Copyright Trolls Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Theft by Deception

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I wonder how these guys are going to like being defendants in a class action lawsuit? Normally they are the ones threatening people with lawsuits. Heh, this is hilarious.

A new class-action lawsuit is targeting a group of filmmakers, lawyers, and BitTorrent monitoring experts. According to a complaint filed at an Illinois federal court, the "copyright trolls" have been engaging in misleading, threatening and intimidating tactics in order to obtain settlements from alleged movie pirates.
 
"they ask for actual monetary damage" I would really like the industry to prove actual monetary damages. The industry doesn't want to take you to court for theft of a movie. Or even send you to jail. The Industry can't suck you dry of money if your in jail.
 
More interesting and less predictable than the class action are the actual criminal charges filed against Prenda's principals.

Prenda was not just being the usual sort of copyright troll, they were honeypotting by uploading content to pirate sites and also claiming damages for content they didn't own or represent. I'm honestly surprised they didn't spring a RICO charge on them just for icing on the cake. (Not that RICO charges ever really stick, even on most real mobsters, blame the anti-antitrust precedents being set lately. That's a whole other thing.) Sure they were extorting grandma for downloading porn, but they all do that. These guys went the extra scumbag mile for these charges.

On top of the real bad stuff even worse stuff. They didn't even go the usual scumbag route of "John Doe" suits to find users' real names, they just made up fake names and identities and sued them via a fake defendant for hacking (not piracy) in order to more easily obtain information. Some rando would respond to the complaint and promise to give up his "accomplices" so Prenda would be awarded early discovery. They'd then subpoena these "hackers" information and send threatening letters.
 
sirnephilim said:
More interesting and less predictable than the class action are the actual criminal charges filed against Prenda's principals.

Prenda was not just being the usual sort of copyright troll, they were honeypotting by uploading content to pirate sites and also claiming damages for content they didn't own or represent. I'm honestly surprised they didn't spring a RICO charge on them just for icing on the cake. (Not that RICO charges ever really stick, even on most real mobsters, blame the anti-antitrust precedents being set lately. That's a whole other thing.) Sure they were extorting grandma for downloading porn, but they all do that. These guys went the extra scumbag mile for these charges.

On top of the real bad stuff even worse stuff. They didn't even go the usual scumbag route of "John Doe" suits to find users' real names, they just made up fake names and identities and sued them via a fake defendant for hacking (not piracy) in order to more easily obtain information. Some rando would respond to the complaint and promise to give up his "accomplices" so Prenda would be awarded early discovery. They'd then subpoena these "hackers" information and send threatening letters.
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This doesn't appear to be about Prenda though I wouldn't be too surprised if Clear Skies Network has some sort of relation to them, especially with the Illinois connection. I think you're also mixing up two of the tricks used by Prenda, I might be mixing up some of it too but I remember it slightly different. I thought that at one point they were using john doe suits to start with and then would cut a deal with the first person to get back to them that they would let them skate in return for being a compliant defendant that wouldn't object to further discovery to out their "accomplices", allowing them to get a court order for names. At another point they tried to get the activity classified as hacking because it would make it easier to get names as well.

The Illinois part is interesting because there was an ex-XXAA lobbyist turned judge that rubber stamped a number of highly questionable requests by Prenda and I believe Malibu Media(another troll) there. It sounds like that judge should be investigated too from what I've read.
 
Ebernanut said:
This doesn't appear to be about Prenda though I wouldn't be too surprised if Clear Skies Network has some sort of relation to them, especially with the Illinois connection. I think you're also mixing up two of the tricks used by Prenda, I might be mixing up some of it too but I remember it slightly different. I thought that at one point they were using john doe suits to start with and then would cut a deal with the first person to get back to them that they would let them skate in return for being a compliant defendant that wouldn't object to further discovery to out their "accomplices", allowing them to get a court order for names. At another point they tried to get the activity classified as hacking because it would make it easier to get names as well.

The Illinois part is interesting because there was an ex-XXAA lobbyist turned judge that rubber stamped a number of highly questionable requests by Prenda and I believe Malibu Media(another troll) there. It sounds like that judge should be investigated too from what I've read.
Click to expand...
Well the fake-hacker defendant thing is definitely in the federal indictment. When some courts got wise to the fact that an IP address wasn't sufficient to identify a pirate and started denying discovery in John Doe cases, Prenda created a shell company and claimed that some no-good hacker types broke in and downloaded the films from the fake company's nonexistent servers. They used a patsy to appear as a hacker they'd caught, not clear whether or not they were actually accused of anything but I doubt it, it would take one defendant mentioning extortion to a judge to bring the whole thing down. And it's not mentioned in the filings so far. The trick is that since someone was essentially confessing to the crime it bypassed the Doe problem. It's also suborning perjury and punishable with jail time.

The guys I feel sorry for (besides the direct victims, I mean) are the investigators they hired. Guessing as far as the guys doing the tracking knew this was all above board, and now they're going to have this stain on their reputation.

You're right though, I skipped the bit where this was another group of irredeemable bastiches. The method seemed so similar I just assumed it was the same people running the same scam.
 
sirnephilim said:
Well the fake-hacker defendant thing is definitely in the federal indictment. When some courts got wise to the fact that an IP address wasn't sufficient to identify a pirate and started denying discovery in John Doe cases, Prenda created a shell company and claimed that some no-good hacker types broke in and downloaded the films from the fake company's nonexistent servers. They used a patsy to appear as a hacker they'd caught, not clear whether or not they were actually accused of anything but I doubt it, it would take one defendant mentioning extortion to a judge to bring the whole thing down. And it's not mentioned in the filings so far. The trick is that since someone was essentially confessing to the crime it bypassed the Doe problem. It's also suborning perjury and punishable with jail time.
Click to expand...

I just looked it up and I guess I missed or forgot the Skyler and Mullen cases. It definitely isn't the only time they pulled that trick though, the Merkel case is the one that stuck with me because he gave details in an affidavit about how they pressured him into cooperating.

I don't normally follow legal or piracy stuff but this whole thing was so over the top and out there that I found it fascinating, it's good to see all the crap they pulled start to bite them in the ass.
 
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