[karajorma]

https://popehat.com/2016/12/16/the-prenda-saga-goes-criminal-steele-and-hansmeier-indicted-on-federal-charges/

Basically a bunch of lawyers decided at one point to start a scam by making a bunch of porn films, uploading them to The Pirate Bay and then suing anyone who tried to download them. It has not ended well for them.

[The E]

Ken White's coverage of it all is a really amazing read.

[Grizzly]

I still think that this sobering post should be in everyone minds. To quote the first two paragraphs (as ... well, they are the ones I am referring to):

I started writing about Prenda Law as a vehicle to illuminate things about the legal system and how it works. But Prenda isn't representative of the system. It isn't representative because Team Prenda and their lawyers have grown steadily more cartoonish and surreal. It isn't representative because other villains get away with abusing the system all the time and don't face consequences like Team Prenda has. It isn't representative because media scrutiny and Prenda's bald-faced ****nucklery have inspired courts to devote unprecedented time and resources to relatively minor matters.

Journalists and bloggers like me have tried to turn Prenda Law into a big story. It isn't one. Paul Hansmeier is fond of the phrase "welcome to the big leagues." Actual big-leaguers don't say that, and don't need to. It's the sort of thing you say to impress a new salesman if you are the poly-blend-clad assistant manager of a Subaru dealership in Modesto. Team Prenda made a few million dollars, but they've never been in the big leagues, and never will be. They are small-time grifters with small-time hearts — petty, grasping, and trite, possessed of a low cunning but no real talent, no class, and no common sense. Following them to comment upon the legal system is like explaining education by laboriously documenting the movements of a C- sophomore who got kicked off yearbook and periodically ****s himself.

[MP-Ryan]

I love Popehat.