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Porn Troll Panics, Dismisses Pending Lawsuits
JayRott writes "According to Ars, 'The embattled copyright trolling firm Prenda Law is seeking to contain the fallout from a looming identity theft scandal by voluntarily dismissing lawsuits filed by the shell company AF Holdings. A Minnesota man named Alan Cooper has charged that Prenda fraudulantly used his name as the CEO of AF Holdings, allegations that have attracted the attention of a California judge. Ken at the legal blog Popehat broke the news that Prenda attorney Paul Duffy has sought dismissal of at least four pending infringement cases involving the Prenda-linked shell company AF Holdings. All four dismissals occurred in the Northern District of Illinois.' I don't see how Prenda thinks this is going to make one lick of difference to an already angry Judge."
I think this is akin to getting caught stealing money from the tip jar and trying to make it look like you were just "making change".
Too late, you woke the dragon.
they're trying to make sure they don't piss off another one. One their dirty laundry got out everyone's going to scrutinize their every move. Plus they're going to need to focus their resources on survival right now.
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Patent trolling is of interest to many a nerd. Don't like it, don't read the article. I rarely read a bitcoin article. If you really, really hate it you can go over to Reddit.
Silence is a state of mime.
Given what's happened so far, this will probably make the judge MORE angry than he already is, and he will still expect the lawyers in question to show up on April 2nd and explain their actions so far even if they don't have a single other case pending in the country. Also, if they're madly filling requests for dismissals in other jurisdictions, it's going to be awfully difficult to offer the usual suite of lame excuses for not complying with the order (i.e. if you had the time to file these other requests for dismissal, then you certainly had the time to respond to a judge's order).
I think the only options left for these guys are either to rat each other out first and hope for leniency (standard prisoner's dilemma), flee the country, or pick a new career. And some of those aren't mutually-exclusive options.
We really should be careful for what we wish for
And there it is
www.porntroll.com
If all nerds stay in their basements, then you're right, but...
There is a world out there and patent trolls influence the great work we nerds do.
So if one is going down, we celebrate and drink a root beer.
Privacy is terrorism.
They're just reallocating their budget to cover defending themselves rather than trying to squeeze money out of others.
Even then you hear the same complaints at Reddit as well.
Is it really that hard to just ignore an article?
Making a fake company using the identity of others are pretty damn illegal, if I remember correct.
Goodbye Prenda, you'll never be missed. Except for a few laughs on here at your expense, that is.
If you think porn has nothing to do with nerds, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken.
Funny, every time I think, "let me check out reddit", and actually go to the site I see their site design and just cringe. It is so damn ugly. I usually just leave again right away without clicking into any articles. The few times I have looked at them, they were all puerile.
If all nerds stay in their basements, then you're right, but...
There is a world out there and patent trolls influence the great work we nerds do.
So if one is going down, we celebrate and drink a root beer.
You should return your geek credentials. Prenda is not a patent troll. Read about what they were doing and notice there are no patents involved whatsoever.
*Hands over geek creds*
But I keep the root beer!
Privacy is terrorism.
Maybe young nerds, after you've done all the porn on the internet you can move on to getting things done.
Let's have some names. And addresses and phone numbers. Then maybe some elite Anonymous operators can obtain their credit card numbers and order a bunch of goatse porn and have it delivered to their homes.
It is perfectly legal to include in your property management procedures that you do not rent to people who have an incomone under 3 times the rent, credit scores below a certain number, or lawyers. Our lawyer finds it fucking hilarious, and actually got a response from the fair housing council parasites when he querried them if this was legally acceptable.
If you've *done* all the porn on the Internet, you'll be too sore to get anything else done.
Isn't root beer dude. Some of us needed to use the bathroom, but you were in there with the door locked. We used the empty root beer bottles instead.
Enjoy, man!
"Paul Duffy is very likely doing the right thing legally and ethically by dismissing the cases and informing courts of the allegations against Prenda Law. In doing so he is reducing the risk that he will be accused of continuing any alleged fraud on the court after the March 11, 2013 hearing. "
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130315/16453322344/prenda-law-tries-to-close-barn-door-after-horse-has-lawyered-up.shtml
If you think this has nothing to do with nerds, you're note paying attention.
The very heart of these lawsuits is the bittorrent protocol, IP address tracking, and wireless networks. These lawsuits are a dirty disgusting consequence of the technology *we* created. And the reason nerds should be more interested in these lawsuits than others is because we fully understand how absolutely absurd it is to say just because you saw an IP address on a tracker doesn't mean the subscriber to the account that was assigned that address is an infringer.
So while the Prenda lawsuits are not failing on the technical lack of merits of their absurd claims, it is nice to see this law firm imploding nonetheless.
If you think a penis that can penetrate an eye socket is giant, you must have a really small penis.
after you've done all the porn on the internet
Impossible. Porn is added to the internet faster than you can jack off to it.
Good luck drinking that root beer when you're not in the sudoers file.
Well, kinda. They're not practicing lawyers. They've devolved into LAWYER's next form, POLITICIAN. As lawyers they learn how the law can be twisted and screwed into new shapes to benefit the wealthy, and to win at any cost and on any viable basis. As politicians, they are wealthy, and in a position to make laws.
All the lawyers associated with this law practice (and there appear to be several) need to have their knuckles rapped and be put on notice that a recurrence will be taken into account for disbarment or whichever loss of professional accreditation is appropriate here.
Unless it impacts the lawyers directly, Prenda Law going down will be no more than a hiccup for those sociopathic leeches. A fortnight after paying Prenda's fines and costs they'll pop up in a new law practice to continue their crapping over society.
Amateur
Sadly, copyright and patent law has a LOT to do with nerds. Especially those of us who develop software either for a living or as a hobby.
I can't include any code in a commercial project without first checking whether the license allows my intended use and what I need to do in order to comply. Similarly I don't release any significant amount of code to the public without first attaching an appropriate license to it (or atleast explicitely releasing to the public domain).
If I don't, some asshole (like the one in TFA) that has never produced any net positive to society will try to turn my efforts into a net negative. Some minimal understanding of copyright and patent law should be a minimal requirement for any software developer.
It's the price you have to pay for allowing border-line sociopaths to walk around freely.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Sure, go on over to Reddit. You'll be totally safe from this story over there.
(For the record, all of those links are on Reddit right now. I thought /. was bad at dupes, all of those are 100+, 4 of them are from the last 2 weeks, 3 from the last week....)
All four dismissals occurred in the Northern District of Illinois.' I don't see how Prenda thinks this is going to make one lick of difference to an already angry Judge."
Prenda believes the California judge does not have the power to compel out-of-state Prenda "employees" to appear. I would bet a dollar that one of the Prenda guilty parties lives either in Illinois, or the 7th Circuit federal jurisdiction. If they don't dismiss cases in jurisdictions where they live, and things unfold as they have in California, they could face arrest.
No kidding. It's not for nothing that the last aisle at Fry's (electronics store in the US) before checkout is the porn rack.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Maybe young nerds, after you've done all the porn on the internet you can move on to getting things done.
I don't think that's physically possible.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Lawyers often press to the edge of the law, occasionally skirting the edges (with admonishments by judges), getting away with whatever they can. Prenda law didn't skirt the edges of the law, they clearly operated as trolls outside the law. They used the threat of civil litigation in a blackmail scheme against thousands of people. Sadly they are not alone. They made a judge angry for doing what they did, then further annoyed the judge by trying to 'phone it in' by teleconferencing and videoconferencing with the judge and their lawyers instead of actually appearing before the judge in court (they can't give sworn testimony, and doing thing like saying 'hold on judge, I've got another call coming in' probably doesn't help). The judge was already mad enough so that the lawyers these lawyers had also had lawyers (lawyers cubed), because things were dicey enough that people were sure to be disbarred. The short version: they disrespected the law, and the judge. Soon they will be trying to practice law without a license.
Is porn troll a new fetish?
That would be "troll porn", probably a relatively obscure fetish.
This story is tending towards "porn troll porn", which might even become widely known.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Patent trolling is of interest to many a nerd.
They're not patent trolls but copyright trolls. Still trolls though...
What Fry's do you go to? The last aisle at my Fry's is the random crap aisle.
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I'd love to see Alan Cooper walk into the offices with some lawyers asking where his office is, and asserting his position as named CEO. First thing would be to freeze all accounts, fire everybody, and hand over every piece of paper and computer to the judge.
...
AHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA SNORT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA.
Pfffffffffffft HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Prenda is about to get its ass handed back to it, and set a presidence for the whole troll industry. GGNOREKTHX!
Impossible. Porn is added to the internet faster than you can jack off to it.
Amateur
Nothing that can't be fixed by a perl or python script.
As one of my buddies used to say, a hired lawyer is a lot like an attack dog. You point it in the right direction and let it go do its thing. Your lawyer is NOT your friend, and has no qualms about indiscriminately attacking whoever is pointed at by the person paying the bill.
Truthfully, most situations people find themselves in where they really need a lawyer are situations created by the system itself. There really SHOULD be no reason a sane, somewhat intelligent individual couldn't just represent him/herself in a courtroom and be able to do a perfectly good job. Instead, we have a system designed by lawyers, for lawyers, where the procedural details of a trial, alone, are enough to scare many people off from attempting self-representation. That's not to even begin to mention the reality of things, where the VAST majority of cases get settled before a trial even begins, simply because the lawyers on both sides actually know each other on at least the level of "co-workers" and simply sit down to dinner and/or drinks, and hash out what they're going to tell their clients and how they'll actually settle things so both can pretend they "fought long and hard, and got the best possible outcome".
Like he said...
Well you have to. The site renderer works for the construct program. But there's way too much information to properly render Reddit. You get used to it. I don't even see the ugly site design. All I see is cat pictures, Ron Paul posts, tech articles...
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Corporations are "people" now, right? This one should get the death penalty.
No gas chamber, though. Hang from the neck until dead.
Here is a site where people can anonymously comment on their experiences in his court room. He gets a score of 2.5 out of 10. He has a few high ratings, and lots of one and two ratings: http://www.therobingroom.com/Judge.aspx?ID=1555
This is a rather articulate comment from the site:
I can't imagine a more appropriate court for Prenda Law. It will be a collision between out of control bottom of the barrel scum sucking lawyers and a judge who's legal background is inadequate and has a tendency to use the bench to crush anyone who appears before him. It's literally karma in action, with Biblical style thunderclaps and lightning. What could possibly go wrong?
Why is Snark Required?
And yet you return again to experience that same feeling over and over
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
Well, he has a point in that the place where you actually stand in line waiting for a cashier to open up is festooned with soda, junk food and remaindered DVD movies. I was thinking of the path up to the check-out line, which has the porn rack on the left and the blank CD/DVD bins on the right. (For sharing porn with friends?)
Maybe we should expand the definition to "The electronics, porn, useless crap, and junk food place".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If we allow lawyers to cause other people pain without compensation, that just increases the demand for the services of the legal profession (to protect people from this sort of thing)
Bingo!
I suspect that was the plan all along.