[karajorma]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/prenda-hammered-judge-sends-porn-trolling-lawyers-to-criminal-investigators/

For those of you who haven't been watching the case, a law company by the name of Prenda Law have been suing people for downloading porn movies. They deliberately set their damages at just less than the amount it would cost the defendant to go to court, basically making it not worth their while to defend themselves.

Unfortunately for them, they picked the wrong judge to **** with. When someone did decide to defend themselves and hired a lawyer, the case rapidly evolved from whether or not porn was illegally downloaded into "Who the **** are these Prenda Law guys, and what exactly is happening to the money made in these cases?"

Quite frankly, I wish more judges would take this sort of thing to heart when cases are brought over IP violations.

[The E]

That whole saga is ****ing epic. I strongly recommend reading Ken White's coverage of it over on popehat.com as well.

[karajorma]

I've read popehat a few times about the case, haven't read anything he wrote on the final resolution of the case though. I only wish we could have bugged their offices and listened to them as it slowly dawned on them that they'd unleashed an enormous ****storm upon themselves.

EDIT :  I read the popehat round up.

This order is catastrophic to Prenda and its attorneys. It will be filed in every case in which they are fighting sanctions across the nation, and cannot help but have a galvanizing effect on those proceedings. The U.S. Attorney's Office will very likely launch a grand jury investigation, and the IRS CID will assist. Federal grand jury investigations are very slow, but represent experienced practitioners bringing almost unlimited resources to bear against their targets. State bars and federal bars will launch their own investigations. Prenda Law's principals will face dangerous, expensive, relentless attacks from all sides, and it is entirely possible they will face criminal charges if the feds agree with Judge Wright's conclusions.

Can they appeal? Certainly. That, too, will be protracted and expensive. An appeal filed this week might be briefed in October 2013 and heard by the Ninth Circuit in, say, May 2014. The other courts won't wait to rule on sanctions, and state and federal bars likely won't delay. The U.S. Attorney's Office and IRS CID certainly won't. They may take many months, or even years, but they grind. Oh, do they grind.

Judge Wright's order, with its Star Trek references, shows imagination. But all the imagination in the galaxy couldn't produce a much worse result for Prenda, Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy, and Gibbs.

If they are smart, they're talking to their lawyers about flipping on each other right now.

I love the fact that they're now in a 4 way prisoners dilemma. Looks like the schadenfreude isn't quite over yet.

[Ghostavo]

Watching this case has been like watching a long train wreck. Each time one believes that Prenda cannot be in a worse position, they seem to find ways of surprising you.

So much has happened that I no longer know what they are being charged with. In the beginning there was a case for identity theft, lately there has been talk about funds being diverted to one of the lawyers' childrens' fund (and that particular lawyer doesn't even have children).

[MP-Ryan]

I love judges.  They get a bad rap from the general public, but its a rare day when I read a well-written judicial decision and don't find myself agreeing wholeheartedly.  That's epic on a whole new level.

EDIT:  Sent this to some work colleagues.  We've all read and heard some pretty pissed off judges in our time, but this takes the cake.

[Mika]

Holy crap! Give this judge a raise, he knows what he is doing and apparently does have a very good moral standard!

Not to mention shows some taste in writing the penalties!

In footnote 5, explaining the amount of sanctions he imposed, he says "This punitive portion is calculated to be just below the cost of an effective appeal."

 

I'm gonna forward this too to some of my colleagues, this is downright hilarious!

[The E]

It's the gift that keeps on giving!

[karajorma]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/prenda-blows-sanctions-deadline-ordered-to-pay-an-extra-1000-per-day/

And it continues. I love the way that the law is so sick of their bull**** that when it came to time to pick a judge, they just told them to go back to the same guy they had last time.

[MP-Ryan]

I keep following this on popehat and it just keeps getting better.  These guys are seriously screwed.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that one of the guys in this porn scam is named John Steel?  Seems with a name like that he had to end up getting screwed in porn one way or the other.

[karajorma]

I keep following this on popehat and it just keeps getting better.  These guys are seriously screwed.

I love their dedication to the belief that they can somehow lawyer their way out of this.

[Klaustrophobia]

yeah, but it's not as though it's an unfounded belief.  99% of the time, you CAN lawyer out of such things.  their entire business is based upon abusing and working the legal system.

[karajorma]

They should be starting to get that they're in a little too deep at this point though. Stalling at around $7000 / day is going to be more than the cost of settling in just over a month. Even if they don't get hit by any of the "additional sanctions" they were promised.


That said, I'm enjoying watching them stall. The more money they lose, the funnier it becomes.

[NGTM-1R]

their entire business is based upon abusing and working the legal system.

Their entire business is based upon abusing people who don't understand the legal system, via the legal system.

Attempting to abuse the system itself is somewhat different.

[MP-Ryan]

Attempting to abuse the system itself is somewhat different.

There are few mistakes in life greater than that of angering a judge when you work in the legal system.  Anyone who's ever been inside a courthouse should know that.  Apparently the Prenda bunch missed that part of the orientation tour.

These guys are unbelievably ****ed, and it's hilarious that they're apparently too stupid to realize that.  If the bar doesn't get them, the US Attorney's office will.  If the US Attorney doesn't, the IRS will.  And if the IRS doesn't [which is so far beyond the scope of imagination I don't know why I even say it], someone is going to turn around and flatten them in civil court.  All of this besides the fact that failure to pay the sanctions could lead to asset forfeiture or jail time.

Actually, the greatest likelihood is that all of these things are going to happen, probably around the same time.  Couldn't happen to nicer people.

[karajorma]

The theory is floating around that because they spent so much effort to cheat the IRS, they simply can't scrape together the $81,000 they need to pay without exposing more illegality (i.e the money is in shell companies the judge hasn't discovered yet).

I don't know if that's true, but it would ****ing hilarious if it was.

[Ghostavo]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/prenda-seeded-its-own-porn-files-via-bittorrent-new-affidavit-shows/

Again, slow motion train wreck.

[Nuke]

its not just trolling anymore, now it sounds like they are doing something very illegal. apparently producing and selling pornography is less profitable than suing people for copywrite infringement.

[Bobboau]

does anyone have a copy of their stuff? I'm kinda curious as to what sort of OC is at the center of this.

... :|

[NGTM-1R]

does anyone have a copy of their stuff? I'm kinda curious as to what sort of OC is at the center of this.

... :|

What, the porn itself?