Accused Pirate Wins Extortion Case Against Copyright Trolls

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While we do not condone piracy in any way, shape or form, we do like to see copyright trolls get their asses handed to them like this. :D

Law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, pioneers of the BitTorrent copyright troll cases in the United States, have thrown in the towel. The law firm conceded defeat in a fraud and abuse case that was brought against them by an alleged pirate, and were ordered to pay nearly $40,000.
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all over the piece of crap that was the Far Cry movie ? What a waste.
 
Anyone else bothered by the fact that the firm had to pay a mere $40,000 for losing? I remember copyright holders being awarded up to $500,000+ in damages from just one person, while in this case the law firm allegedly attempted to extort thousands of people.
 
BassDX said:
Anyone else bothered by the fact that the firm had to pay a mere $40,000 for losing? I remember copyright holders being awarded up to $500,000+ in damages from just one person, while in this case the law firm allegedly attempted to extort thousands of people.
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I'm not a lawyer, so this may mean exactly nothing. I'm guessing they were forced to pay the defensive legal fees, and maybe any disruption to the defendant? Not sure how that works, but I'm guessing if he wanted to get awarded a larger value, he'd have to go back and sue them. Once again, that's just a guess.
 
Simmonz said:
all over the piece of crap that was the Far Cry movie ? What a waste.
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How is this a waste, this will be a precedent case refereed to in many future cases of this occurring, it has possibly set the ground work to let the RIAA / MPAA and such know they can not simply bully people around.
 
Only 40k for extortion? No wonder they keep doing. "Oh no we lost, here's $40k, let me pay that by cashing 8 checks that got mailed to us by people too scared to get sued"

That said, there was a Far Cry movie? Lemme guess Uwe Boll was the director?? :D Where's the case against those who pirated the Wolverine? or Avengers or any other movie that actually wanted to be watched in the theaters.
 
MrGuvernment said:
How is this a waste, this will be a precedent case refereed to in many future cases of this occurring, it has possibly set the ground work to let the RIAA / MPAA and such know they can not simply bully people around.
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I should have clarified, I meant a waste of the courts time to sue the pirate in the first place. People who watched that movie should be suing the film makers not the other way around.
 
Shouldn't they be disbarred to? Or does their state Bar Association approve of fraud, abuse and extortion?
 
Here in NZ the copyright law says the account holder is liable... (so that takes out the whole issue the US is having with judges saying that an IP doesn't identify a offender... it's almost like the RIAA/MPAA wrote the law... oh wait they spent nearly $1m USD doing that, silly me).

Also the law requires for proof, a correctly filled in complaint form... collect 3, and you go to a tribunal... where you have to prove you didn't download X or Y.. the evidence against you... is a correctly filled out form... So if you were accused, for example, of downloading Justin Beiber - Baby.mp3 yesterday, and you didn't, how do you prove you didn't (short of full Deep Packet Inspection logs from an ISP)
 
J3RK said:
I'm not a lawyer, so this may mean exactly nothing. I'm guessing they were forced to pay the defensive legal fees, and maybe any disruption to the defendant? Not sure how that works, but I'm guessing if he wanted to get awarded a larger value, he'd have to go back and sue them. Once again, that's just a guess.
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If you RTFA you would see that is total award, including fees.
 
Tawnos said:
If you RTFA you would see that is total award, including fees.
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If you UYFH you would have realized that I got that part. What I'm unclear on, is whether you have to then sue back/counter-sue if you want more than that being the defendant. :rolleyes: As I stated, I'm not a lawyer, and this was out of curiosity. (hoping someone brighter than yourself might be able to clarify)
 
Coming from someone who has endured multiple copyright troll attempts, I say FUCK YES SIR.
 
J3RK said:
If you UYFH you would have realized that I got that part. What I'm unclear on, is whether you have to then sue back/counter-sue if you want more than that being the defendant. :rolleyes: As I stated, I'm not a lawyer, and this was out of curiosity. (hoping someone brighter than yourself might be able to clarify)
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You clearly didn't read it (or weren't "bright" enough to get it), as you'd realize the person being awarded in this case was the plaintiff, counter-suing on charges of fraud. They sought and were denied class action status.

There is no defensive case for the person in question. That case was dropped back in December 2010, when the new complaint specifically states that the remaining defendants reside in the District of Columbia. As you can see in this case, the plaintiff (Shirokov) is in Massachusetts, not DC. So this case was the counter-suit, and what was awarded is all that will be awarded.

Note, though, that the original suit by USCG was dropped without prejudice, so there's a very remote likelihood they could sue Shirokov again. Based on this case, though, that's highly unlikely.
 
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