Judge Refers Prenda Copyright Trolls To Criminal Investigators 134
A reader tipped us to news that the infamous copyright trolls Prenda Law are in a bit of trouble with the law. Today, U.S. District Court judge Otis Wright issued sanctions against Prenda. He recommends that the lawyers involved be disbarred and fined, granted court and lawyer fees to the defendants (doubled for punishment), and has referred them for criminal prosecution. Among the findings of fact are that they set up dozens of shell companies to disguise the true owners, actually committed identity theft, dodged taxes on settlement money, lied to the court, and abused the court by setting settlements on flimsy charges just below the cost of a defense.
Re:Judge has a great sense of humour/justice (Score:5, Informative)
Referring to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the IRS's CID is like siccing both the Klingons and the Romulans on Prenda, except that the Romulans have a somewhat better grasp of due process than IRS CID.
Prenda Law certainly won't live long and prosper
Re:The fact that.. (Score:5, Informative)
It took this ONE judge basically collecting 5-10 other Fedral cases after putting out an order to consolidate Prenda's cases to fewer jurisdictions. It was only after getting a half dozen other circuit courts to agree, he could even read that they had been using different names and such in different courts. He broke down a lot of the corporate veil judges normally don't get to do.
It took special permissions from other courts and over a year of sorting paperwork to get ONE SET of troll lawyers. Effectively all this does its chase the trolls out of HIS court, and into courts where the judges won't catch them.
Fundraiser for statue/artwork (Score:5, Informative)
In sutiations like these, everybody always talk about how cool it would be to "do something". Several people have already mentioned a statue.
Well here goes: The unofficial Otis D. Wright Statue Fundraiser
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-unofficial-otis-d-wright-ii-statue-fundraiser [indiegogo.com]
Go throw a buck or five at Judge Wright. Show the world that your respect for this man reaches further that a simple forum-post :-)
- Jesper
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
You know this is a common misinterpretation, right?
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/17/nyregion/l-kill-the-lawyers-a-line-misinterpreted-599990.html [nytimes.com]
Basically the rebellion knows that lawyers maintain order in society and in order to throw it into chaos they need to get rid of the lawyers.
Also,
"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.
http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html [spectacle.org]
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
Alternately:
Shakespeare was making a lawyer joke [spectacle.org]
Some highlights from that article:
Far from "eliminating those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution" or portraying lawyers as "guardians of independent thinking", it's offered as the best feature imagined of yet for utopia. It's hilarious. A very rough and simplistic modern translation would be "When I'm the King, there'll be two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot" "AND NO LAWYERS".
and
The argument of this remark as in fact being favorable to lawyers is a marvel of sophistry, twisting of the meaning of words in unfamiliar source, disregard of the evident intent of the original author and ad hominem attack. Whoever first came up with this interpretation surely must have been a lawyer.
Re: Good (Score:4, Informative)