Slashdot Mirror

PhrostyMcByte writes: "TorrentFreak reports that Federal Judge Stephanie Rose recently put a thorn in the plans of copyright holders hoping to file cheap mass-lawsuits against alleged pirates. Rejecting all but one Doe for such a lawsuit, Rose's order mentions that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the five Does in the case were a part of the same 'transaction' needed to be tried together, with an uncommon understanding of BitTorrent showing that '... even in all five cases where Doe defendants allegedly have "hit dates" on the same day and close in time, there is no showing that the earlier defendants were still connected to the Internet and actively distributing data through the BitTorrent client at the same time as the later defendants.'"

TrueSatan writes "Notorious copyright troll Prenda Law has sent a subpoena to WordPress attempting to force the disclosure of all IP addresses related to two WordPress-hosted sites that specialize in monitoring and encouraging action against copyright trolling. The sites in question are fightcopyrighttrolls.com and dietrolldie.com. These sites state their aims as: 'To keep the public and fellow victims informed and to ensure that through activism, trolls make as little money as possible.' These are goals which almost anyone (bar a copyright troll, or lawyer acting for one) might well applaud. Prenda Law's demand is not for a subset of addresses that might have posted in a manner that could be construed as legally defamatory but for all IP addresses that have accessed these sites, irrespective of the use made of them. Prenda Law has filed three defamation lawsuits already against the individuals who run Fightcopyrighttrolls, and one has been dismissed (PDF). Dietrolldie released the following warning: 'As there is a possibility that a release could occur, the public IP address (date/time stamp) could fall into the hands of Prenda. I would expect that they would then try to cross-reference the IP address with their list of alleged BitTorrent infringement IP addresses ... If you have ever gone to this site or Fightcopyrighttrolls.com since 1 January 2011, you may want to contact WordPress. Tell them you want them to refuse this overly broad request and at least wait until the issue of the case being moved to the Federal court is answered before releasing any information.'"

another random user writes with news that a Virginia man, Kywan Fisher, has been ordered to pay $1,500,000 to porn-maker Flava Works for sharing ten of the company's films over BitTorrent. "The huge total was reached through penalties of $150,000 per movie, the maximum possible statutory damages under U.S. copyright law." The man did not make any defense in federal court to Flava Works' copyright infringement claims, so the judge handed down a default judgement. "In 2011 Fisher and several other defendants were sued by adult entertainment company Flava Works. The case in question differs from the so-called 'John Doe' lawsuits as the copyright holder had detailed information on the defendants who had paid accounts on the company’s movie portal. For Fisher the trouble started when instead of just viewing the films for personal entertainment, he allegedly went on to share copies on BitTorrent. These illicit copies were traced directly back to his account through a code embedded in the videos. ... The verdict will be welcomed by Flava and the many other copyright holders involved in BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States. DieTrollDie, a close follower and critic of these cases, points out that it will be widely cited in settlement letters to other defendants, but that the case itself is notably different. 'This was not the normal Copyright Troll case – there was some actual evidence beyond a public IP address. Not a smoking gun by far, but certainly enough to show a preponderance of evidence,' DTD writes.