Prenda Copyright Troll Sentenced To 14 Years (boingboing.net) 53
JustAnotherOldGuy shares a report from Boing Boing: For years, Paul Hansmeier terrorized internet users through his copyright trolling racket Prenda Law, evading the law through shell companies and fraud, until, finally, he was brought to justice and pleaded guilty last August. Now, Hansmeier has been sentenced to 14 years in prison and must pay $1.5 million in restitution to his victims -- the same people he accused of being copyright infringers and then bullied into paying "settlement" fees to avoid being dragged through expensive litigation. Any Prenda Law victim can contact the Minnesota DA to apply for compensation. Prenda's tactics included identity theft, entrapment (uploading their own files to The Pirate Bay in order to generate downloads that they could threaten people over), and several kinds of fraud. Hansmeier and his co-defendant, John Steele, were indicted for money laundering, perjury, mail and wire fraud. Both men entered into plea agreements.
cue hysterical laughter! (Score:2)
Justice may be slow but it often is achieved.
Re:cue hysterical laughter! (Score:4, Interesting)
I will agree with you that justice is slow, but I disagree that it is often achieved. Not only is justice rarely achieved it is also rarely sought after as well. Court is a game where he who has the most money, often wins.
Justice comes from the word Justified and has nothing to do with the law despite the idea our "in/unJustice System" puts forward. Punishment for breaking the law is not Justice on the merit of its dispensation alone. There are many unjustified laws, and therefore unjustified punishments.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
The fuck it does. You're gonna come on Slashdot and just pull that out of your ass? It comes from the late Old English iustise ‘administration of the law’, via Old French from Latin justitia, from justus
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com].
Re: (Score:1)
Swift it isn't...
The case started in 2013, but they were pulling these tactics for quite a bit longer. Sadly, wikipedia lists their take for 2012 to be about 1.3 million and an estimated haul of around 15 million.
I suppose around 12 million and ~10 years in prison isn't a bad deal after all.
I hope his wife takes all of the money while he is gone.
Re: (Score:1)
The case started in 2013, but they were pulling these tactics for quite a bit longer. Sadly, wikipedia lists their take for 2012 to be about 1.3 million and an estimated haul of around 15 million.
So how much of that went in costs to run this? How much did the other actors in this take? Looks like his personal take was $3 million, which of course means he should have to return that but how much went fighting the lawsuit that took him down? For a lawyer this probably counts as a financial loss compared to what he could have made "honestly".
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe a rich guy is actually going to jail for something he did.
He was sentenced to 14 years. The average inmate serves 60% of the original sentence, and non-violent inmates usually serve less than half.
He won't be doing hard-time in a cellblock. He'll be going to a a minimum security facility, similar to a college dormitory.
He will have work assignments, but still have enough free time to do reading, online research, and planning for his next business venture.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Your unsourced statistics apply only to state prisoners, if that. He was sentenced for Federal charges in Federal court. Thus [pewtrusts.org]:
Re: Wow (Score:2)
Gulag FTW!
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
There is probably some hidden committee somewhere that monitors this and whenever the idea that "the law" actually has something to do with justice or protecting ordinary citizens starts to become too obviously a lie, they select a scapegoat from the less-well connected rich people and give them a relatively moderate punishment in relation to their crimes.
Re: (Score:3)
' rich guy is actually going to jail for something he did.'
He just got caught. There's plenty of legal firms seeding swarms, then sending DMCA claims to providers. Echelon Compliance and Rightscorp Inc still does to this day.The minute they join a swarm, they're a participant in passing the data they they're contracted to protect.
Re: (Score:2)
But what is ridiculous is that it seems the only problem with Prenda was that they made the content. Like the people being extorted by copyright trolls care if they're doing it for a file made by a 3rd party.
Re: (Score:2)
'They use custom software that doesn't upload anything'
Impossible, the swarm chokes any client that requests peers and doesn't pass data. In addition to the fact that the receipt of copywritten data doesn't prove that you don't have the right to use the data, the data hasn't been transferred until 100 percent of the file has been received.
Re: (Score:1)
In prison he will whimper when he's banged.
I can't be more happy... (Score:3)
Re: I can't be more happy... (Score:2)
Yay for state-sponsored torture!!
Re: (Score:2)
Normally I'd be sympathetic but your abuse fantasy cut that short. I guess gay abuse pornography is your thing?
Let's not forget their 2013 Star Trek judgment: (Score:2)
Ding Dong! (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck these guys. Seriously. Few individuals have single-handedly done more direct long-term harm to the economy, the legal system, and the forward progress of technology at once than these two jackasses. Usually this type of impact takes a nefarious megacorp like Microsoft. Nobody here will genuinely lament this ruling as too heavy-handed, though I wouldn't put it past a few trolls to claim otherwise.
Re: Ding Dong! (Score:2)
If this guy is as bad as many people claim, it would have been nice to see him convicted by a jury of his peers. Even bad people deserve a fair trial.
Instead the gestapo forced a confession out of him. Gotta feed that gulag!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually something like 98% of crimes are plea bargained nowadays and don't go to trial. As there is no trial, the evidence is never proven to a jury, so there are concrns with justice here, especially given the arm twisting of severe sentencing with the intention of forcing a plea so the prosecutor gets a win.
Re: Ding Dong! (Score:2)
Do you believe that some (or all?!) people don't deserve a fair trial?
Re: Ding Dong! (Score:2)
All "plea bargains" are coerced fair confessions. That's literally what "plea bargain" means.
This institutionalized travesty of justice is why we have a bigger gulag (both in absolute terms and per-population) than North Korea or China.
Re: Ding Dong! (Score:2)
That should be "false confessions".
Damn I wish Slashdot would implement post previews in mobile view.
Better copyright law (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe if we had more-lenient copyright laws, we wouldn't have this problem. Those Pirate Bay uploads ought to be a sign that our legal system is completely out-of-whack. We spend too much time protecting copyright holders.
What about his other scam? (Score:5, Interesting)
- KSMP [fox9.com].
He violated the spirit of the law, trying to find anything out of compliance in order to threaten a lawsuit. But he'd go after small businesses that were less likely to fight it. After the state legislature decided to fight such tactics by giving businesses sixty days to rectify the situation before a lawsuit could be filed, Hansmeier started filing federal lawsuits. It wasn't about fixing things, it was about enriching himself.
Padraigin Browne, wife, also a piece of shit (Score:2, Informative)
These are world class bottom feeders. After the copyright scam, and Hansmeier was disbarred, he moved to the background while his wife (another lawyer) drove around looking at small businesses that may not be in full compliance of ADA regulations (wrong signage, not painted correctly, etc.) and then demanded four- and five-figure settlements from these places.
The world would be a better place if they were removed from it.
Uncle Joe would be proud (Score:2)
"pleaded guilty"
Oh how I do love the smell of coerced false confession in the morning!
Re: (Score:2)
And you, of course, have evidence that the confession was a) coerced and b) false to make such an accusation. And no, "everybody knows" or "they always do this" are not evidence.
Re: Uncle Joe would be proud (Score:2)
All confessions under the "plea bargain" system are coerced. The only legitimate conviction is one delivered by a jury of the defendant's peers.
Re: (Score:2)
That may be, but don't forget the feds still managed to get an indictment before he copped his plea, as required by the 5th amendment for felony prosecutions.
That indictment in turn was issued by a grand jury.
In spite of the fact that the plea bargain system itself leaves much to be desired at least the feds had to jump through a few hoops first.
Re: Uncle Joe would be proud (Score:2)
"the feds had to jump through a few hoops first."
Not really. Grand juries are de facto rubber stamps for the public persecutor.
According to Harvard Law Review, "grand juries declined to indict in 11 out of 162,351 federal cases in 2010." (https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/02/restoring-legitimacy/). In other words, they rubber stamped the indictments literally 99.9999% of the time.
More like (Score:2)
Prenda Law? More like Pretenda Law, am I right guys?!
$1.5M seems low (Score:2)