Slashdot Mirror
Judge Hints At Jail Time For Porn Copyright Troll Prenda Law
In December, we mentioned the attention that Prenda law bigwig John Steele has drawn for some questionable business practices; now reader rudy_wayne writes with news (excerpted from Ars Technica) of more scrutiny of Prenda from a California district court: "A federal judge in Los Angeles has suggested serious penalties for Brett Gibbs, an attorney at porn copyright trolling firm Prenda Law. Facing allegations of fraud and identity theft, Gibbs will be required to explain himself at a March 11 hearing. And if Judge Otis Wright isn't satisfied with his answers, he may face fines and even jail time. The identity theft allegations emerged late last year, when a Minnesota man named Alan Cooper told a Minnesota court he suspected Prenda Law named him as the CEO of two litigious offshore holding companies without his permission. Worried about exposing himself to potential liability for the firms' misconduct, Cooper asked the court to investigate the situation. Cooper's letter was spotted by Morgan Pietz, an attorney who represents 'John Doe' defendants in California. He notified Judge Wright of the allegations."
Or not - this is small potatoes. I want to see banksters hung - they stole a lot more.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Well, I think that we've identified a more serious issue than 'mere' patent trolling - identity theft is a rather serious crime.
Though I like the idea that if it's found that they lied about the identity of their CEO, they lose standing in their other court cases - making them fraudulent as well, compounding the issue.
In the end, I'd say it's 'Scum is Scum'. If they're not too worried about one aspect of the law, they're unlikely to worry about others, to the point that when one aspect fails, it all tumbles down like a house of cards.
Personally, I'd say 'hard labor until he's worked off all the court expenses'. That's regardless of the aspect they pick - people might find porn icky, I don't really care.
I don't read AC A human right
John Steele. He's pretty much the mastermind behind Prenda, the torrent scanning company, the litigation tactics, the shell companies, and all the underhanded pseudo-legal tactics inbetween. He's managed to use patsies like Gibbs to file briefs, but many indications point to Steele actually authoring many of the motions that make it to the judge and simply using Gibbs' electronic signature. The buck seems to stop at Steele in this operation, and with the heat on Gibbs, everyone is hoping he will roll over like a dog on Steele, implicating him in this whole mess.
So someone has a copyright on pron involving trolls? I guess theres all types of fetishes around.
And can some lawyer explain what a 'prenda law'is?
These shotgun approach lawsuits are just attempts at extortion when they have no real evidence.
I really hope this guy gets some pretty serious sanctions -- making some poor schmuck the CEO of an offshore company is some pretty serious stuff, the kind that should get you into jail and disbarred.
And if I read this right, he doesn't even have legal standing to be suing, and might stand to make money from this.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Good for this judge. If someone is systematically benefiting from unethical behavior, we don't want them in our legal, political, medical or other professional systems. Lawyers, doctors, etc. get paid the big bucks for good work, and also for behaving at a level above the norm. When they don't, it's a clear sign they need "another career."
Little-known fact: "Hard-core" porn (i.e., porn) is actually illegal to distribute in the US. So my question is: is porn actually copyrightable?
Part of me thinks yes, because it is a "Writing" under the Constitution. On the other hand, none of the policy rationales behind copyright would support the claim that porn is copyrightable.
Discuss.
Wow, the fact that his wife's company failed causing him to default on personal obligations is SO relevant to this article. Oh, wait, no it's not at all. Take your astroturfing campaign to somewhere where there are fewer rational people.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Since its extremely rare to post porn pics on here and be relevant to the article:
Sunny Leone, who runs the company that supposedly hired Prenda Law for these cases: http://www.freeones.com/html/s_links/Sunny_Leone/
Do I get my money back? It was not me downloading all that stuff. Seriously...
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
somewhere where there are fewer rational people
Did you honestly just imply that there are any significant numbers of rational people on Slashdot? LOL! This glorified blog is filled with nothing but Apple shills and Linux nutjobs.
To be fair, their process of selecting an executive to act as the CEO of a company was no less rigorous or profit-driven than the executive selection process of any other company.
Sunny Leone may have signed up for Prenda's "remove your content from sites that steal it" service, but don't assume that means she knows anything about how they go about doing so. As the link shows, Sunny is busy doing other things.
somewhere where there are fewer rational people
Did you honestly just imply that there are any significant numbers of rational people on Slashdot? LOL! This glorified blog is filled with nothing but Apple shills and Linux nutjobs.
And which are you? Shill or Nutjob?
So which are you, a Apple shills and Linux nutjob?
Process of elimination says Windows Fanboi, or bitter Amiga fan. There's not really many other platforms left. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Lawyers are paid to be as devious, cruel, and inhuman as possible without getting disbarred, period. From telling the jury she was 'asking for it' as she was dressed like a slut, to refusing to release someone when the DNA evidence doesn't match, but stating it is merely from an 'unidicted co-conspirator'. If your shark wins, I suppose it is 'good work', in an expediently sociopathic sense.
Attorney: from the Latin attorni: to twist (both the truth and the opponent).
There's a lot of truth in that. I am always tempted because I like bunnies, cats, and other fluffy beings and would prefer they did not suffer testing when we have too many humans, and so few of them worth knowing, that we could easily lose a few to sadistic and disturbing chemical testing.
However, we'd have to follow due process rules, and those would be heightened because of the severity of the punishment (most likely unconstitutional anyway, since it would probably be found to be "cruel and unusual") which means that we would have very expensive test animals. However, bunnies. It is possible also that hardened violent criminals could be used as well, although the aforementioned constitutional bar would still be a problem.
Then again, who would want to do something unethical in pursuit of the unethical? I'm of two minds on this. Mind #1 (left side) says who cares if the method is ethical so long as the result is good. Mind #2 (right side) says that I'd be a hypocrite, I'd be signaling acceptance of their methods, and worst of all possibly, I'd be making myself more like them. Reminds me of that great Nietzsche quotation:
Do you think all lawyers are this way?
It seems to me that some are not, just like some humans are not cruel, narcissistic and vain.
That there are very few shouldn't bother us, since most people can't code either but we still let them all use computers.
True. I sympathize with your statement. At the same time, I think that we should view ethics not as subject to violations, but as something we keep in good standing to be able to practice any number of professions linked to personal responsibility. It's a threshold measurement. A person stays in good standing so long as they are below that threshold, but as soon as they transgress and go beyond it, it doesn't matter whether it's a small or huge violation; they lose the right to have the power conveyed by that profession.
Please notice that the judge laid down two rules:
RULE 1. IN ORDER TO SUE A DEFENDANT FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, YOU MUST PROVE THAT THE DEFENDANT DOWNLOADED THE ENTIRE COPYRIGHTED VIDEO.
RULE 2. A “SNAPSHOT OBSERVATION” OF AN IP ADDRESS ENGAGED IN DOWNLOADING AT THAT MOMENT IS INSUFFICIENT PROOF OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
So looking at RULE 1 for a moment, suppose someone had an incomplete download that was missing important parts such as:
1. the unskippable commercials
2. skippable commercials
3. previews of craptacular upcoming attractions
4. the FIB warnings
5. the "Macrovision Quality Protection" notice at the very end
Etc.
Does that download count as an incomplete copy?
I am not a lawyer, so I wouldn't know.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Empress Nympho - Oh Bob, do I have any openings that this man might fit?
Crowd - Whooooaaaaaaa!
Bob - Well, we could use another wine steward.
Josephus - I got a great corkscrew!
Crowd - Whooooaaaaaaa!
Josephus - Damn, this a hip crowd!
somewhere where there are fewer rational people
Did you honestly just imply that there are any significant numbers of rational people on Slashdot? LOL! This glorified blog is filled with nothing but Apple shills and Linux nutjobs.
And which are you? Shill or Nutjob?
Not a Cheddar Head.
Re:Is Porn Copyrightable?
Let's change that to "Is obscenity copyrightable?" and conjoin that with another interesting idea "Crazy copyright restrictions are obscene!"
.
Now let's add those two concepts together and come up with "Is obscenity covered by copyright restrictions when I think the copyright restrictions themselves are obscene?!?!".
.
Does the conjunction of those two concepts mean that anything which I feel is obscenely restrictive therefore does NOT have any valid copyright, and thus I may copy it at will? (hyperbole used in this argument; this note added specifically for the sarcasm unaware populace; if this comment whooshes over your head, then please do not bother to reply to it).