexatious
litigation designed to coerce settlement. These lawsuits were filed using boilerplate
complaints based on a modicum of evidence, calculated to maximize settlement
profits by minimizing costs and effort.
6. The Principals have shown little desire to proceed in these lawsuits when
faced with a determined defendant. Instead of litigating, they dismiss the case. When
pressed for discovery, the Principals offer only disinformation—even to the Court.
[...]
10. The Principals ordered Gibbs to commit the following acts before this
Court: file copyright-infringement complaints based on a single snapshot of Internet
activity; name individuals as defendants based on a statistical guess; and assert a
copyright assignment with a fraudulent signature. The Principals also instructed
Gibbs to prosecute these lawsuits only if they remained profitable; and to dismiss
them otherwise."
So yeah - they'd threaten with lawsuits until you paid up, or the balance tipped to the point of it becoming a waste of their time.
Also not that they did not conduct sufficient investigations before threatening a lawsuit and - for those of you seeking infaaarmation on copyright issues in general the good judge includes this nugget:
"Without better technology, prosecuting illegal BitTorrent activity requires
substantial effort in order to make a case. It is simply not economically viable to
properly prosecute the illegal download of a single copyrighted video."
Make of it what you will.
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 06:21 GMT John Smith 19
It's called "Suing for peace," as anyone whose read the novel "Edged Weapons" would know
And on this scale I'd say these guys are a Racketeering Influenced or Controlled Organisation.
Remember Al Capone went down for tax evasion, not killing or having killed anyone.
Thumbs up to the judge. The IRS should be involved.
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 08:37 GMT jake
@TeeCee(was: Re: "...or be outed as the kind of person who would torrent porn.")
"There are people who don't torrent porn?"
I don't. In fact, I can't remember exactly the last time I actually viewed porn online. Probably 1985ish, and that was accidental. As a human, pixels have never titillated me.
-
-
Tuesday 7th May 2013 10:17 GMT Version 1.0
@Esskay "you won't even notice the pixels"
However the razor burn does show up very nicely.
Porn has changed over the years and, as a lad who once was more than happy to stick the pages of Penthouse together, I find that Internet porn has become so boring as to be completely devalued. The Internet has done for porn what Justin Bieber has done for music.
-
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
