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US Requests 12-Year Prison Sentence For Prenda 'Copyright Troll' Lawyer (torrentfreak.com)
"The U.S. is recommending a 12.5 year prison sentence for Paul Hansmeier, one of the lead attorneys of the controversial law firm Prenda," reports TorrentFreak:
Last summer, Hansmeier admitted that he is guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering. With the final decision coming up, the Government and the defendant have now issued their sentencing recommendations. According to the Government, it is clear that Hansmeier was the driving force behind the entire scheme.... "Paul Hansmeier selected the pornographic movies for his brother to upload based upon how attractive they would be to BitTorrent users, thus deliberately encouraging the piracy Hansmeier pretended to hate," the Government writes...
With the IP-addresses that were obtained through this honeypot scheme, Prenda requested subpoenas to obtain the names and addresses of Internet subscribers. These people were then threatened into settling for figures up to $3,000. Whether they were guilty or not appeared to be irrelevant. "Hansmeier was generally content to take this step without investigating whether the subscriber was, in fact, the infringer. Hansmeier thus inflicted plenty of pain on persons who did not, in fact, download his pornographic bait," the Government writes.
In total, Prenda Law generated roughly $3,000,000 from the fraudulent copyright lawsuits they filed at courts throughout the United States. While it is by no means illegal to go after file-sharers, the Prenda attorneys crossed a line by repeatedly lying to or misleading the courts. Hansmeier also filmed and produced many videos himself, leading the court to believe that these were from a third-party company... Also, the court was led to believe that pirates caused financial damage, even though the videos were never commercially distributed.
Arguing for a sentence of 150 months, the government writes that Hansmeier "was greedy, arrogant, devious, mendacious, and consistently positioned other people to be damaged by his conduct, even as he enjoyed the proceeds of the scheme he orchestrated." Hansmeier's attorney counters that his client should spend no more than 87 months in prison, with an additional three years of supervision -- and that there should be no fine, since restitution will be paid to those damaged by his scheme.
"Either way," writes TorrentFreak, "it is clear that the Prenda attorney will likely spend several years in prison."
With the IP-addresses that were obtained through this honeypot scheme, Prenda requested subpoenas to obtain the names and addresses of Internet subscribers. These people were then threatened into settling for figures up to $3,000. Whether they were guilty or not appeared to be irrelevant. "Hansmeier was generally content to take this step without investigating whether the subscriber was, in fact, the infringer. Hansmeier thus inflicted plenty of pain on persons who did not, in fact, download his pornographic bait," the Government writes.
In total, Prenda Law generated roughly $3,000,000 from the fraudulent copyright lawsuits they filed at courts throughout the United States. While it is by no means illegal to go after file-sharers, the Prenda attorneys crossed a line by repeatedly lying to or misleading the courts. Hansmeier also filmed and produced many videos himself, leading the court to believe that these were from a third-party company... Also, the court was led to believe that pirates caused financial damage, even though the videos were never commercially distributed.
Arguing for a sentence of 150 months, the government writes that Hansmeier "was greedy, arrogant, devious, mendacious, and consistently positioned other people to be damaged by his conduct, even as he enjoyed the proceeds of the scheme he orchestrated." Hansmeier's attorney counters that his client should spend no more than 87 months in prison, with an additional three years of supervision -- and that there should be no fine, since restitution will be paid to those damaged by his scheme.
"Either way," writes TorrentFreak, "it is clear that the Prenda attorney will likely spend several years in prison."
Hansmeier's a fool. This quote made me say it: "Hansmeier selected the pornographic movies for his brother to upload based upon how attractive they would be to BitTorrent users, thus deliberately encouraging the piracy Hansmeier pretended to hate".
APK
P.S.=> What was he THINKING? Was he THINKING @ all?? apk
There's a business model involving downloading porn?
Are they hiring?
Have gnu, will travel.
Restitution? How exactly?
Either the victims had to pay that $3000, or defend themselves; either carries extra stress (and potential embarrassment/peripheral pain) beyond the costs that was purposely inflicted by this asshole. They should definitively fine the maximum possible.
AC comments get piped to
Well, looks like one troll will be introduced to a new kind of "peer to peer sharing".
But the fines should be made sufficient to cover the outlay that the targets had to pay Prenda, plus the "pain and suffering"/lost work days etc. that have been due to this.
I'm just finding all this quite sad; seems like ethics is treated as just another obstacle to circumvent to make a profit/gain more personal power these days. Politics, business and even on the personal level.
There are zillions of free ad supported porn sites. I have no sympathy for IP theft of any sort be it music, software, movies including porn, books, or anything else produced by someone else at their expense not intended to be given away free.
Even in this case, yes, he is a scumbag but they didnâ(TM)t know his porn wasnt for sale. They are still thieves. There are only bad people in this story. A scumbag blackmailing thieves.
AC comments get piped to
The icing on the cake would be if it turned out one of the talents was underage.
AC comments get piped to
Hansmeier's attorney counters that his client should spend no more than 87 months in prison
Not a very good negotiator; he should be asking for a dismissal of all charges - just because.
Thank you.
Its 2019. How is torrent still a thing?
If a cable provider did this, or a bank, this would be considered entrepreneurship.
With the repeated AC postings containing the same lame, tired argument, it's clear you're one of the idiots of this law firm trying to justify your illegal actions.
Are you the leader of the troll anti-defamation league?
After all Hansmeier is tarnishing the reputations of the attorneys and lawyers that are good and honest people -- All 2% of Them!
Disclaimer: I come from an extended family of Lawyers. (Sadly)
There was no IP theft. He created the content, then posted it and threatened people with infringement. His whole market was to threaten people into giving him money. Nobody could have infringed on his IP as it was he that created and posted it free of charge for others to view.
He is a scumbag, and so are you for defending this lying, cheating, arrogant PoS
What about pain and suffering for those falsely accused? Must be worth at least another 15 yrs - so 27 yrs total.
Should have to repay ever single person he ever sued or got money from, with those debts not being able to be discharged with a bankruptcy, and an amount automatically taken out of ever paycheck he ever gets (leaving him with minimum wage)until everyone is paid back....along with all his possessions sold (other than personal items).
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Maybe you guys can compromise and use the Australian solution: Prenda Law should be required to send refund checks, but they can rename themselves (and the associated bank account from which the checks are issued) to "The Anal Sex and Fetish Perversion Company".
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This guys debauchery isn't limited to internet piracy.
He also had a penchant for suing restaurants and businesses for supposed ADA compliance violations, of course offering to settle for a few grand instead of going to trial.
https://minnlawyer.com/2018/08...
He would make a great Democrat!
It's almost always good news when a lawyer in the USA does hard time but this is particularly sweet.
Just to make some trouble here on Slashdot let's all remember that the destabilization of the copyright office started when the REPUBLICANS decreed it should pay for itself. So granting patents for
"[ whatever ] on a computer" became a revenue stream.
Merely incarcerating this guy isn't sufficient. Incarceration and castration seems more equitable.
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You are fucking stupid. I did not defend him nor am I related in any way to him or his legal defense. He is a scumbag. He should be in jail for at least 10 years for extortion and a bunch of other shit. He should pay full restitution to his victim.
However his victims are still guilty of IP theft. On the scale of things it is murder >> extortion n blackmail >> IP theft. IP theft is not as bad as what this asshole was doing but is it still a crime.
Thank you for being a mindless dipshit who lacks reading comprehension skills. Spend less time on your p2p client and more time on basic understanding of the written word and you might be able to afford to buy your content instead of stealing it. And god forbid you might spend your time developing content others might want.
So this particular scumbag (no dispute from me there) is going to be getting about 3x the sentence of one Mr. Manafort, who actually took actions in the Ukraine that probably have cost human lives, and has actively subverted one of the world's largest democratic republics in their most recent election (the US). Got it.
I was a member of a transgender sex site and I saw a video from the site on the torrent site cheggit which was not available to download from the sex site. This file was the one I was accused of illegally downloading. Sites like grooby worked with these assholes to distribute content in order to set up a honeypot to make a living from. If this information would have been made public to my family back then I would have ended my life. This guy deserves much more punishment than he is getting.
The public needs a list of all of those infringers. Publish their names, addresses, and all other personal information.
Are you shitting me? You are the fucking moron. Hansmeier created content, gave it to his brother. And then, "Go put this on BitTorrent."
He gave his fucking IP away freely, there was no theft... You dumb fuck.
"Paul Hansmeier selected the pornographic movies for his brother to upload ..."
So the the person that ordered the upload was the copyright owner, the upload was intentional. If someone stands in the street with a stack of books they wrote themselves and gives one to everyone that asks there is no crime. If the author instead instructed someone else to distribute books in the same manner there would still not be any crime.
Of course the people downloading the crap wouldn't be aware of that.
I have no sympathy for IP theft of any sort
Thanks but no one recalls asking. ;)
Don't worry, his wife picked up his mantle after he was disbarred. The ADA lawsuits continue!
Takes one to know one, dipshit.
The public needs a list of all of those infringers. Publish their names, addresses, and all other personal information.
You can start by posting your info here, since you obviously support the illegal tactics of this lawyer.
You lawyer types are all the same - any challenge to what you say and you double down on your flawed arguments, and try to paint yourselves/your clients as the victims. Pathetic.
These porno films are implicitly free to download?
Checks? In Australia it would be "cheque" and ... pretty much no-one uses them anymore, money is transferred directly between bank accounts.
Faster, safer, cheaper.
And no-one except the recipient would see "The Anal Sex and Fetish Perversion Company" on their bank statement.
"Arguing for a sentence of 150 months, the government writes that Hansmeier "was greedy, arrogant, devious, mendacious, and consistently positioned other people to be damaged by his conduct, even as he enjoyed the proceeds of the scheme he orchestrated.""
This sounds totally like 'uber, facebook, amazon, google...' and all the other similiar shitholes. Why don't they apply the same 'holier than thou' attitude there ?
^_^
This just sounds like 'emotionally based argument' to support something which you couldn't find a solid argument for.
Dudes, average persons don't care about anything. I have a lot of friends who are always complaining about their poorness. But they don't change the situation. I said to them that they can read https://topbrokers.com/forex-spreads-comparison and do trading. So, they just didn't want to listen to me.
Well, you know what they say. "99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name."
Right. Because it's a universally accepted legal principle that a wrongdoer who gets caught should, in the absolute worst case, break even. Go
back to square one, if you like.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Because it's a universally accepted legal principle that a corrupt business owner who gets caught should, in the absolute worst case, break even."
The revision is the way it actually works. Just ask a Wall Street banker.
Why is Snark Required?
Dudes, average persons don't care about anything. I have a lot of friends who are always complaining about their poorness. But they don't change the situation. I said to them that they can read https://topbrokers.com/forex-spreads-comparison and do trading. So, they just didn't want to listen to me.