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| Mar 11, 2021 | Court Allows Lawsuit Over Abusive Copyright Trolling DMCA Notices To Move Forward | Last summer we wrote about an interesting case involving the latest evolution of copyright trolling, involving Jon Nicolini, who some copyright troll watchers may recognize from his participating in an earlier generation of copyright trolli... |
| Jul 17, 2020 | Copyright Trolling Evolved: Okularity Accused Of DMCAing Social Media Accounts, Then Demanding MILLIONS To Reinstate | A decade ago, one of the most ridiculous copyright trolling outfits was CEG TEK (which stood for “Copyright Enforcement Group… um… TEK”). It would shake down people like any other copyright troll, but it also had a “CTO”, named Jon Nicolini... |
| Jul 17, 2020 | Copyright Trolling Evolved: Okularity Accused Of DMCAing Social Media Accounts, Then Demanding MILLIONS To Reinstate | A decade ago, one of the most ridiculous copyright trolling outfits was CEG TEK (which stood for "Copyright Enforcement Group... um... TEK"). It would shake down people like any other copyright troll, but it also had a "CTO&q... |
| Jan 10, 2020 | Malibu Media's Former Law Firm Says The Copyright Troll Has Been Screwing It Out Of Settlement Payments | Few things are more satisfying than watching copyright trolling efforts disintegrate. Prolific abuser of the court system, Malibu Media, has been slowly self-destructing over the past few years. |
| Jun 14, 2019 | ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison | In an effort to turn piracy into profit, copyright holders have chased alleged BitTorrent pirates through courts all over the world.
This so-called ‘copyright troll’ model was also adopted by the firm Prenda Law. However, the lawyers involv... |
| Aug 20, 2018 | Prenda Scam Boss, Paul Hansmeier, Pleads Guilty | After fighting for years, it appears that Paul Hansmeier realized he was cooked. On Friday, he pleaded guilty to various fraud and money laundering charges related to his copyright trolling under the Prenda name. Hansmeier, of course, was o... |
| May 7, 2018 | Judges Refuse to Unmask Alleged Pirates, Citing Privacy Concerns | Since the turn of the last decade, numerous people have been sued for illegal file-sharing in US courts.
These cases are generally filed by a small group of rightsholders and this year “Strike 3 Holdings” has proven itself to be one of the ... |
| Feb 11, 2018 | US Online Piracy Lawsuits Skyrocket in the New Year | Since the turn of the last decade, numerous people have been sued for illegal file-sharing in US courts.
Initially, these lawsuits targeted hundreds or thousands of BitTorrent users per case, but this practice has been rooted out since. Now... |
| Jan 19, 2018 | Now Another Judge Smacks Around A Guardaley Shell Company Acting As A Copyright Troll | While we were just discussing Judge Zilly in California smacking around one of the front-attorneys for a shell-company of the infamous Guardaley company (which pretends to be able to detect copyright infringement from Germany) another case ... |
| Jan 18, 2018 | Judge Tells Movie Company That it Can’t Sue Alleged BitTorrent Pirate | Despite a considerable migration towards streaming piracy in recent years, copyright trolls are still finding plenty of potential targets around the world. Alleged BitTorrent pirates are target number one since their activities are most eas... |
| Jan 10, 2018 | Judge Issues Devastating Order Against BitTorrent Copyright Troll | In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees, or face legal repercussions.
These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States since the tu... |
| Nov 16, 2017 | Center For Justice Wants Court to Unveil Copyright Trolling Secrets | Mass-piracy lawsuits have been plaguing the U.S. for years, targeting hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.
While the numbers are massive, there are only a few so-called “copyright trolling” operations running the show.
These are co... |
| Aug 14, 2017 | Florida City Ignores All Legal Precedent As It Attempts To Silence & Identify Mild Critic | Florida. It’s always Florida. Last time it was the city of Tamarac, Florida making bogus trademark claims to try to silence a blogger. And this time, it’s the city of Coral Gables (basically a part of Miami). Apparently the powers that be i... |
| Aug 7, 2017 | Lawyer Says He Was Deceived Into BitTorrent Copyright Trolling Scheme | For more than a decade, companies around the world have been trying to turn piracy into profit. For many this has meant the development of “copyright trolling” schemes, in which alleged pirates are monitored online and then pressured into c... |
| Jul 31, 2017 | BitTorrent Users Form The World’s Largest Criminal Enterprise, Lawyer Says | As the sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet continues, so do the waves of lawsuits which claim compensation for alleged damage caused.
Run by so-called ‘copyright trolls’, these legal efforts are often painted as the only way for... |
| Jul 13, 2017 | Copyright Troll Claims Texan Woman Downloaded Over 54,000 Torrents | In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees, or face legal repercussions.
These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States for more tha... |
| May 31, 2017 | Copyright Troll's Tech 'Experts' Can Apparently Detect Infringement Before It Happens | When you sue Does en masses for copyright infringement with no more evidence than an IP address, you’re going to run into problems. Those who aren’t intimidated by baseless federal court filings fight back. The problem with every troll is t... |
| May 26, 2017 | Copyright Troll Piracy ‘Witness’ Went Back to the Future – and Lost | Since the early 2000s, copyright trolls have been attempting to squeeze cash from pirating Internet users and fifteen years later the practice is still going strong.
While there’s little doubt that trolls catch some genuine infringers in th... |
| May 22, 2017 | Copyright Troll Attorney John Steele Disbarred by Illinois Supreme Court | Over the years, copyright trolls have been accused of involvement in various dubious schemes and actions, but there’s one group that has gone above and beyond.
Prenda Law grabbed dozens of headlines, mostly surrounding negative court ruling... |
| May 15, 2017 | Judge Alsup Threatens To Block Malibu Media From Any More Copyright Trolling In Northern California | Yes, we keep seeing Judge William Alsup appear on these pages, as he keeps getting high profile tech related cases. And, while we don’t always agree with his decisions, I don’t think that anyone can argue that he isn’t careful and thorough ... |
| May 12, 2017 | Judge Threatens to Bar ‘Copyright Troll’ Cases Over Lacking IP-location Evidence | While relatively underreported, many U.S. district courts are still swamped with lawsuits against alleged film pirates.
The copyright holders who initiate these cases generally rely on an IP address as evidence. This information is collecte... |
| Apr 23, 2017 | Anti-Piracy Outfit Targets ‘Troll’ Defense Sites With DMCA Takedowns | Anti-piracy enforcement comes in all shapes and sizes and there can be little doubt that’s it’s an extremely challenging and complex arena. Little surprise then that screw-ups are pretty common.
This week’s facepalm moment arrives courtesy ... |
| Feb 17, 2017 | Judge Splits $750 Piracy Penalty Between BitTorrent Peers | Many Hollywood insiders see online piracy as a major threat, but only very few are willing to target alleged file-sharers with lawsuits.
LHF Productions, one of the companies behind the blockbuster “London Has Fallen,” has no problem crossi... |
| Jan 4, 2017 | ‘Copyright Trolls’ Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Theft by Deception | In recent years so-called copyright trolls have been accused of various dubious schemes and actions, including intimidation and extortion.
Last month it became apparent that these concerns are not just one-sided complaints, when the U.S. Go... |
| Nov 9, 2016 | Copyright Troll Backs Down When Faced With Exposure | After inflicting more than a decade of misery on alleged file-sharers, rightsholders and their online tracking partners are continuing their quest to turn piracy into profit.
Letters continue to land in mailboxes all over the world, informi... |
| Jul 18, 2016 | Accused “Pirate” Questions Dallas Buyers Club’s Copyright Claim | Movie studio Voltage Pictures is no stranger to suing BitTorrent users.
The company has filed lawsuits against alleged pirates in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, and is estimated to have made a lot of money doing so.
Most o... |
| Jun 29, 2016 | Malibu Media Sues Its Former Lawyer Over Missing Funds, Breach Of Bar Rules | All aboard the schadenfreude express! It appears that when you base your business model on dubious litigation, you also to attract dubious litigators. (See also: Righthaven, Prenda Law.) So, this latest development in the Malibu Media saga ... |
| Jun 28, 2016 | Two Judges Punch Holes In Copyright Trolls' Claims That An IP Address Is The Same Thing As A Person | Fight Copyright Trolls has tracked down two more court decisions that reach an obvious conclusion: an IP address is not a person. In both cases, the normal trolling tactics were used: legal threats against alleged infringers, based on nothi... |
| Jun 27, 2016 | Judge Calls Out Malibu Media For Its Attempt To Cut And Run When Faced With Challenge To Its Infringement Claims | IP trolls are about 90% cardboard facade. They puff themselves up with blustery legal threats written on serious-looking legal letterhead, but it’s really no different than the defensive mechanisms of many creatures found on the lower end o... |
| Jun 27, 2016 | Judge Dismisses Movie Piracy Case, IP-Address Doesn’t Prove Anything | In the Oregon District Court, Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman recently recommended dismissal of a complaint filed by the makers of the Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler.
According to the Judge both claims of direct and indirect infringement ... |
| Jun 4, 2016 | Copyright Troll Calls UK Government “Cowards” | Wherever there’s a controversy over unauthorized file-sharing it’s almost guaranteed that the copyright trolls at Guardaley won’t be far behind. For many years the company has been central to cases against alleged file-sharers around the wo... |
| May 26, 2016 | Bankruptcy Fight May Be The Least Of Team Prenda's Concerns, As The FBI Comes Knocking | If you’ve been following the Prenda Law saga around here for any length of time, you’re aware that it’s been going on for years, with sketchy copyright trolling practices that appeared to include Team Prenda uploading their own content to t... |
| May 26, 2016 | FBI “In Latter Stages” of Prenda Law Copyright Troll Investigation | In an effort to turn piracy into profit, more than a decade ago enterprising groups centered around lawfirms decided that file-sharers were ripe for a shakedown. Tracking IP addresses back to their users, companies demanded settlements of h... |
| Apr 15, 2016 | Sky Subscribers Hit With New Wave of Piracy Notices | GoldenEye International are one of the small handful of companies engaged in so-called “copyright troll” activities in the UK.
Unlike thousands of other companies who try to have infringing content removed from the Internet, Golden Eye simp... |
| Apr 13, 2016 | Anti-Piracy Firm Wants ISPs to Pay for Pirating Subscribers | Over the past weeks dozens of companies and organizations have shared their concerns regarding the current state of the DMCA copyright law.
The responses are part of a consultation launched by the U.S. Copyright Office. Most focus on the ef... |
| Mar 21, 2016 | Judges: Geolocation Not Good Enough to Pinpoint Pirates | While relatively underreported, many U.S. district courts are still swamped with lawsuits against alleged film pirates.
Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, is behind most of these cases. The company ... |
| Jan 26, 2016 | Copyright Troll Malibu Media's 'Expert' Witness Appears To Be Totally And Completely Clueless | We’ve written many times about Malibu Media, a massive copyright trolling operation that creates porn under the name X-Art and then shakes down people it claims are downloading it. There are tremendous similarities between Prenda Law and Ma... |
| Jan 20, 2016 | Federal Judge MAY Set Up Pro Bono Legal Assistance For Defendants Sued By Voltage Pictures/Carl Crowell [UPDATED] | [Update: as has been pointed out by Ars Technica’s Joe Mullin, Judge Mosman is not a chief judge yet and could not have signed those orders. As was correctly noted by Fight Copyright Trolls [and in the part I quoted!], these are only drafts... |
| Jan 18, 2016 | Court Grants Free Legal Assistance to Accused Movie Pirates | As the phenomenon of chasing down alleged movie pirates continues around the world, so-called copyright trolls are continually honing their techniques in order to pin down individuals to force settlement.
While those accused rarely get off ... |
| Oct 7, 2015 | New York Judge Puts Brakes on Copyright Troll Subpoenas | For the past seven or eight years alleged file-sharers in the United States have found themselves at the mercy of so-called copyright trolls and right at the very forefront are those from the adult movie industry.
By a country mile, adult v... |
| Oct 2, 2015 | Malibu Media Copyright Troll Wakes The Beast In Trying To Push Verizon Around | While we have our issues with Verizon in other areas, the giant telco does have a strong history of protecting its users against crazy copyright trolling and other forms of attacks. Verizon led the way in fighting back against the RIAA when... |
| Oct 2, 2015 | Zee Germans Are Coming: German Copyright Troll Announces Plans For Anti-Piracy Surge In The UK | I’ll give the entertainment and the copyright troll industry this: they sure know how to talk a big game. After the settlement prospecting done by copyright trolls in the UK died down somewhat these past few years, it appears the war is bac... |
| Oct 1, 2015 | Verizon Fights Copyright Troll Demands in Court | Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, is one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States.
The company has filed thousands of lawsuits in recent years, targeting Internet subscribers whose ... |
| Sep 15, 2015 | Judge Slams Copyright Troll’s “Harassment” Tactics in Piracy Case | Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, is one of the most active copyright trolls.
This year alone they have filed more than 1,400 individual cases against alleged BitTorrent pirates in the United State... |
| Jul 24, 2015 | Malibu Media Seeks Order Forbidding Defendants From Discussing 'Copyleft' Blog Content | Copyright troll Malibu Media would prefer the many courtrooms it uses as speculative invoicing middlemen to be free of disparaging statements. To that end, it has filed a motion that specifically asks that certain blogs not be brought up no... |
| Jul 14, 2015 | Rightscorp Claims Its Harassing Phone Calls Safeguarded By Multiple Constitutional Amendments | Third-party copyright troll Rightscorp is fighting a couple of lawsuits related to its alleged telephonic harassment of alleged infringers. One wonders what the ROI is on funding robocalling in pursuit of $10-20 “settlements” from suspected... |
| May 27, 2015 | Ohio Judge Fed Up With Malibu Media: Appears To Give Copyright Troll One Last Chance | With all the talk about Prenda and its copyright trolling practices, it’s long been clear that the real king of copyright trolling in the US is Malibu Media — better known as xArt — and its legal team led by Keith Lipscomb (and we’ll leave ... |
| Feb 23, 2015 | Rightscorp Facing Another Lawsuit For Harassing Alleged Infringers | Rightscorp — another company with designs on revolutionizing the pursuit of infringers — has a murky past, a very troubled present, and almost no future. For the second time in three months, it’s facing a lawsuit over its shakedown tactics.... |
| Jan 13, 2015 | Falsely Accused ‘Pirate’ Wins $101,000 in Attorney Fees | Mass-piracy lawsuits have been plaguing the U.S. for years, targeting hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.
Most copyright holders involved in these cases, often referred to as trolls, are only out to collect settlement payments fro... |
| Jan 12, 2015 | Judge Awards $100k In Attorney's Fees Over Copyright Trolling, But Downplays Fraud Aspects | We’ve written a few times about how the film Elf-Man was used in some copyright trolling shakedowns, mostly focusing on some documents that came out in the case of Elf-Man v. Ryan Lamberson, revealing how a German anti-piracy company which ... |
| Nov 24, 2014 | Piracy Monetization Firm Rightscorp Sued for Harassment and Abuse | Copyright holders have been sending DMCA takedown notices to ISPs for over a decade, but in recent years these warnings turned into revenue opportunities.
Companies such as Rightscorp ask U.S. ISPs to forward DMCA notices to subscribers,wit... |
| Nov 24, 2014 | Class Action Filed Against Rightscorp For Shaking Down People With Robocalls | We’ve written a few times about Rightscorp, the company that has tried to set itself up as a sort of “friendlier” copyright troll, acquiring a bunch of copyrights, sniffing out IP addresses connected to sharing of content associated with th... |
| Nov 19, 2014 | Court: $30,000 for Sharing a Pirated Movie is Excessive Punishment | Over the past several years hundreds of thousands of Internet subscribers have been sued in the United States for allegedly sharing copyrighted material, mostly films, online.
The goal of these lawsuits is to encourage alleged downloader to... |
| Nov 18, 2014 | Russian TV Channel Blames Internet For Suckering It Into Running A Fake Photo Of A Ukrainian Jet Shooting Down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 | Chasing eyeballs but catching internet infamy. That’s Russia’s Channel One, which took an unsourced photograph from an online forum and turned it into a complete embarassment. |
| Oct 24, 2014 | Porn Piracy Cash Threats to Hit Virgin Media Customers | It’s been more than seven years since so-called copyright trolls first tried their luck with the British public. UK lawfirm Davenport Lyons, a company that attempted to mislead future targets with a semi-bogus high-profile damages ‘ruling’,... |
| Aug 26, 2014 | Anti-Piracy Lawyer Wants Domain Registrars to Silence Critics | Several years ago when suing BitTorrent users was gaining in popularity, lawyers on both sides of the copyright fence saw there was good money to be made by getting involved.
On the one hand some lawyers teamed up with piracy monitoring fir... |
| Aug 26, 2014 | Copyright Trolling Lawyer Abusing DMCA To Try To Silence Critics | Nearly three years ago, Fight Copyright Trolls had an interesting post about a copyright lawyer named Mike Meier who “flipped sides” from defending people who had been hit with copyright troll demands to becoming something of a troll himsel... |
| Aug 19, 2014 | Unsealed Motions Shows How Team Prenda Sought To Hide Money | Back in April, we wrote about a really enraged John Steele (famous for his likely leading role in the Prenda scam) angrily hitting back against a sealed motion for contempt against him, arguing that he was lying and hiding assets in his att... |
| Jun 16, 2014 | Once Again, As Details Of Questionable Copyright Trolling Practices Come To Light, Troll Desperately Tries To Run Away | A few weeks ago, we wrote about evidence coming to light suggesting that the massively discredited German firm Guardaley, and a variety of its shell companies, were actually key players behind a bunch of US copyright trolling cases (includi... |
| Jun 13, 2014 | Copyright Troll Accuses Critic of Leading “Psychopathic” Hate Group | So-called Copyright trolls attempt to turn piracy into profit by setting their expensive lawyers loose on the man (or woman) in the street claimed to have downloaded or shared their works without permission. In many cases the strategies emp... |
| Jun 4, 2014 | International Men Of Mystery: How Discredited German 'Anti-Piracy' Company May Secretly Be Behind Malibu Media's Copyright Trollery | Things have been getting more interesting on the Malibu Media front lately. The company, which is responsible for 40% of all copyright cases, has certainly faced claims of abusive and seriously questionable practices. But some new informati... |
| May 25, 2014 | Copyright Troll Demands Comcast’s Six Strikes Data for Lawsuit | In just a few days time the controversial Copyright Alert System (CAS) will have been operational for 15 months.
A cornerstone of the system sees the major labels and movie studios sending notices of infringement to ISPs which they in turn ... |
| May 3, 2014 | Accused Pirate Slams BitTorrent Tracking Outfit in Court | Mass-piracy lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.
All of these cases are initiated with an IP address as the main piece of evidence. This address is usually collected by ... |
| Apr 30, 2014 | Lawsuit Against First US Copyright Trolls For Extortion Ends In Victory | A few years ago, we wrote about how a guy named Dimitry Shirokov, with help from the law firm of Booth Sweet had taken on the “fathers” of copyright trolling in the US, Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, who had formed an organization called US Co... |
| Apr 29, 2014 | Accused Movie Pirate Wins Extortion Case Against Copyright Trolls | Early 2010 the law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver brought mass-piracy lawsuits to the United States. The law firm teamed up with several film studios and sued tens of thousands of alleged BitTorrent users.
A few months after the first cases ... |
| Apr 7, 2014 | Document Reveals When Copyright Trolls Drop Piracy Cases | It’s well known that while copyright trolls may suggest they are going to pursue all of their cases to the bitter end, they simply do not. Plenty of cases are dropped or otherwise terminated, although the precise reasons why this happens us... |
| Mar 24, 2014 | Judge: IP-Address Is Not a Person and Can’t Identify a BitTorrent Pirate | Over the past several years hundreds of thousands of alleged BitTorrent pirates have been sued by so-called ‘copyright trolls’ in the United States.
The rightsholders bringing these cases generally rely on an IP address as evidence. They th... |
| Jan 22, 2014 | Court Dismisses Copyright Lawsuit, Noting IP Address Is Not Enough Evidence For Infringement | A few courts have noted similar things, but Fight Copyright Trolls and TorrentFreak both recently covered an interesting district court ruling out of Seattle, where Judge Robert Lansik noted that the producers of the movie Elf Man failed to... |
| Jan 21, 2014 | Judge: IP-Address Does Not Prove Copyright Infringement | Mass-BitTorrent lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.
A common problem with these cases is that copyright holders only have an IP address as evidence, which generally can... |
| Sep 11, 2013 | Copyright Troll Malibu Media Sanctioned For Bogus Copyright Abuse & Intimidation Tactic | For the last few months, I’d been meaning to write some more about Malibu Media, a major copyright troll who we’ve mentioned a few times in the past. Some have been arguing that (believe it or not), the company is even worse than Prenda. Of... |
| Aug 28, 2013 | Manhattan Lasik Threatens Yelp Reviewer For Calling Them Scumbags Who Used Groupon As Bait-And-Switch | When will they learn? Yet another company upset by a negative review on Yelp has hired a lawyer to issue a highly questionable legal nastygram threatening a defamation lawsuit if the review wasn’t removed. Paul Levy from Public Citizen has ... |
| Aug 9, 2013 | Prenda Suffers More Fee Award Blows | The life of a copyright troll is a hard one. It can take a while for the settlements to come rolling in so you can make a profit, while minimizing your litigation costs. That’s why it’s heartening to see an award in Minnesota State Court fo... |
| Aug 8, 2013 | Team Prenda Ordered To Pay Yet Another $64k In Yet Another Case | The bill for Team Prenda to pay out to opposing attorneys keeps getting bigger. Over in Minnesota in Guava LLC v. Merkel, a case that had fallen off the radar for many, the judge has ordered Guava, local lawyer Michael Dugas and Paul Hansme... |
| Jul 9, 2013 | Bad Lawyer Tricks, By John Steele | Last week, we wrote about a bunch of the members of Team Prenda submitting separate filings with Judge Otis Wright, who has been the most vocal in calling them out for their questionable legal shenanigans, trying (once again) to go on the o... |
| Jul 8, 2013 | Killer Joe and the Zombie Subpoenas That Aren’t | Over the years we’ve covered a lot copyright litigation, but perhaps the most unpleasant kind is when accusers twist and pervert courts or the law to get what they want.
While most twist the law in grouping large numbers of anonymous John D... |
| Jun 4, 2013 | The Pirate Bay Helps to Expose Copyright Troll Honeypot | Last month copyright troll law firm Prenda suffered losses on several fronts, including a $81,319.72 court sanction. However, Prenda’s troubles are far from over.
A new filing submitted by defense lawyer Graham Syfert opens up a new can of ... |
| May 28, 2013 | Prenda Continues Character Assassination Of Alan Cooper | You may recall that Prenda briefly tried a strategy of claiming that Alan Cooper was mentally unstable and off his meds in trying to explain to Judge Otis Wright why Cooper said he had absolutely nothing to do with AF Holdings, despite his ... |
| May 24, 2013 | Another Court Tells Prenda To Pay Up On Attorneys Fees | It looks like the bill for Prenda Law is going up. Yet another court has now awarded attorneys’ fees, telling “AF Holdings” (one of Prenda’s shell companies) to pay $9,425. Of course, since Prenda still tries to deny that it controls AF Hol... |
| May 23, 2013 | Prenda Lawyer Says Georgia Court Should Ignore Judge Wright's Order Because… Look! Hackers! | Remember Jacques Nazaire? He’s the local counsel for Prenda in a case in Georgia who was trying desperately to get the judge there to ignore Judge Wright’s order in California, which lays out how Prenda’s lawsuits are highly questionable, a... |
| May 18, 2013 | Sophisticatedjanedoe / FightCopyrightTrolls Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week | Hi Techdirt! I’m known to this and other tech blog communities as sophisticatedjanedoe (or SJD). I run an anti-shakedown, anti-copyright-troll opinion blog Fight Copyright Trolls, which, I’m sure, most of you know: Techdirt often links to m... |
| May 13, 2013 | Copyright Trolls Threaten to Call Neighbors of Accused Porn Pirates | Over the past years we’ve covered dozens of copyright troll lawsuits against tens of thousands of alleged copyright infringers.
The general theme of these cases is that IP-addresses are accused of “stealing” copyrighted work. The trolls the... |
| May 13, 2013 | Team Prenda Not Only Still Shaking Down People, But Also Threatening To Tell Their Neighbors About Porn Habits | It would appear that while Team Prenda is in denial mode when talking to the press, they’re still going strong in the shakedown game. As highlighted by Fight Copyright Trolls, late last week, Paul Duffy was still signing letters sent out fr... |
| Apr 25, 2013 | Thought Prenda Was Dead? No, It's Up To Its Old Tricks… And More | Even as Prenda supposedly lays dying, it appears that Team Prenda is up to the same old tricks under a new name. As detailed by FightCopyrightTrolls, Paul Duffy appears to be playing the same game Prenda has played before. Back in December,... |
| Apr 22, 2013 | Angry Prenda Is Angry | Ken White blogs at Popehat. He’s a litigator and criminal defense attorney at Brown White & Newhouse LLP in Los Angeles. His views are his alone, not those of his firm. |
| Mar 22, 2013 | Lawyer Suggests That Prenda Law May Have Only 'Released' Movies It Sued Over As A Honeypot For Lawsuits | Another day, another story having to with Prenda Law (the hits just keep on coming). Found via FightCopyrightTrolls, we discover some research done by lawyer Graham Syfert, who has taken on Prenda/John Steele in a number of cases, including... |
| Mar 22, 2013 | Alan Cooper, Paul Godfread Call Prenda Law's Bluff On Defamation Lawsuit | We were somewhat surprised by Prenda Law, John Steele and Paul Duffy choosing to sue various critics for defamation, and specifically charging Alan Cooper and Paul Godfread with defamation. Cooper, of course, was the home caretaker for some... |
| Mar 20, 2013 | Hitler Goes Nuts Over Prenda Copyright Troll Debacle | The Prenda copyright trolling fiasco is about to enter another critical phase.
After their no-show earlier this month the world’s most famous trolls will now have to appear in court April 2 for what FightCopyrightTrolls is calling the Prend... |
| Mar 20, 2013 | Key Players In Prenda Lawsuits Also Involved In Questionable 'Class Action' Objections | We’ve discussed many times the depths that the folks involved in Prenda Law would go to in order to get info on people to demand money from them. Sometimes this would involve layering on legal loophole after legal loophole in somewhat impre... |
| Mar 8, 2013 | Copyright Trolls Order WordPress To Hand Over Critics’ IP Addresses | Copyright trolls, wherever they try to do business in the world, meet resistance.
Their work is appreciated by few outside of their inner circle and often frowned upon by fellow law firms, copyright owners and the public, who see their work... |
| Mar 7, 2013 | Prenda Law Issues Subpoena For IP Addresses Of Every Visitor To Critic Blogs For The Past Two Years | This is rather incredible. We already wrote about Prenda Law’s series of defamation lawsuits against commenters on two key blogs that have been instrumental in exposing their shenanigans: FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollDie. While John Ste... |
| Mar 7, 2013 | Copyright Troll Suffers Website Attacks | Prenda, the lawfirm-that-isn’t (or is, they’re not quite sure), may be in for a massive battle for their freedom next week. But their legal careers aren’t the only things taking a battering this past week, it’s their website as well.
Websit... |
| Mar 4, 2013 | Prenda's Brett Gibbs Finally Answers Some Questions; No Mention Of Alan Cooper | With the news breaking of copyright troll firm Prenda Law, along with John Steele and Paul Duffy (who basically appear to be Prenda) suing a bunch of critics for defamation, it’s worth remembering that the challenges to some of their existi... |
| Mar 4, 2013 | Prenda Law Sues Critics For Defamation | Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay, so we have another story we’ve been working on concerning Brett Gibbs, a lawyer who was working for Prenda Law in California, finally answering some of the questions presented to him by a judge. We’ll get that story up ... |
| Feb 22, 2013 | Pure Scamming Copyright Troll Implies It's A Gov't Agency And That You Will Face Jail Time If You Don't Pay Up | We’ve seen some pretty brazen copyright trolling efforts lately, but this latest one may be the most extreme. FightCopyrightTrolls has the story of the “Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency,” which has some features like a normal copyr... |
| Feb 22, 2013 | Scammers Extort BitTorrent Users Posing as Law Enforcement | Over the years we have seen plenty of scam artists trying to make a few bucks off BitTorrent users and other file-sharers, but the stunt that’s being pulled off by the “Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency” tops them all.
Disguised as ... |
| Feb 22, 2013 | Prenda Lawyer Hires His Own Lawyer, Tries To Tapdance His Way Out Of A Jail Sentence By Throwing Prenda Under The Bus | A few weeks ago, we noted that not only did Judge Otis Wright not buy Prenda Law’s Brett Gibbs’ ridiculous claims concerning the mysterious Alan Cooper, but that Gibbs was facing sanctions, including the possibility of jailtime for his acti... |
| Feb 22, 2013 | Yet Another Court Says IP Addresses Are Not Enough To Positively Identify Infringers | The neverending misadventures of Prenda Law and its various attachments have led me to consider retiring this phrase when writing about them: “just when you thought it couldn't get any worse…” Prenda's situation obviously can (and will) lik... |
| Feb 8, 2013 | IP Address Snapshots Not Sufficient Evidence To File Infringement Suit; Prenda Lawyer Faces Sanctions | It looks as if Judge Otis Wright is about done humoring Brett Gibbs and Prenda Law/AF Holdings/Ingenuity 13 LLC’s continued legal asshattery. In a lengthy order that reads more like a smackdown, Wright attacks Gibb’s abuse of the legal syst... |
| Jan 30, 2013 | Prenda's Brett Gibbs Tries To Avoid Answering Questions About Alan Cooper By Dismissing Case | Another day, another story of questionable activity on behalf of copyright troll Prenda Law in regards to Alan Cooper. As you may recall, Alan Cooper, who was employed as a house caretaker for copyright troll John Steele (of Prenda Law, tho... |
