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Let's see, the article says that piracy rates have dropped 70% according to "CEG TEK".

Fair enough, so who or what is a "CEG TEK"?

CEG TEK International (formerly Copyright Enforcement Group) is a Los Angeles-based copyright monetization firm. The company also conducts and releases studies about piracy of motion pictures, music, and other forms of digital media.

So, draw your own conclusions.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.co...

Actually it's not a first. The key word you're looking for here is "severed", which is what the judge did for the joined plaintiffs. If you want to read more on this, here are some places to start: http://fightcopyrighttrolls.co... http://dietrolldie.com/?s=seve...

Basically, this has happened in the past, and while it changes the cost/benefit ratio it has done nothing to stop these trolls. Now they're starting to target people more discriminatingly. While that's better than the shotgun approach they've been taking, now they're suing one downloader for much higher sums, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars.

There are in fact pro se defendants on some of these porn-troll-extortion cases. In one case Prenda counldn't easily dismiss a weak case because the the one pro se had already filed a response. So yeah, filing stuff is the right thing to do. Since he was quicker to answer than most of the lawyers, he's one of the ones who has a chance at receiving damages for the bogus suit.

You can follow it all at http://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/ and http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/ and http://www.groklaw.net/index.php

But yeah if in addition to not being a lawyer, you're also a regular Joe who doesn't follow legal cases and read judgements relating to your industry, you'd probably be a fool. These trolls are starting to lose so badly and quickly in court now that it should be easy to find a pro bono working for the sanctions he can claim. When lawyers get fined for being naughty the money isn't collected by the government, it goes to the lawyers on the other side!

Enjoy some afternoon reading, and piss in Prenda's sought-after goods:

FightCopyrightTrolls.com

Dietrolldie.com

Prenda Law (aka Steele Hansmeier aka Anti-Piracy Law Group) is not really a law firm as such, but a sophisticated scam. For those of you who came in late, here's how it works: Prenda's stooges, who are ostensibly copyright holders, upload a porno clip to BitTorrent. They they record the IP addresses of everyone who downloads the torrent. Then Prenda Law sues all the IP address holders as John Does in a federal copyright lawsuit, for example Hard Drive Productions vs. John Does 1 through 1495. They aren't really interested in suing, just in issuing subpoenas to ISPs to get the names and addresses of the downloaders. They then send demand letters requesting thousands of dollars. People pay up, because the amount is just below what it would cost to hire a lawyer, because the porno downloaders are afraid their wives will find out, and because they are afraid of being on the receiving end of massive Jammie Thomas -type civil judgments.

For the last couple of years, Prenda and its associates have made millions of dollars this way, as federal judges from coast to coast have (up to now) rubberstamped their extortionate business model.

Recently, however, the greed, stupidity, incompetence and unethical conduct of Prenda has finally caught up to it.

Read all about it at sites such as fightcopyrighttrolls.com, dietrollsdie.com, etc.

You've gotta read the transcript from November 27, 2012 in Sunlust Pictures v. Nguyen. It is the funniest federal court hearing transcript, ever, as federal judge Mary S. Scriven puts one participant after another under oath... it is as funny as an Abbott and Costello routine....

Prenda Law (aka Steele Hansmeier aka Anti-Piracy Law Group) is not really a law firm as such, but a sophisticated scam. For those of you who came in late, here's how it works: Prenda's stooges, who are ostensibly copyright holders, upload a porno clip to BitTorrent. They they record the IP addresses of everyone who downloads the torrent. Then Prenda Law sues all the IP address holders as John Does in a federal copyright lawsuit, for example Hard Drive Productions vs. John Does 1 through 1495. They aren't really interested in suing, just in issuing subpoenas to ISPs to get the names and addresses of the downloaders. They then send demand letters requesting thousands of dollars. People pay up, because the amount is just below what it would cost to hire a lawyer, because the porno downloaders are afraid their wives will find out, and because they are afraid of being on the receiving end of massive Jammie Thomas -type civil judgments.

For the last couple of years, Prenda and its associates have made millions of dollars this way, as federal judges from coast to coast have (up to now) rubberstamped their extortionate business model.

Recently, however, the greed, stupidity, incompetence and unethical conduct of Prenda has finally caught up to it.

Read all about it at sites such as fightcopyrighttrolls.com, dietrollsdie.com, etc.

You've gotta read the transcript from November 27, 2012 in Sunlust Pictures v. Nguyen. It is the funniest federal court hearing transcript, ever, as federal judge Mary S. Scriven puts one participant after another under oath... it is as funny as an Abbott and Costello routine....

At least one U.S. judge thinks it actually is extortion: at http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/07/04/judge-wright-is-so-right-copyright-trolling-is-essentially-an-extortion-scheme/ Judge Otis D. Wright writes:

The Court is familiar with lawsuits like this one. AF Holdings LLC v. Does 1-1058, No. 1:12-cv-48(BAH) (D.D.C. filed January 11, 2012); Discount Video Center,Inc. v. Does 1-5041, No. C11-2694CW(PSG) (N.D. Cal. filed June 3, 2011); K-Beech,Inc. v. John Does 1-85, No. 3:11-cv-469-JAG (E.D. Va. filed July 21, 2011). These lawsuits run a common theme: plaintiff owns a copyright to a pornographic movie; plaintiff sues numerous John Does in a single action for using BitTorrent to pirate the movie; plaintiff subpoenas the ISPs to obtain the identities of these Does; if successful, plaintiff will send out demand letters to the Does; because of embarrassment, many Does will send back a nuisance-value check to the plaintiff. The cost to the plaintiff: a single filing fee, a bit of discovery, and stamps. The rewards: potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rarely do these cases reach the merits. The federal courts are not cogs in a plaintiff’s copyright-enforcement business model. The Court will not idly watch
what is essentially an extortion scheme, for a case that plaintiff has no intention of bringing to trial. By requiring Malibu to file separate lawsuits for each of the Doe Defendants, Malibu will have to expend additional resources to obtain a nuisance-value settlement — making this type of litigation less profitable. If Malibu desires to vindicate its copyright rights, it must do it the old-fashioned way and earn it.

They've asked for $10,000 per person in punitive damages, twice what the current law allows, so they either to think the old rules apply, or they're just trying to scare people into settling out of court.

--dave

Sorry, forgot the best part... the fact that with the award at $222,000 they're exactly where they were 3 trials and 5 years ago: at an amount which will most likely *never* be paid in full. How many countless wasted hours or lawyers, judges, juries, court time and space have been spent on this, what amounts to realistically probably no more than $24 actual real damages to the record labels (song downloads).

Again, sorry to reply to myself but this nonsense really gets me riled up, especially if you have a look at what the adult film industry is doing with copyright these days. If you're not aware, there's a massive nation-wide campaign going on where over 300,000 people have been sued so far in a grand perversion of technology and the justice system in efforts to extort multi-thousand dollar settlements. And this movement has its roots squarely in RIAA litigation tactics. See: http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/

fightcopyrighttrolls.com is the place to go to follow this issue. Judges are catching on and these trolls' days are numbered.

There are still some reasons to be hopeful. First, most judges are NOT very sympathetic to plaintiff attorneys representing pornographers, so they're looking for something, anything, to get those cases out of their courtrooms. This makes many judges very sympathetic to even the most amateur Motion to Quash Subpoenas filed by pro-se Does or indeed just about any other motion that would give them an excuse to dismiss the case and get the aforementioned smut peddlers the hell out of their courtroom. If more people would take an hour or so to fill out and file some of these motions to quash their subpoenas or even just to dismiss the case, they might find that judges are sympathetic to their requests, amateur though they may be.