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In a unique ruling the adult movie company AF Holdings and their infamous law firm Prenda have been ordered to repay the settlements they extracted from four alleged BitTorrent pirates. The court concluded that the movie outfit perpetrated fraud on the court, as it could provide no proof that it holds the copyrights to the titles they sued for.

trolloridiotThe world?s most famous porn pirate hunters have been on quite a losing streak just recently.

Over the past year they?ve been hit for roughly $311,000 in damages and costs, while hitting a roadblock in developing new revenue.

Little over a month ago the ongoing saga received yet another twist when a significant blow was dealt to the embattled law firm by the mother-in-law of Prenda front-man John Steele.

After a month of deliberation the court has now handed down additional good news for five accused BitTorrent pirates. Yesterday?s ruling made it clear that there is no evidence that AF Holdings holds the copyrights to the titles they sued the individuals over.

?The copyright-assignment agreements [...] in each of these five cases are not what they purport to be. Alan Cooper denies signing either agreement and also denies giving anyone else the authority to sign them on his behalf. AF Holdings failed to produce any credible evidence that the assignments were authentic.?

As a result of this fraud, U.S. Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel ordered the company to repay the four defendants who already settled their cases, including their legal fees. In addition, the judge dismissed the suits against all five alleged file-sharers.

?The Court has been the victim of a fraud perpetrated by AF Holdings, LLC. The Court concludes that the appropriate remedy for this fraud is to require AF Holdings to return all of the settlement money it received from all of the Defendants in these cases, and to pay all costs and fees incurred by the Defendants.?

The order further suggests that there may need to be more investigation into the Prenda law firm and its principles. As a result, the court ordered the following (among other things):

The Clerk of Court shall send a copy of this order to the following individuals and entities for the purpose of further investigation:

- The United States Attorney?s Office for the District of Minnesota

- The Minnesota Attorney General?s Office

- The Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board

- The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois

With the above, the ruling echoes that of Judge Wright, bringing the firm to the attention of lawyer disciplinary boards and criminal investigators.

Of course, the total amount of damages so far doesn?t even come close to the alleged $1.9 million that Prenda took in settlements during 2012, but with the IRS, FBI and even state law enforcement investigating, asset forfeiture is always a possibility.

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_Richard_

but this was such a good idea

AdultKing

Chasing end users was never going to work, it's not scalable.

It's far better to go after commercial pirates and those who provide services to them.

Much better to shut down trackers and their hosts than go chasing individuals.

L-Pink

"could provide no proof that it holds the copyrights to the titles they sued for"


.

Markul

This reminds me of someone...... just replace could with would ;)

DamianJ

Wonder what Lightspeed and Ben Dover think about this.

Lolololol.

bpaw

It seems that once you get the taste of a scam, then you fail, you want more.

As I can't post links to actual articles being a new user, I am basing my opinion on two techdirt dot com articles on Paul Hansmeier of Prenda.

One is "Paul Hansmeier Dismisses Case That His 'Client' Claims Was Filed Without Her Permission" where he claims he represented Lily Poss regarding "Americans with Disabilities Act" cases which Lily didn't know about.

The second is about Paul Hansmeier and the ADA regarding "Team Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Now Suing Companies Over Supposed ADA Violations". An example is where he sues a sports store for having a step at the front door, whilst they have wheel chair access at the back door!

Please feel free to google the above.

"Copyright Trolling" or "Speculative Invoicing", call it what you like, it's a scam. If you fail, claim you represent someone you don't or invent violations to sue.

It would be nice to say that at least in the UK we are not as bad as the US, but *sigh*, we have our scam artists also.

bpaw

Wholeheartedly agree with you AdultKing, but is it a viable choice? Shut down one tracker and ten others crop up. Time, effort and cost is involved in making such an effort so it is hardly an incentive to try.

On the flip side you can monitor, or as I would say compile a list of IP addresses for an ISP and ask them for disclosure of subscriber names. The ISP denies you because of Data Protection, so you go for a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) and get a High Court Judge to grant your request from the ISP. Then you ask for £700.00 because in downloading you share to other "potential" customers.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that everyone is paying for everyone else's infringement (Double counting).

It escapes me that the ones who perpetrate this scam claim the "Theft" angle. It isn't theft because any Court case would be in the Civil Courts. Actual theft is in a criminal Court.

In a way, I think it would be better that piracy would be classed as a criminal offence because the victims would be handled by the Police and not some suspended Lawyer or a Lawyer wannabe.

At least you can have some trust in the Police.