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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've been watching this story unfold at Techdirt.com. It's the most farcical slow motion train wreck I've seen in quite a while. It speaks volumes about USA's litigious culture, the Imaginary Property regime, and the miniscule amount of value added to an individual through managing to graduate from law school and be accepted to practice law. To think that these guys spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for their educations, and this is what the idiots end up doing with them. Astonishing.
Kudos to the judge. I've seen a few posts from guys wishing they could have a womb implanted so they could have his children.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
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.
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In particular, I have a friend who IS a good, honest, thoughtful lawyer, and HIS opinion after working in the field is that lawyers, in general, should be pushed in front of a bus. My astonished question was: Hey man, that includes you, you know. His answer was: Nevertheless, it would be for the common good.