Judges Begin Ruling Against Some Porn Purveyors' Use of Copyright Lawsuits (bloombergquint.com) 39
Slashdot reader pgmrdlm quotes Bloomberg:
Pornography producers and sellers account for the lion's share of copyright-infringement lawsuits in the U.S. -- and judges may have seen enough. The courts are cracking down on porn vendors that file thousands of lawsuits against people for downloading and trading racy films on home computers, using tactics a judge called a "high tech shakedown." [Alternate link here.] In one case, two men were jailed in a scheme that netted $6 million in settlements.
The pornography companies have "a business model that seeks to profit from litigation and threats of litigation rather than profiting from creative works," said Mitch Stoltz, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group that has waged a campaign against companies it thinks abuse the copyright system.
Two companies that make and sell porn are responsible for almost half of the 3,404 copyright lawsuits filed in the U.S. in the first seven months of this year, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law's Tommy Shen... The companies say they are protecting their movies from piracy and infringement under U.S. copyright law, as major movie studios have done for decades, and suggest that the content of their films is the reason for the wrath of the judges. But some of the tactics used in their infringement suits to identify targets and force settlements have critics -- and some jurists -- up in arms and may require congressional actions to fix.
The suits don't initially name names. They identify the Internet Protocol addresses using peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent to download or distribute the movies and then file suits against âoeJohn Doesâ and ask the courts to order internet service providers, like Verizon Communications Inc. or Comcast Corp., to identify the account subscribers. Those people are then contacted by the porn company lawyers.
One lawyer notes that the lawsuits target users in wealthier areas, reports Bloomberg, which adds that in December one district judge even refused to grant the request for identities, ruling that the porn company "treats this court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM."
And last month a federal judge cited that ruling when refusing to enter a judgment in another case.
The pornography companies have "a business model that seeks to profit from litigation and threats of litigation rather than profiting from creative works," said Mitch Stoltz, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group that has waged a campaign against companies it thinks abuse the copyright system.
Two companies that make and sell porn are responsible for almost half of the 3,404 copyright lawsuits filed in the U.S. in the first seven months of this year, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law's Tommy Shen... The companies say they are protecting their movies from piracy and infringement under U.S. copyright law, as major movie studios have done for decades, and suggest that the content of their films is the reason for the wrath of the judges. But some of the tactics used in their infringement suits to identify targets and force settlements have critics -- and some jurists -- up in arms and may require congressional actions to fix.
The suits don't initially name names. They identify the Internet Protocol addresses using peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent to download or distribute the movies and then file suits against âoeJohn Doesâ and ask the courts to order internet service providers, like Verizon Communications Inc. or Comcast Corp., to identify the account subscribers. Those people are then contacted by the porn company lawyers.
One lawyer notes that the lawsuits target users in wealthier areas, reports Bloomberg, which adds that in December one district judge even refused to grant the request for identities, ruling that the porn company "treats this court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM."
And last month a federal judge cited that ruling when refusing to enter a judgment in another case.
Re:No one intrested in porn? (Score:4, Funny)
Anonymous posts gone.. (Score:2)
More likely the current removal of anonymous posting without, it seems, announcement?
Re: (Score:2)
Probably, but it must have been a hard decision to make because so far today, the post count for every article is similar to what you would expect on soylent news.
Re: Anonymous posts gone.. (Score:2)
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Probably, but it must have been a hard decision to make because so far today, the post count for every article is similar to what you would expect on soylent news.
wait what? they removed Anons?
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Re: Anonymous posts gone.. (Score:1)
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Fine, as long as... (Score:3)
This is fine, as long as they aren't ruling differently for porn companies than they would for other media producers.
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I've accumulated somewhere in the neighborhood of 20TB, porn and (mostly) non-porn, and never used bittorent once. If you are using bittorent you're an idiot who deserves to get sued.
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''If you are using bittorent you're an idiot who deserves to get sued.''
Why is that? Anyone can get sued for any reason and be forced into defending. Joining a swarm provides a significantly better position to defend against this type of allegation. Not to mention, being part of the swarm [even as an 'observer'] makes the complainant a participant in what they allege. Besides don't we all have an open AP for all to use?
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Sorry but your statement is a factual lie, according to the leading original law, all content should be treated individually and by law by tested and only certain content be protected by copyright law and it quote "The Congress shall have power âoeTo promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.â
See right there in the fucking text, "To promote the progress of science and usef
That's where the money is... (Score:2)
One lawyer notes that the lawsuits target users in wealthier areas [...]
Dear God, won't somebody think of the wealthy?
I mean, if I have to use the civil court to get justice, I'm certainly going to go after those who can afford to pay.
Legal or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
“They are used to filing thousands of lawsuits without much research or investigation into the individuals that they are suing,” said David Lin, a copyright lawyer whose Brooklyn-based firm has defended against about 100 such lawsuits. “They can’t just file a lawsuit against grandma just because grandma is the name on the internet account.”
Why not? Others like the RIAA did this and isn't illegal, it is just a capacity issue in the federal courts. As for the courts being complicit in a "high take shakedown" they had no problems cooperating with Wall Street after the housing market collapse in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 to help take peoples homes and give them to the banks.
In other news, as of 2018, the RIAA is does not have any plans to go after individual copyright infringers instead focusing their efforts on prosecuting torrent sites and their administrators. It seems that the RIAA has learned that just because a battle should be fought does not mean that it can be won.
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Proudrooster snorted:
Why not? Others like the RIAA did this and isn't illegal, it is just a capacity issue in the federal courts.
No. It is not and the RIAA did not deliberately upload material to which its members owned copyrights for the specific purpose of luring torrenters to download it so that it could then sue them for doing so.
That's conspiracy to engage in entrapment - which is a felony.
The RIAA, by contrast, identified copyright-protected material that its members had not themselves uploaded or caused to be uploaded by parties in their employ, then filed Doe/Roe suits against the unknown-to-them parties
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The porn lawyers have zero intention of actually suing anyone. That costs money and billable hours. Their entire scheme is based on creating honeypot torrents, then extortiing downloaders who live in wealthy neighborhoods into paying them go-away money in exchange for minimal effort on their part - plus the cost of printing boilerplate letters and mailing them to their victims.
That's a nice summary of the difference. However.. Is it against the law?
The judges should be hearing the cases, because everybody has the right to justice through the court system. Otherwise you get vigilantism.
The judge can rule that by hosting the porn in a honeypot the copyright holders have distributed it for free in the full knowledge that others will seek it out and download it, and so there's no case to answer. That would be an appropriate response.
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See the Prenda Law saga.... covered at Ars and at Popehat.
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Because people are settling not because they are guilty, but because of the fear of the reputation being slandered. You pay up not because you downloaded the porn (your son did), but because you don't want to have to "Sued for illegally downloading Porn" be the first thing that pops on on Google fr yourname.
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You have to look at this like a business. The RIAA did this as an innovative business strategy, before the courts understood they were being used as part of said business strategy.
Innovative does not necessarily mean "good" or "profitable" or even "legal". This strategy was used as a response to legitimate copyright infringement before the effects of the infringement was well understood.
Shakedown? (Score:2)
I suspect 'down' isn't where most people are shaking it.
To paraphrase Justice Learned Hand (iirc) (Score:2)
"II may not be able to define a shakedown but I know it when I see it."
I say good for judges clamping down on abuse of process.
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Bullshit (Score:2)
I have actually paid for porn I think twice in my whole life. That puts me probably in the 99th percentile for doing so. So much porn is just freely available as advertising for other porn that there's no reason at all for most people to kick in a single dime. If you charge for your content at all, you're not competing well. The money in the industry has to come from *somewhere.* The upshot is that pornographers going after deep-pocketed pirates is possibly the only legitimate example of copyright enforceme
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Entrapment is when you get somebody to do something they wouldn't normally do. Is there anyone who would not normally download porn without paying for it?
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That's my whole point. Nobody would pay for it. It's free. Anything behind a paywall isn't competing. That's why these lawsuits wind up being necessary to fund the whole thing.
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Specialist interests are less well served by the free market. There just aren't that many images or videos of .. being .. by .. while .. and .....
Don't ask how I know.
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No, entrapment lawsuits are not "necessary to fund the whole thing."
Paid content either has to lower their prices enough to get people to pay for it over the freely available stuff, or they need to just stop producing the paid content, which is perfectly fine. It's not like there is any shortage of content. If there ever becomes a shortage of content, the price people would be willing to pay for it would go up and then the paid content producers could come back in and fill that void. That's free market supp
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I once bought porn for my boss. These days I'd be able to sue the living shit out of him but back then I think he was just trying to embarrass me.
Instead I popped next door, asked the guy behind the counter where I could find [name of magazine] because [name of boss, known to everyone in that part of town] had sent me to buy him a copy.
The boss looked shocked when I walked back in, slapped it on the counter and dropped the change on top.
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Equal Justice (Score:2)
Another nail in the coffin that was equal justice under the law?
It's not the litigants fault the system can't handle the burden. Increase the capacity of the system, instead of depriving entities of their day in court.
I don't care what you're litigating. My opinion about the matter being litigated is irrelevant. It deserves equal attention from the courts as anything I feel is important. That's equal justice, after all.
If you're a judge and getting tired of these cases, may I suggest a new career if you
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Not that I disagree, but I thought I'd point out that the system is way, way short of capacity, and the likelihood that Congress would meaningfully fix that is remote. There were a total of 1,809 criminal trials taken to verdict in all federal courts in 2018.
I also can't quite believe I logged in to post that.
Real Reason (Score:2)
Porn Purveyors? (Score:2)
Hollywood and Music 'Purveyors' do exactly the same thing.