Comcast Allegedly Confirms That Prenda Planted Porn Torrents

lightbox32 writes "Porn-trolling operation Prenda Law sued thousands for illegally downloading porn files over BitTorrent. Now, a new document from Comcast appears to confirm suspicions that it was actually Prenda mastermind John Steele who uploaded those files. The allegations about uploading porn to The Pirate Bay to create a 'honeypot' to lure downloaders first became public in June, when an expert report filed by Delvan Neville was filed in a Florida case. The allegations gained steam when The Pirate Bay dug through its own backup tapes to find more evidence linking John Steele to an account called sharkmp4." The problem for Prenda being that initiating the torrent would give anyone who grabbed it an implied license.

Comments

Next step

[mwvdlee]

The only thing that would make this any juicier now is if Prenda itself didn't have the rights to distribute that porn.

Re:Next step

[gagol]

Hopefully, it would not involve lubricant, or at least some sand in it...

Re:Next step

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that would make this any juicier now is if Prenda itself didn't have the rights to distribute that porn.

Well, they forged copyright assignments with an "Alan Cooper" signature, they negotiated some licenses just for going after copyright violations but not distributing content, and they approached several copyright holders only after the violations started.

So there's all the juice you want in there.

Re:Next step

[ArsonSmith]

Why do I find this the scariest part of the summery:

"The allegations gained steam when The Pirate Bay dug through its own backup tapes to find more evidence linking John Steele to an account called sharkmp4.""

no

[phantomfive]

." The problem for Prenda being that initiating the torrent would give anyone who grabbed it an implied license.

Good luck using that idea in court.......

Re:no

[Solandri]

." The problem for Prenda being that initiating the torrent would give anyone who grabbed it an implied license.

Good luck using that idea in court.......

The reasoning seems pretty sound to me:

If Prenda did not have the right to distribute the media, then you could make a fairly convincing argument that those who took part in the torrent cannot be fined more than the copyright owners choose to fine Prenda for committing the exact same crime.

If Prenda had the right to distribute the media and chose to distribute it via bittorrent where they knew people would grab a copy for free, then they were implicitly giving away the media for free and anyone who participated in the torrent did not infringe the copyright. If I stand on a street corner and hand out copies of my book, I cannot then turn around and sue anyone who takes a copy for theft. It's only when someone I did not authorize stands on a street corner handing out copies of my book that I can sue him (and the recipients if they knew the book giveaway wasn't legal) for theft.

The only way I can see this going in Prenda's favor is if the court decides that if you willingly give away your stuff to people who believe it's stolen, then they can be sued for theft. But that makes no sense because you'd be suing people for theft when no stealing occurred, even if the people believed they were stealing. If the speed limit is 55 mph, and I think the speed limit is 45 mph and go 55 mph, a cop can't write me a ticket for breaking the speed limit.

Re: no

[tedleaf]

here in the uk you can be prosecuted for buying legit gear if you believe it to be stolen. also for buying what you believe are drugs even if its sugar or flour.

Re:Doesn't work that way

[Tyr07]

You may not understand how a torrent works.

In order to "upload the files" there is no passively seeing who downloads them.
Downloading a .torrent file itself isn't illegal.

The torrent file links you to someone who has the files in question, and that person actively uploads them to you.

So what has happened is the copyright holder posted a link to their files on one of their computers, and actively uploaded the files to several users, who in turn uploaded them to more users.

Prenda directly uploaded their copyrighted material to users who requested it. This is not a passive function.
This would be the same if you walked into a store, and the owner pulled a book off the shelf, walked out side and handed it to a stranger.
Said nothing, and walked back inside. Then phoned the police and said you didn't have permission to have that book from their store.

Prenda, should they have done this, circumvented all password and user functions to protect their content, and uploaded it freely to those who requested it.
It would be like if you fell on a webpage looking for content, and it started playing in the video box, then they sued you for not signing in / paying for their content.

Evidence seems compelling

[Camael]

You can find a copy of the actual Comcast letter here.

For background :-

In June, Prenda and its boss John Steele were accused of running a “honeypot” based on an expert report authored by Delvan Neville, whose company specializes in monitoring BitTorrent users.

The report hinted that the law firm was seeding the very files they claimed to protect, and found that many of the torrents detailed in Prenda lawsuits originate from a user on The Pirate Bay called ‘Sharkmp4.

In an effort to expose the alleged honeypot, The Pirate Bay then jumped in and revealed the IP-addresses that ‘Sharkmp4used to upload the torrent files.

One of the subpoenas covered the Comcast IP-address 75.72.88.156 used by “Sharkmp4,” as can be seen at the bottom of the list of Pirate Bay IPs shown above.

After a few weeks Comcast returned the subscriber details that matched the IP-address at the time the files were uploaded. As can be seen from their response detailed below, this IP is indeed the Comcast account of Steele Hansmeier PLLC, which is directly connected to Prenda Law.

It's ironic that the method copyright trolls like to abuse, namely linking IP addresses to alleged infringers is now being used against them in this case.

As for your "good luck" comment, the same point was raised in the Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. lawsuit. Specifically, Google claimed that:-

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site.

Although summary judgment was granted to Google on other grounds, I'd say this argument has at least a fair chance of success.

 

Re:Evidence seems compelling

[quantaman]

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site.

Although summary judgment was granted to Google on other grounds, I'd say this argument has at least a fair chance of success.

I'm not sure the Viacom situation applies. Legally Viacom would have been well within its rights to upload a clip, then demand YouTube take down an identical clip uploaded by a user, it's their content. The argument Google made is that Viacom made it unclear when it was uploading clips, even a take down request could turn out to be targeting legit content, making it impossible for YouTube to ensure only authorized content remained.

I think the difference is the people sharing the files never had any expectation that the uploaded Prenda content was legit, so they weren't in the same dilemma as Google. Of course that doesn't mean a judge will be ok with the honeypot idea.

Re:Evidence seems compelling

[Camael]

I'm not sure the Viacom situation applies. ...I think the difference is the people sharing the files never had any expectation that the uploaded Prenda content was legit, so they weren't in the same dilemma as Google.

Technically I have to agree with you that the Viacom case doesn't set any precedent insofar as issues of licence/entrapment are concerned. Google argued for (and successfully obtained) a ruling that it qualified under the safe harbour provisions, so the issue of whether or not Viacom had licensed their content impliedly by uploading it themselves or through their representatives never came into question.

As for the reasonable expectation point, I'm not sure that is even a requirement in law at all, and can lead to absurdities if it is. For example, when a copyright owner puts up a file on torrent knowing it will be downloaded, if the downloading is deemed a civil cause of action or a criminal offence, aren't they then abetting the same? When a copyright owner puts up a file on torrent knowing it will be downloaded, isn't that an offer to the world at large to download the file? Or maybe to draw a simpler analogy, if you offer me something and I take it, can you then turn around and accuse me of theft? Things may not be as clear cut as it seems at first glance.

On /. none us are lawyers, but...

[jopsen]

I'm not sure the Viacom situation applies. Legally Viacom would have been well within its rights to upload a clip, then demand YouTube take down an identical clip uploaded by a user, it's their content.

When you hit the upload button, you also agree to some terms... Google give you the ability to login with the user that uploaded the video and remove it.
But if you file a DMCA take-down notice, and/or sue over it, that's probably abuse of the legal system. Considering that the upload terms explicitly grants Google a license to the work (probably an irrevocable licence).

Re:Doesn't work that way

[garutnivore]

Except, with torrenting, you're distributing without authorization.

Torrenting does not amount to "distributing without authorization." Here's a motion picture that was distributed through torrenting by its author from the get go:

http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

When I torrented it, I did not distribute it without authorization! And I'd expect posters on this site to know that Linux distros are distributed by torrenting, again, with authorization.

I know that the RIAA, MPAA and their ilk want everybody and their brother to believe that torrent == illegal but we should not swallow their bullshit.

Re:Doesn't work that way

[Tyr07]

The issue is that there are legit files torrented. PB has been host to them, as the promo bay and so fourth. So since the only distinction between illegally downloading and distributed copyrighted content without authorization is when people without authorization upload the content, then other people download the content and continue to distribute it.

So if an authorized person uploaded content to other users, those users didn't do anything wrong. You can't actively upload files to people and then turn around, sue them saying you're not allowed. If they permitted that then it's not a crime, it's a new business model, and I'll get right on suing you for reading this content without approval or authorization even though I posted it online to slash dot you're not authorized to view it.

Make sense when I put it that way?

Re:Implied license...

[guytoronto]

Walking is more natural than driving, but I'll take a Porsche over a pair of running shoes anyday.

Re:Implied license...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you're so fat.

Get some exercise, fatty.

Honeypots create copyright confusion

[tekrat]

Honeypots should be illegal.

If I am a band and I decide to distribute my music free to anyone that wants it, it's still copyright "my band", but apparently free to distribute. I've given users on the internet an implied license to download and use.

I cannot turn around later and start suing people who downloaded my music.

So, if you are the copyright holder of a porn movie and you set up a honeypot to sue people, your act of uploading the movie creates an implied license for others to download and use.

Therefore you should NOT be able to sue. It seems to me that copyright holders want it both ways; to be able to freely distribute and freely sue anyone they want, whenever they want.

But the real irony is that; once it's on the internet, the NSA has a copy, and good luck trying to sue those guys...