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Federal Court Pulls Plug On Porn Copyright Shakedown

Posted by Soulskill on from the millions-of-people-unwilling-to-admit-to-being-relieved dept.

netbuzz writes: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling it a 'crushing blow for copyright trolls.' A federal appeals court today has for the first time ruled against what critics call a shakedown scheme aimed at pornography downloaders and practiced by the likes of AF Holdings, an arm of notorious copyright troll Prenda Law. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit called the lawsuit 'a quintessential example of Prenda Law's modus operandi' in reversing a lower court ruling that would have forced a half-dozen ISPs to identify account holders associated with 1,058 IP addresses."

5 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. The US needs a loser-pays legal system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    All other related issues are just symptoms.

    1. Re:The US needs a loser-pays legal system by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Creating a system where the poor can't afford to sue because they may have to pay for the other guy's legal costs means that only the rich would be able to afford to defend themselves.

      That's already true, so lets make life better for most instead of none (legally speaking).

      Well ,unless you really love lawyers who benefit most from the "sue everyone and see what sticks" approach.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    2. Re:The US needs a loser-pays legal system by PRMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why not make the losing plaintiffs the lesser of the 2 legal bills? Big corp sues small guy. Small guy wins. Big corp pays his costs.

      Small guy sues big corp. Small guy loses. Small guy pays the equivalent of his legal bills to the big corp.

      That way, overspending isn't covered.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    3. Re:The US needs a loser-pays legal system by Compholio · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Have both parties pay into a pool managed by the court, legal bills need to be addressed to the court and each party can only spend half of the pool. Frivolous cases can still be reimbursed as with the current system, but you need to think more carefully about any money you spend since that money also helps your opponent.

  2. Re:Unify the two tracks of our legal system by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's an interesting idea, but if you raise the evidentiary bar you raise the cost of litigating civil cases. The higher cost would probably also increase damage awards, necessary for individual plaintiffs to pursue cases with more rigorous evidence requirements. You could actually end up making it more lucrative for trial lawyers by increasing the total amount they receive or cause them to increase the percentage of settlement monies they claim, which also impacts plaintiffs who would obtain less relief through smaller net judgements after legal fees.

    There's also the chilling effect it could have on individual civil plaintiffs -- if the evidentiary standard is higher, many people may be discouraged from seeking relief in the courts because they would be even more unable to compete against deep-pocketed adversaries.