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Rogue Lawyers Made $6 Million Shaking Down Porn Pirates, Feds Say (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The copyright violation notice is every pirate's worst nightmare, a clear legal sign that a major copyright holder knows what you've been torrenting and is ready to make you pay for your crimes. But according to an indictment filed today in Minnesota federal court, that system has also opened the door to some very creative forms of fraud. The indictment alleges that two lawyers -- Paul R. Hansmeier and John L. Steele -- used the copyright system to extort roughly $6 million out of porn pirates over the course of three years. Prosecutors say the lawyers uploaded their own pornographic videos to torrent services -- including the embattled Pirate Bay -- then aggressively targeted users who downloaded the content, discovering names through the standard copyright violation process and then threatening pirates with damages up to $150,000 unless they agreed to a settlement. The typical cost of a settlement was $4,000, far less than the cost of challenging the order in open court. Throughout the process, Feds allege that Hansmeier and Steele concealed their role in uploading the videos, although the underlying copyright claim was often legitimate. The duo typically obtained copyright to the videos through shell companies, although in some cases they actually filmed and produced their own pornography as part of the scheme.
Could someone provide a link to the porn so I can better evaluate the case and comment appropriately?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Hansmeier is a serious douche, who also has a penchant for suing companies for supposed lack of ADA compliance.
http://www.citypages.com/news/...
It's pretty sad that attorneys are able to do this shit for so long and for so much damage before the hammer gets dropped on them.
although in some cases they actually filmed and produced their own pornography as part of the scheme.
Next step up from fucking your clients over... record it and use it to fuck over others too!
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
That means they made a choice to distrubute it. No one illegal obtained it, they flat out shared it. They were the source of the content.
That means each person they did this too they owe the money back to the person who torrented the file, and if the lawyers violated the copyright holders copyright, they have to pay for each time the file was uploaded to another user through their torrent.
Same penalties.
Read the indictment, it spells it out pretty clearly. They fraudulently obtained search orders by lying to the courts and concealing their involvement in the scheme. Popehat has been following their adventures for years.
since I read that our schools have been graduating lawyers in record numbers. Law degrees are highly desirable to schools. They're cheap as hell for the school (a book and a bunch of teachers to read it and grade papers) and expensive as hell for the student. Pure profit really. I haven't looked but I bet if I did I'd find law departments expanding while more useful departments (medicine, education, Comp sci) contracting.
All these lawyers mean we've got a glut of the damn things. Thousands of highly educated people with no scruples (they're taught out of them so they can focus on their clients interests) and with no job prospects? Yeah, that's some bad ju-ju right there...
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On first glance my presumption was that the threats to sue for copyright infringement were barely disguised shakedowns to avoid public embarrassment. Actually going to court for a questionable infringement claim would be expensive and time-consuming for the bandits.
They would be exposed as well but they don't seem to have any shame.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.