The hits just keep on coming in the Prenda situation today. The latest is a filing from Morgan Pietz, the lawyer fighting against Prenda, which includes an incredible 300 page deposition of John Steele's law partner, Paul Hansmeier, acting as a representative for AF Holdings, one of the shell companies that people have been arguing is really owned by those associated with Prenda. The deposition actually happened back in February on a different case and it's quite a read. Acting as the lawyer for Hansmeier, by the way, is Brett Gibbs, and his role appears to be the resident pain in the ass, objecting to nearly every question. Hansmeier continues the standard operating procedure of Prenda Law in trying to tap dance his way around pretty much anything that looks really bad. If you want to skim the "good parts," Pietz helpfully highlighted the parts that directly pertain to the hearing on Monday in yellow, but there's much, much more. I've spotlighted some key parts here.

A quick summary: John Steele knows who Alan Cooper is, but won't tell anyone. No one seems to know who owns AF Holdings, but it's a trust, and that trust has no human beings as beneficiaries (zombies? aliens? we don't know). No one ever seems to get paid. AF Holdings makes no revenue, but holds money in a trust. Hansmeier represents AF Holdings but doesn't get paid. Mark Lutz is the sole employee and CEO for AF Holdings, but doesn't get paid. There is no clear financial relationship (i.e., no money being paid) between AF Holdings and the companies it supposedly gets its copyrights from. Since Lutz is the only employee, he handles the "not very complicated" books, but when asked to discuss how much cash AF Holdings has, well, that's too complicated.

These guys really think they've set up a system where they can basically hide everything. Eventually, a court is going to call bullshit on all of this. Perhaps on Monday...

I'd jump straight to the "Alan Cooper" question, since that's a big one, but Hansmeier's tap dancing there requires some other details first. So, let's go back to the question of who actually controls AF Holdings. The answer, apparently, is "a trust." Who's in the trust? We don't find out. But who works for AF Holdings? Apparently the sole employee has been Mark Lutz all along. Except that he's not paid anything and it's unclear if there are any actual records that he works for AF Holdings. Yeah. A snippet from the deposition:

Q. And who is AF Holdings -- who are AF Holdings' employees?
A. AF Holdings' sole employee is Mark Lutz.
Q. When was Mark Lutz hired?
A. He was hired very shortly after the incorporation, within a day or two, so May 2011.
Q. And does AF Holdings maintain employment records that would reflect Mr. Lutz' employment?
A. Could you specifically describe some of these employment records.
Q. A W2 for example.
A. It does not maintain a W2 for Mr. Lutz.
MR. PIETZ: How about a 1099?
THE WITNESS: It does not maintain a 1099 for Mr. Lutz.
MR. PIETZ: What can kind of records does it maintain for Mr. Lutz?
THE WITNESS: I guess -- which topic is this again so I can refresh my recollection?
MR. PIETZ: I'm not going to answer that, but it's on the list.
MR. GIBBS: Objection. It's not on the list.
MR. PIETZ: I disagree. You can go ahead and answer.
MR. GIBBS: Which one is it? I disagree.
MR. PIETZ: It's not our job to tell you.

This goes on for a bit with them arguing over whether or not they're allowed to ask about this, and Hansmeier eventually saying that he's sure that they "could get... some form of document" to prove that Lutz is employed by AF Holdings, though he also says:

I guess what I can say on behalf of AF Holdings is that I do not review any documents that would fall within the category of documentary support. Does that mean they have them, perhaps. Perhaps they don't have them. It wasn't one of the noticed topics. I inquired of Mr. Lutz as to who the employees of AF Holdings were and Mr. Lutz said that he was the sole employee.

Incredibly, they're arguing that the documentation of Lutz's employment was not previously "noticed" as a topic that would be covered, even though the list of topics included "identity and terms of employment for any and all AF Holdings' employees and independent contractors utilized by AF Holdings." So, as the sole employee, and "essentially" the CEO, he must make some money, right? No.

Q. To be more specific. Could you elaborate on the terms of Mr. Lutz's employment with AF Holdings?
A. He is the -- well, he's essentially the CEO of AF Holdings.
Q. How much is he paid?
A. He does not receive a salary for duties as CEO.
Q. Does he receive a salary for any other role that he fills at AF Holdings?
A. He does not receive a salary from AF Holdings.

Okay, so Lutz is the guy for AF Holdings, even though there are no records of him actually working there and he doesn't receive a salary or any other compensation (they later asked about other non-monetary compensation as well). Hansmeier chooses his words carefully so they keep repeating the question, and even directly pointing out to Hansmeier that his choice of words is clearly "leaving open an exception" in terms of how Lutz is compensated.

Then we get back into a long bout of tap dancing around the structure of AF Holdings itself, which is owned by a trust, but Hansmeier refuses to provide any more information, insisting that the details of the owner of AF Holdings were not on the list of topics to be covered. He says that the trust itself has no beneficial owner, and when questioned about how a trust can have no beneficial owner, Hansmeier gets snarky: "I would suggest that your experience is not complete when it comes to trusts." Then they go around and around and around again in circles with Hansmeier coming up with new and unique ways to refuse to answer the basic question. He even claims he doesn't know the name of the trust that owns AF Holdings.

At one point, they bring up "Salt Marsh," which in one document is listed as the "owner" of AF Holdings. Hansmeier again is tap dancing, saying:

My testimony was that I don't know what the exact name of the trust is. If the name of the trust is Salt Marsh, then Salt Marsh is the owner. If the name of the trust is not Salt Marsh, then --

Very useful. They then ask if a trust can read, followed by pointing out that in another filing AF Holdings claimed that "Salt Marsh" had read an ADR certification handbook. Then, they note that if the owner is a trust, and the owner is Salt Marsh, then to claim that the trust read a handbook doesn't make much sense. They even present him with the ADR certification that has a signature for "Salt Marsh" and he still refuses to answer the question. Even when asked directly, he states flat out that despite being the representative for the company he doesn't know who owns it.

Q. But your testimony as AF Holdings corporate representative who has been subpoenaed to appear and testify on the noticed topics, which include as No. 6, AF Holdings' corporate structure, your testimony is that as the corporate representative for AF Holdings, you do not know the name of the trust that owns AF Holdings?

THE WITNESS: Yes. My testimony is that in preparing for this deposition, I did not expect the name of the trust to fall within the scope of this. I did not review the history of the name of the trust.

That does not seem particularly believable, but we'll see what some judges have to say about that eventually, I imagine. He keeps insisting that the owner of AF Holdings is and has always been a trust, and not an individual, and implies that Salt Marsh may be the name of the trust though he does not know. That becomes important later... because the name Salt Marsh (or, rather, Saltmarsh) returns, but we'll get there.

From there they go on to an equally long and equally unenlightening conversation about what happens to money that is paid into AF Holdings in the form of settlements. Again, it's all about the tap dancing. AF Holdings apparently never recognizes revenue because they use "mark to market" revenue recognition based on the "value of their assets" and how much they appreciate, rather than actual cash flow in. And even if they did use cash flow in, Hansmeier can't say where the cash goes, other than that individual attorneys have it put in trust and it's used to pay for legal costs because piracy is such a big problem and they have to keep fighting it. Or something along those lines.

Eventually, however, they get Hansmeier to admit that he has an interest in the Alpha Law Firm, who has represented AF Holdings in some cases, and Hansmeier is asked how they got paid... to which he notes that the money actually went to Prenda's trust account. He's asked if, as a representative of AF Holdings, he's concerned that his own client (based on his earlier statements) does not appear to be getting paid, and he responds:

Well, I can say as an attorney I have no concern over how the proceeds are handled.

They keep pressing him on where the money goes, and he keeps saying to fund further litigation, and then finally he says this:

THE WITNESS: Yes, that's correct. The purpose of the litigation isn't to generate money for AF Holdings. The purpose of the litigation is to generate a deterrent effect in stealing its copyrighted works.

Yeah, sure. Very believable. Of course, he then admits that part of the "litigation fees" being paid goes to the lawyers. And after some more tap dancing, he admits that they are paid on a contingency basis (i.e., whenever money is collected) though he claims his own firm, Alpha Law Firm, has no contingency fees and is not paid by AF Holdings, despite representing them. He keeps dancing around what others might be paid.

So then they start asking about how much Gibbs makes from these cases, since he's in the room too. Not surprisingly, Gibbs does not like where this is headed and ramps up even more objections than before. They finally give up.

Then... finally, we get to the big question: Who is Alan Cooper? As we've been noting for months, it seems like a fairly straightforward question. Except if you're associated with Prenda Law and don't want to answer it. And... once again, the tap dancing begins pretty quickly.

Q. Who is Alan Cooper?

A. Alan Cooper is an individual who was designated as a corporate representative of AF Holdings, LLC. The circumstances that led to Mr. Cooper's designation as a corporate representative to acknowledge the copyright assignment agreement on behalf of AF Holdings, LLC, is that Mark Lutz -- we're backing up a little bit. AF Holdings makes use of corporate representatives, the reason for that is that obviously you guys know that there's a lot of people out there who don't like what we're doing, specifically to people who have infringed on works and want to retaliate against people who are enforcing copyrights.

Notice he hasn't answered the question. Just claiming that they have to use "representatives" because their critics are so, so mean. And so Alan Cooper's role was to protect Mark Lutz from the mean people out there.

AF Holdings makes use of corporate representatives to help prevent the -- I guess the officer, Mark Lutz, himself, from being targeted by these individuals. The manner in which Mr. Cooper was designated as a corporate representative was Marks Lutz asked attorney John Steele to arrange for a corporate representative to acknowledge the assignment agreement on behalf of AF Holdings. Mr. Steele did so and returned the assignment agreement to AF Holdings bearing the signature of Mr. Alan Cooper.

Other important point in there: John Steele is the one who "found" Alan Cooper. Not a surprise, but just confirming officially what most people expected. So then, Hansmeier discusses a conversation between Lutz and Steele in which Steele insists the Alan Cooper signature is real, but which provides no more insight into whether or not Alan Cooper actually exists.

When this whole -- I guess the first time we heard about any form of controversy with respect to -- the first time AF Holdings heard about any form controversy with respect to the assignment agreement was when an attorney named Paul Godfread, G-O-D-F-R-E-A-D, contacted AF Holdings and said that -- I can't remember the exact text of the e-mail, but something to the effect of he's representing someone named Alan Cooper and they're concerned that Alan Cooper is being held out as AF Holdings CEO.

And so when that occurred, we -- or AF Holdings and Mark Lutz specifically, he asked, you know, what is the exposure of AF Holdings here and there were two specific concerns. One specific concern was the issue of fraud. Namely, that if AF Holdings is distributing agreements that have someone's signature on it, but he didn't sign it or somehow his identity was coopted, then obviously that's something that AF Holdings would have to -- once it became aware of that issue -- stop doing -- shut it down and make sure it didn't happen anymore, because obviously there's no reason to distribute an assignment or any agreement bearing someone's signature if there was a forgery or some sort of fraudulent action involved in that sense.

And so to address that issue AF Holdings -- well, spoke to Mr. Steele -- Mark Lutz spoke to Mr. Steele and said, Well, I understand that there's an issue with this Alan Cooper and asked Mr. Steele point-blank, Is the signature a forgery. Mr. Steele said the signature is not forgery. And he asked him, Is the -- is this signature authentic. Mr. Steele says, yes, the signature is authentic. Based on Mr. Steele's representation, we have no reason to believe from what Mr. Steele said, at least, that the signature is a forgery or there's some sort fraud going on with respect to the signature.

Got that? Steele says Cooper is real, so he must be real. So they turned it around and demanded evidence from Cooper that there was fraud. And then he suggests that even if Cooper did turn out to be a forgery, it wouldn't really matter because the original copyright holder has confirmed that he wanted to assign his copyrights to AF Holdings.

But he never says who Alan Cooper is. So he's asked again, and the response is basically that only Steele knows and he's not saying:

If you're talking about the guy who's in Minnesota and was John Steele's former caretaker, all I can say is that AF Holdings -- the only person who knows who this Alan Cooper is is John Steele and we asked Mr. Steele, is this the same guy, is this not the same guy, is there another Alan Cooper and Mr. Steele declined to respond on the basis that Mr. Cooper has sued Mr. Steele and they're actively involved in litigation.

That may be the most ridiculous answer yet. The whole reason they're "engaged in litigation" is because Steele hasn't produced the Alan Cooper who signed the documents representing AF Holdings. The best way to end the litigation is pretty simple: have that Alan Cooper show up. Which should be easy enough... if he existed (ah, there's the rub...).

Later on, Hansmeier denies that Cooper works for AF Holdings, insisting that Lutz is the only employee who ever has worked for AF Holdings, which creates some trouble for Gibbs, but we're getting there.

Of course, now that Steele has been brought up, Hansmeier is asked why Steele found Cooper since Steele is supposedly not an employee of AF Holdings. The answer, apparently, is that Lutz is too busy ("there are a certain number of hours in a day") and so he needs to "rely on third parties" to help him "accomplish various tasks." There's a discussion on whether or not Hansmeier and Steele "take orders" from Lutz (Hansmeier implies yes) and the fact that Lutz used to work for Steele, though Hansmeier refuses to say in what role.

Then... another document comes out and the spotlight is back on Gibbs, because it shows a signature from Gibbs, saying that he is "in-house counsel" for AF Holdings. Gibbs quickly realizes where this is going and is not happy about it.

Q. I believe you testified a moment ago that throughout the entire duration of AF Holdings, the only employee or officer -- the person wearing all of the hats was Mark Lutz.
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Based on this document that appears to be incorrect because isn't Mr. Gibbs now in-house counsel for AF Holdings?
A. No. I think it's -- I don't know why it's here. I don't think it's --
Q. So Mr. Gibbs is not in-house counsel for AF Holdings?
A. That's correct.
MR. PIETZ: Well, shoot. I'm just going to ask you, Mr. Gibbs. Did you prepare and sign this document?
MR. GIBBS: It's not my deposition. I'm not quite sure why I would be answering questions.
MR. PIETZ: Well, there's an E-file document here with your signature on it that says you're in-house for AF Holdings. I thought I'd give you the opportunity as a courtesy to clarify for the record.
MR. GIBBS: Okay.
MR. PIETZ: You're not going to address it?
MR. GIBBS: I don't think I need to address it.

I get the feeling he may need to address it on Monday.

As they delve into who else might be involved in AF Holdings, the question comes up as to why Mark Lutz, a paralegal for John Steele, suddenly is running a company that has 20 lawyers working on cases, and is supposedly now employing his former boss, John Steele, as well as Hansmeier. And then... the return to the Salt Marsh, as it were:

Q. So returning to these corporate representatives. Have there been any other corporate representatives other than Alan Cooper, Mark Lutz for AF Holdings?
A. I can think one of other corporate representative.
Q. And who is that?
A. And that would Anthony Saltmarsh.
Q. Where does Mr. Saltmarsh reside?
A. I don't know where Mr. Saltmarsh resides.
Q. Was Mr. Saltmarsh ever compensated for acting as a corporate representative for AF Holdings?
A. Not that I'm aware of.
Q. Exhibit 101 and 102. Those are both the ADRs that are signed by Salt Marsh. I believe you testified you thought that that might be of the name the trust that owns AF Holdings. Could that be a misspelling of Anthony Saltmarsh?
A. The only thing I can say about these documents is that if you wanted me to come prepared to testify about them, you may have included them as exhibits to the notice or supplement the notice with the documents. You're asking me is it possible that Salt Marsh as spelled on here is a misspelling of the name Anthony Saltmarsh?
Q. Perhaps an alias would be a better word for it.
A. Or an alias for Salt Marsh. I'm a bit skeptical of that theory because it says AF Holdings owner and Anthony Saltmarsh is not an owner of AF Holdings.

He's skeptical? Fascinating. The lawyer explains to Hansmeier that Steele's sister lived with Anthony Saltmarsh and Hansmeier insists he knows nothing about all of this.

They then move on to questions about AF Holdings' relationships to the copyrights in question, focusing on Heartbreaker Productions and the copyright over the porn film, Popular Demand. Hansmeier claims that Hartbreaker assigned the entire copyright to AF Holdings and that AF Holdings is not doing anything with the film -- not distributing it or performing it or anything. Hansmeier says that the only distribution is infringing distribution. The lawyers then present him with an article claiming that a new distribution agreement has been reached over Popular Demand, and Hansmeier -- who basically has just been proven to either be ignorant or a liar -- goes with the snark:

Well, I know from reading the blog sites that you two participate in that I shouldn't believe everything I read on the Internet.

Much later in the deposition, there's a bit of an argument over the "financial relationship" between AF Holdings and Heartbreaker. Hansmeier complains about it being unclear what "Heartbreaker" company they're referring to, but eventually notes that the agreement they have shows no actual financial relationship. They then ask Hansmeier over and over and over again if any money changed hands, and Hansmeier refuses to answer other than to say he's already answered, saying that the document is the entire agreement. When asked if that means there was no financial relationship, he just repeats what he said before. It's quite an incredible exchange.

Next up: a long discussion that goes absolutely nowhere concerning Paul's brother, Peter Hansmeier, and the various firms he's worked for who provide "technical services," in which they claim to be able to identify infringers. Paul repeatedly claims ignorance of some key things about his own brother, including what kind of degree he received from college. They then discuss the process by which "infringers" are uncovered, using Peter's company 6681 Forensics.

Further discussion leads to questions about who handles AF Holdings "books" and again it's Mark Lutz. Hansmeier claims that the books are "not complicated" so they don't need a bookkeeper or an accountant (they also don't pay taxes, apparently). Yet a few minutes later, when asked about how much cash AF Holdings has received, it's a very different story with Hansmeier saying it "would be a very difficult topic" because "it's very complicated." Oops. The response from both Gibbs and Hansmeier is to complain that Pietz is not being professional. You can't make this stuff up.

A further discussion is had on how AF Holdings chose to sue the account holder in the particular case at hand, which is handy because part of Judge Otis Wright's concerns is the weak evidence that Prenda has been using in its cases.

Eventually, we get to the other mysterious character we had mentioned this morning: Allan/Alan Monay/Moay/Mooney/etc.

Q. Do you know anybody by the name of Alan Moay, M-O-A-Y?
A. Do I personally know anybody by the name of Alan Moay? I'd have to check my contact list and anyone I've ever talked to in my entire life, but sitting here right now, do I know anybody named Alan Moay, no, I do not.
Q. Do you know anyone who is a principal or an officer or a corporate representative of Guava, LLC, with a first name of Alan?
A. Do I know anyone, principal or an officer --
Q. Or a corporate representative.
A. I'd to have check my records as to who does what at Guava, LLC. I couldn't tell you that answer for most of my clients.
Q. Do you know anybody by the name of Alan Mony, M-O-N-Y?
A. Again, I'd have to check my records to see who I've corresponded with in the past.
Q. Do you know anybody by the name of Alan Mooney, M-O-O-N-E-Y?
A. I have represented an Alan Mooney before, yes.

Then we're back to tap dancing. A lot of "I'll have to check my records..." Later on, they ask him to identify a recording and whether or not it's Lutz, and he claims he can't tell, even though he talks to Lutz all the time:

Q. Is that Mark Lutz?
A. Well, if I don't recognize the voice that's on the voice mail, I can't make an identification of who it is.
Q. How many times would you say you have spoken to Mr. Mark Lutz in the course of your life?
A. Too many to count.
Q. How many times would you say you've had phone calls with Mark Lutz?
A. I can't answer the question, but several times.
Q. Several or lots?
A. I would say several to mean many times.
Q. And you're telling me that you can't definitively say that the voice we just heard is Mark Lutz?
Q. Who might it be if it's not Mr. Lutz?
A. I guess anyone in the world.

And... that's basically it. 291 pages of Hansmeier doing his damnedest not to actually answer rather important questions. And all of that is now on the record for Judge Wright to use on Monday.

We were just talking about the insanity of the latest round of TPP negotiations happening under the continued cloak of secrecy. It appears that more and more people are beginning to question why this is allowed. A letter has been sent to Congress by over 400 groups representing over 15 million people demanding a "new direction" in the TPP negotiations. In particular, they say that the secrecy needs to go away and that the public needs to be able to comment on what is being negotiated in our name.

We find it troubling that, even as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement enters its 16th major round of negotiations this March in Singapore, U.S. negotiators still refuse to inform the American public what they have been proposing in our names. Shielding not only proposals, but agreed-upon texts from public view until after negotiations have concluded and the pact is finalized is not consistent with democratic principles. In this regard, the TPP appears to be even less transparent than some past trade negotiations. For example, in 2001, the United States joined with 33 other countries in releasing draft text of the Free Trade Area of the Americans, and draft texts within the World Trade Organization are frequently made available.

In terms of specifics, the letter asks Congress to reject the "Fast Track" authority that the USTR has been requesting. Congress, technically, is supposed to be in charge of regulating commerce with foreign nations. The USTR is seeking fast track authority because, without it, these negotiations and the resulting agreement have no basis in law.

Instead, the letter argues that Congress needs to rein in the USTR, to require them to be more open and public, to actually consult with the public, and to make sure that Congress will review the final agreement to ensure it is in the public's interest, rather than in the interest of a few select "industry advisory committees" whom the USTR relies on. Frankly, the letter could have been a lot stronger, but I'm guessing it needed to be slightly watered down to get all those groups to sign. Still, this letter isn't just from "the usual" public interest groups who have been complaining about TPP all along, and suggests that if the USTR continues on this secretive path, there is likely to be strong opposition from the public. We've suggested in the past that the USTR's failure to recognize why ACTA failed in Europe may come back to haunt them with the TPP, and this letter is yet another warning sign. Unfortunately, given the USTR's past behavior, it's likely to be a warning sign that is, once again, ignored.

The US Center for Disease Control reported on its first case of AIDS (though it wasn't called AIDS at the time) in 1981. Some HIV-positive patients have since gained access to anti-viral drugs that hold off the fatal complications for many more years than it was previously thought possible. There are over 34 million people in the world who are HIV-positive, and there are some optimistic reports that the treatments are becoming more effective. Here are just a few fascinating stories on the development of HIV treatments.

• A baby born in Mississippi with HIV has been "functionally cured" after receiving an aggressive regimen of anti-retroviral drugs.. a discovery that occurred when the treatment was inadvertently stopped after 18 months. There have been some scattered reports of other babies who have been cleared of HIV, but this is the first case that will be rigorously studied with highly sensitive genetic tests. [url]
• A generation of HIV-positive youngsters are beginning to live into adulthood, but the long-term effects of HIV (and the medicines to treat it) are completely unexplored territory. Studying these kids for many decades could determine optimal medical regimes and shape how society handles patients who need indefinite treatment. [url]
• The "Berlin Patient" (aka Timothy Ray Brown) is the first known person to defeat HIV. After a bone marrow transplant to treat (unrelated) leukemia, Brown recovered, and doctors found that his HIV levels were at undetectable amounts.. and remained so without anti-viral drugs. [url]
• Some people have a genetic mutation that prevents HIV from infecting their white blood cells, making them immune to the virus. The specific mutation was identified in 1996, but the discovery hasn't (yet) lead to a universal vaccine. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Congress already has an "Anti-Piracy caucus," a Recording Arts & Sciences caucus and a Songwriters Caucus, but apparently they needed another one. Reps. Howard Coble and Judy Chu have "formed" the "Creative Rights" caucus that appears to not actually be about supporting true creative rights. It is, instead, designed to focus on over-protecting the powers of a small group to hinder the creative rights of many, many people. That's because it's all about maximalism and protectionism, rather than encouraging wider creativity:

“American innovation hinges on creativity – it is what allows our kids to dream big and our artists to create works that inspire us all. The jobs that result are thanks entirely to our willingness to foster creative talent, and an environment where it can thrive and prosper.

“Serving that notion is exactly what this new caucus will do, and I’m thrilled to have Congressman Coble as my Co-Chair. He has a long record on supporting greater protections for American ingenuity and intellectual property. I look forward to continuing that work with him on these important issues,” said Rep. Chu.

Note the key line there: "greater protections... for intellectual property." This isn't about looking at what is actually driving creativity or protecting wider creative works. "Greater protections" for "intellectual property" means stricter copyright laws that block the creative rights of millions who try to do things like post their own videos online or create mashups and mixtapes. You see, that kind of creativity doesn't count. It means less fan art and fan fiction.

This isn't about protecting creators' rights. This is about ramping up copyright law, to try to prop up an increasingly obsolete business model, while limiting the rights of most creators.

Today's quite a Prenda Law day around here. While the focus has reasonably been on the upcoming showdown on Monday, where Judge Otis Wright has ordered all of the Prenda players to be in his courtroom on Monday, John Steele has apparently dismissed his defamation case against Alan Cooper, Cooper's lawyer Paul Godfread and a bunch of anonymous commenters who have been mocking Steele mercilessly for months. Perhaps Steele realized that the case would open him up to discovery, which could reveal some things he'd prefer not to reveal to a court. Or, perhaps, he's suddenly realized that he's going to be busy dealing with the fallout from the Wright hearings. Or, perhaps there's another strategy as yet unrevealed. Given Steele's history of searching for and testing out all kinds of loopholes in the hopes that something works, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that this isn't the last we hear concerning this attempt to "out" his critics.

The questions about drones keep coming. Much of the focus has been on the legality of their use overseas, or else the manner in which domestic law enforcement uses them here at home. Glyn Moody even recently wrote about how the World Wildlife Fund wants to use them to tackle those who would poach endangered species throughout the world. Some folks in government have a problem with all this, in particular the coupling of the President's power to kill Americans if the government deems them as terrorists with the use of flying metal death machines raining carnage from the sky.

Like Rand Paul, for instance, who recently sent a letter to John Brennan, nominated as director of the CIA, asking him to clarify how the administration would view their power to authorize lethal force. Eric Holder, Attorney General, took the time to respond to Paul, and included this gem.

Holder said it was possible, "I suppose," to imagine an "extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate" under U.S. law for the president to authorize the military to "use lethal force" within the United States. However, Holder said the question was "entirely hypothetical" and "unlikely to occur."

You know, I'm typically one of those people who hates placing issues into absolute stances. For any situation, there are almost always outliers that need to be considered, so using words like "never", "impossible", and so on are usually the wrong approach...except when it comes to fire-bombing domestic targets from the sky in a country filled with law enforcement. This is one of those easy situations where we need to be able to get together as Americans and say, no, we don't think it's a great idea for our own military drones to be used domestically. The potential for collateral damage has previously been documented and should make this question easy on its face.

The study by Stanford Law School and New York University's School of Law calls for a re-evaluation of the practice, saying the number of "high-level" targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- about 2%.

And that doesn't even begin to broach the subject of the constitutionality question. The rules for using lethal force in American domestic law enforcement are extremely specific and they're designed to protect LEOs and civilians in immediate harm that cannot otherwise be contained. To suggest that drones could strike domestically is to suggest that due process can be thrown completely out the window. As Senator Paul noted in his response to Holder:

"The U.S. attorney general's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening. It is an affront to the constitutional due process rights of all Americans," Paul said.

Brennan, for his part, managed to, himself, say that the administration has "no intention" of using drone strikes on Americans in the United States...when there's a full moon or on weekends or something. Okay, so I added that last part, but why are we qualifying this at all? While Brennan also said that the CIA wouldn't have the authority to use drones domestically, it's not like there aren't those clamoring for more and more use of drones by the domestic alphabet agencies. Are we really okay with this?

Earlier today we had a post about Judge Otis Wright ordering nearly everyone associated with copyright trolling operation Prenda Law to be in his courtroom on Monday. We made the rather obvious understatement that it appeared Wright was not happy with Prenda or what he had seen happening in the various Prenda cases he is presiding over. If you're just picking up the story now, you may have missed some of the backstory behind all of this, but, no worries, Ken White at Popehat (a former federal prosecutor and long term litigator) has put together a post that lays out, in great detail (and in an easy to understand format for non-lawyers) both exactly how we got here and "what to expect." It's worth a read.

It actually leaves out some of the history and details that suggest Prenda/John Steele/others have been acting with something less than good faith. As we've discussed in the past, it often feels like Prenda Law is using an any means necessary approach to getting access to people's identities, often piling questionable legal trick upon questionable legal trick to create a multi-layer operation of questionable activity, all designed to get identities to then start hounding those people for "settlements." Even leaving aside many of those tricks, many of which don't touch on this particular case, Prenda's actions in this case alone are quite incredible. And as White makes clear, each move by Prenda lawyer Brett Gibbs seemed to only draw more attention from Judge Wright. This started early on, when Gibbs sought sanctions against the opposing lawyer, Morgan Pietz, which the judge quickly denied. As White points out: "It's a bad sign when the judge denies your motion summarily before the other side can even oppose it."

Throughout our coverage of this case, we've repeatedly pointed out that Gibbs could have just put most of the questions to rest by identifying Alan Cooper. But his continual tap dancing around the simple question "who is Alan Cooper?" has been pretty damning. Responding: "I am sure there are hundreds of Alan Coopers in this world," really seemed to make clear that something fishy was going on here. Personally, I was wondering if there was some reasonable legal strategy that I was completely unaware of, that would explain the failure to answer the Alan Cooper question, and White points out that everyone's general suspicions are correct: it makes no sense unless there is no such Alan Cooper:

I've been a lawyer for almost 19 years now. I've practiced in federal court that entire time. Here's what's very strange to me about Gibbs' opposition to the ex parte application, and about Gibbs' sanctions motion: they conspicuously avoid direct engagement with the most incendiary accusations Pietz makes. It's one thing to argue that Pietz' evidence is insufficient, or that other courts have failed to act based on them. It's quite another to evade the question of who "Alan Cooper" really is. I find it very difficult to imagine a scenario in which an experienced litigator would have a good reason to avoid confronting such a serious charge of fraud head on by saying, for instance, "the Alan Cooper who is a principal in Ingenuity 13 LLC is a real person who is resident of the State of X, living at Y, and has no relation to the Alan Cooper who has made scurrilous allegations against Prenda Law. Here is a declaration from the Alan Cooper who is a principal of Ingenuity 13 LLC, and here are reasons why the other Alan Cooper has a grudge against Prenda Law and is lying." It is very difficult to imagine an innocent scenario explaining why Prenda Law would not offer such a response if it could.

So, what to expect? White lists out four possibilities, with a focus on the last two as being the most likely:

3. Some of the individuals named could assert that exigent circumstances or medical conditions prevent them from attending, or could ask for an extension to allow them to retain counsel and get their new counsel of up to speed.

4. Some of the individuals named could show up and answer Judge Wright's questions.

I've been wondering if Judge Wright would grant an extension, given the extremely short notice on all of this. Normally such an extension would be pretty normal, and lawyers and judges often bend over backwards to try to accommodate things like that. But given that it appears Wright is clearly deeply concerned about the possibility that Prenda is committing fraud on the court, I wonder if he'll be a little less lenient than might otherwise be normal.

Oh, and for those wondering if this could end in jail time for everyone showing up in court, White is a little more skeptical there, but suggests it is entirely possible that it leads to a criminal case, which could result in jail time:

Judge Wright could certainly issue monetary sanctions against, at a minimum, Mr. Gibbs. The question of what other attorneys he could sanction under Rule 11 and his own inherent authority depends on a tedious discussion too long for this post; suffice it to say that he might conclude that he can sanction supervisory attorneys with Prenda Law.

Judge Wright's terrifying comment aside, his ability to jail people before him for contempt is quite limited when they have not been charged with a crime by the executive. That, too, is a discussion too complex for this post. But Judge Wright might well refer the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal prosecution if he concludes that criminal contempt or fraud has occurred. Such referrals tend to get immediate and intense attention. Moreover, if Judge Wright finds misconduct, he could refer the matter to various state bars.

In the meantime, I'm curious if anyone can pinpoint the moment at which John Steele/Prenda Law surpassed Righthaven in the Hall of Fame for the Spectacular Self-Destruction of Copyright Trolls.

So, on Monday, we wrote about some bizarre legal threats sent to Ken White (aka Popehat) concerning a story both of us had written about years ago. That story was about how a Louisiana zoo called the Global Wildlife Center (apparently run by the Global Wildlife Foundation), got upset about an obviously satirical article about giraffes at the GWC killing people, mocking a recent spate of attacks on humans by animals in captivity. The GWC was briefly able to get an injunction that was quickly removed when someone realized that there's this amazing thing called the First Amendment... For reasons unknown, years later, Ken Matherne, suddenly started threatening White over his original post on the story, which quoted a local news source saying the following:

In addition to filing this lawsuit, via email Global Wildlife Foundation president Ken Matherne threatened to file criminal charges, FCC charges, fraud charges, an IRS complaint, a governor's office complaint, and a federal lawsuit against Brilleaux. Matherne's email did not explain any basis for the additional threats.

Matherne sent a series of emails to White, each more endearingly wacky that the previous one, full of interesting legal theories and creative use of the English language. You can read the details from the earlier post, but just to pass on a few of the more memorable quotes:

I did not say anything at the time. But, I think he would get dis-board by the falsified documents he presented to the judge. His father was a friend or I would have had he dis-board.

We are going to dp this all legal – get ready – I will have one of your partners, associates , friends , spouses, in dispositions for the at least the next 6 – 12 months. Minimum – 1 lawsuit lasted 12.7 years, the next only 6 . I have the means – so write me back or get ready.

Ken It was a BS move – and I appreciate that you do that for the best of people – but you always know our kids are first – and I don't care how many $ it takes – my daughter will not live with this – so I will ask you one more time to pull this down – as a gentleman – or I will come to you! My airplane is only 10k an hour – have more cash & Gold in the bank than you can imagine – but if you hurt my daughter through this – my executives has all authority to go until all is done – I only have 1 daughter and it breaks her heart to see this! I would not do this to you or your family!

And more like that. Anyway, we wrote about that and posted it Monday. Today is Wednesday. At 12:49am California time this morning (2:49am in Louisiana, where the Global Wildlife Center is based), it appears that Ken Matherne subscribed to our daily email. Three minutes later, he unsubscribed. One minute after that, the general catchall email address that is the "from" in the subscription confirmation email, received a message from Matherne with the following subject line and no message:

you are saved and wait for me!

Leaving aside the vague notions of religious salvation, we waited. Not for long. At 1:39am our time, we received a "reply" to the unsubscribe notice that just said:

Get ready!

With anticipation building, we continued to wait (actually, we were all asleep). Eight minutes after that email, we got the following:

What state are you registered in? And if any of your two companies are affiliated - we should start to proceed. My daughter asked me not to last night. But after you new post -- I am coming!

Law is the Law !

Half an hour later (about an hour and a half after he first "subscribed") we get to... well... something:

I will save this - as I will see you in court! You may think this is fun and games - I believe in the law. I believe in the court system. You have just started a conspiracy and you documented it yourself.

So take my foundation down out of your harmful and malice posts or I will spend the next 20 years of my life, with every appeal, and every court to see justice. I will sue you as individuals and corporations - if they are legit.

Gentlemen, I only requested you do the right thing. Now you make the decision. And never use the word that I threaten you. I have been kind and upset, but I would never threaten anyone.

I never raised my voice to my wife. I don't care of your back ground - but through investigation and depositions, I will know each and everyone one of you.

You can print this to under one of you internet companies - but please note that I will hire enough geeks to play fair.

I want an answer by 10 CST that you will stop the damage you and your associates have done. I will have no choice but to proceed to expose you and associates, everything! And I love court and depositions!

I like how he is emailing us after 2am California time, where we are located, and giving us less than 6 hours to respond. While we are curious how reporting on facts means that we have started "a conspiracy," and find it even more interesting that he appears to directly be admitting that his intention is merely to tie us up in court, we believe that he probably should have heeded the original advice of his daughter that this was not a productive path to take.

He might also want to look up the definition of what a "threat" is, because saying that he will spend the next 20 years taking us to court is pretty much the definition of a threat.

Anyway, if there is anything he feels we wrote about him that is inaccurate, we (of course) are open to hearing about it, reviewing the evidence and determining if any correction needs to be issued. Though, as we saw with White, Matherne never seemed to provide any such evidence. Either way, we aren't easily bullied by random threats based on bluster and a weak understanding of the law.

Oh, and we should note that while Matherne was referred to as the President of the Global Wildlife Foundation in that original press report that White quoted, one of our commenters pointed out that Matherne does not appear to be listed as an officer, director, trustee or key employee of the Global Wildlife Foundation, according to its publicly available IRS filings, the latest of which you can see here or embedded below. Other reports have said that Matherne is merely the President of the Foundation's "advisory board."

Either way, I would suggest that his emailed threats to both us and Ken White are not doing the Global Wildlife Foundation or Global Wildlife Center any favors. Also, since I imagine he'll be reading this soon enough, Ken Matherne: I believe in the law, too. And the law doesn't let you just make up reasons to bring people to court because you're upset that those people are reporting on factual information that involves an organization that you are connected to. Again, if you believe there are factual inaccuracies in our reporting, we are happy to review the evidence. Otherwise, continually sending these kinds of emails isn't helping anyone.

We just recently wrote about the RIAA bitching about how Google wasn't living up to its promise to "downrank" so-called "pirate" sites. The issue was that the RIAA could still find sites that it didn't like ranked relatively highly in the index. Well, the folks at TorrentFreak have noticed that, at least in the UK, if you do a search for "pirate bay," you no longer get the actual TPB website as one of the top 100 results. Of course, you do get a variety of proxies, instead, and perhaps that makes sense, given the decision last year by a court that ISPs must block access to TPB. Perhaps Google is just reflecting, accurately, that clicking directly to TPB will fail.

Either way, it makes you realize how incredibly pointless all of this is. If someone is doing a search explicitly for "pirate bay," not finding the actual site as a top result isn't suddenly going to make someone rush to their nearest RIAA-approved record store to purchase something. Google's job is to help people find what they're looking for -- not to tell them "this isn't the site you're looking for" when it clearly is.

It's always tough to root for the underdog when neither of the involved parties deserves that title. So, rather than pick one, we'll just discuss the overweening ridiculousness of copyright law. It's a subject that never goes out of style, thanks to our legislators' willingness to continually extend copyright protection terms.

As was covered much earlier in the year, Disney is producing its own "Wizard of Oz" movie, titled "Oz the Great and Powerful." While Frank L. Baum's books are definitely in the public domain, filmed depictions of Baum's characters are mainly the property of Warner Bros. WB attempted to head off this incursion into its domain by filing a trademark application on "The Great and Powerful Oz," but it was a week too late and is now (presumably) several billion dollars short (H'Wood mathematics, yo).

Having failed to block Disney's entry into the Oz arena, Warner has now busied itself with watching each development for any slip-up that could land it a tasty settlement -- or an injunction. To that end, Disney has placed its own legal team on the set to ensure that none of the characters or elements in the Disney film bear too much resemblance to Warner's property. The sheer amount of highly detailed micromanagement needed to avoid the rights holder's litigious wrath borders on OCD-hellish insanity.

Striving for a visage different from the one Margaret Hamilton made famous, Howard Berger, an Oscar-winning makeup artist, “was finally able to come up with a shade of green which satisfied Disney’s legal team,” SlashFilm.com reported after a visit to the set. According to Disney’s production notes Mr. Berger named his custom color Theostein — a conflation of the witch’s name before she turns wicked, and Frankenstein.

When something as minimal as a move left or right on the Pantone chart could potentially trigger some legal action, you know you've reached some sort of watershed mark in IP protection. It's highly doubtful our founding fathers had a "shade of green that satisfies a legal team" in mind when they set about trying to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts."

Nor were they particularly concerned with innovative hairdos.

About 40 dwarfs were cast in “Oz the Great and Powerful” as Munchkins... They still have weird hair, but Disney lawyers nixed at least one style as too similar to one from the original movie. It was tweaked in postproduction using computers.

True, there are many things the founding fathers couldn't possibly have considered over two hundred years ago, but what's going on here is resembles nothing more than gerrymandering Baum's legacy in order to avoid a costly turf war -- over something that should be in the public domain.

It's a rare day when you find yourself commiserating with one of the biggest IP thugs of all -- Disney. Baum's original work is now a minefield, and anyone hoping to utilize this public domain title now has to contend with a powerful legal team protecting a 74-year-old film. But, I suppose, if you're going to choose someone to walk across an IP minefield, it might as well be Disney. It makes perfect karmic sense.

We've noted already that the big telcos love CISPA, as it gives them widespread immunity to violate the privacy of users in handing over all sorts of information to the government. It appears that the efforts by various organizations like the ACLU, EFF and others to push back on CISPA as a blanket tool for the abuse of privacy is beginning to get to the telcos, because they've sent out their big guns -- former Congressmen and now both big telco lobbyists, Steve Largent and Rick Boucher -- to post a ridiculous, fact-lacking op-ed piece for CNN (with very little disclosure) arguing that CISPA is good for privacy.

We'll get to the argument in a moment, but first, while the article correctly notes that Largent leads CTIA, and that CTIA is a DC-lobbying group for telcos, it does not note that the telcos stand to benefit by getting broad immunity under CISPA. Worse is the disclosure around Boucher. Back when Boucher was in Congress, he was actually one of the good guys, especially on copyright issues. Yet, since losing his seat, he went to work for Sidley Austin, which is basically AT&T's legal caddie in DC. His disclosure leaves out Sidley's ridiculously close relationship with AT&T or how AT&T benefits from CISPA. Great work, CNN, making sure that your credibility continues to be at the scraping-bottom level.

As for the actual argument, let's sum it up this way: "CISPA is good for privacy, because CISPA will mean more security and security means more privacy." That's really is the argument, and it's misleading in the extreme:

The debate on cybersecurity has produced a sideshow centered around the belief that added security means a reduction in privacy. Such views are nonsense. Quite simply, digital privacy cannot exist without cybersecurity. Weak security equals weak privacy. Want better privacy? Raise your security game to prevent hackers from stealing private data. Let the experts from the private sector and government communicate with each other so when they see threats, they can alert others and work together to create a solution.

Except... no one is complaining about experts in the private sector and the government communicating with each other. So their whole argument is based on a lie. The worry is that CISPA also gives companies blanket immunity for sharing personal information of their users/customers with the government, and then allows the government to do whatever the hell it wants with that information. That's the opposite of "good security." In fact, it guarantees that it's more likely that this information will leak and be available to bad or malicious players.

Critics don't like the fact that CISPA enables information sharing between the federal government and the private sector in order to prevent cyberattacks and to pursue cybercriminals, hackers, fraudsters and others intent on harm. As they see it, such cooperation constitutes a potential privacy invasion that is so egregious as to merit no further consideration.

That's a blatant misrepresentation of the complaints. The concern is the sharing of personal information. Many were perfectly happy with the executive order, which allows for greater communication -- because it does not involve companies violating the privacy of its users.

Their concerns are, no doubt, well intended. But they are also out of touch with reality and risk unintended consequences that only serve to allow cybercriminals to operate with impunity.

Who's out of touch with reality? Those of us who accurately note the problem, or the two big telco lobbyists (who fail to note whom they're speaking for in the op-ed), who flat out misrepresent the concerns of privacy advocates?

The breadth and scale of the threat of cyberattacks on our nation's critical infrastructure -- financial institutions, electric and water utilities and air traffic control systems, to name just a few -- to say nothing of consumers' personal data, is no longer in debate

Great. If it's no debate, please point us to the evidence that there's a real risk (i.e., what is the actual harm and why can't it be taken care of currently via information sharing allowed under existing law?). We'll wait. We've been waiting. I imagine we'll be waiting some more.

Meanwhile, the avenues and opportunities by which hackers have to penetrate our networks are growing hand in hand with our increasingly mobile communications ecosystem. On the consumer side, for example, a recent study concludes more than 40% of U.S. smartphone users will click on unsafe links this year, potentially spreading malware that can steal data and dollars to their friends, family and colleagues.

And how will CISPA stop this?

Does that sound like a dynamic we would be well served to leave unaddressed? Should we keep our fingers crossed and hope things go OK? Or should we work together to provide the nation with the most effective reality-based cybersecurity we can achieve?

Again, what is the problem with existing laws that prevent us from tackling this "dynamic" today? Why does everyone refuse to answer that basic question. No one is suggesting that companies and infrastructure providers should just "keep our fingers crossed and hope things go OK." To pretend that's what privacy advocates are saying is simply a misrepresentation of reality by two lobbyists who know exactly what they're doing in smearing privacy advocates with lies.

Clearly, the latter is what we need: a cooperative approach, one that allows for lawful sharing of information on where, how, from whom, and in what guise cyberattacks and other forms of cybercrime are emerging so defenses can be prepared.

And... why should that involve personal information of users? And... what laws are currently blocking the necessary information sharing today? Please, do let us know. Because that's important and (not surprisingly) every CISPA supporter wants to ignore it.

At its heart, good security starts with good communication. When it comes to securing our critical infrastructure, shouldn't all parties be able to communicate with one another about what they are seeing and how attacks can be repelled?

Same questions as above.

Of course they should. That is why it so critical that Congress passes CISPA and the President signs it into law.

So... you completely misrepresent the position of privacy advocates, fail to explain why the bill is needed, pretend that the alternative to CISPA is to twiddle our thumbs and wait... and then insist that we need to pass the bill. Wow. You can take the politician out of his Congressional seat, but you can't stop the political doublespeak emanating from his mouth, apparently.

Debate is useful when it advances a discussion and removes obstacles to positive outcomes. However, to be constructive the debate must be based on reality, not abstractions.

Funny you point that out when your entire op-ed is not reality based.

Continued stasis serves no one, except hackers and those who would seek to do us harm.

"And passing blanket immunity protects our clients after we pass along private info of our clients. But let's ignore that part."

Why does CNN allow publication of such obvious crap?

While we just recently got some bandwidth-providers to come out from under their caps-due-to-congestion rocks, there is a long and storied history of ISPs filling in the void of logic in the debate over caps with creamy, pink nonsense cupcakes. Because, hey! Who doesn't like cupcakes? A long-standing favorite of mine was Sprint's deft change of the English language, when they altered the meaning of "unlimited" to mean "5 gigs," because Sprint thinks the real world blows and we're better off in their make-believe Sprint-land, where all of our parents turn into Kevin Durant.

But, in an apparent effort to put the UK in the mix for countries with CEOs who say really dumb things, mobile operator EE's chief guy of stuff has come out with his own assessment of why their data caps are fine and unlimited plans are unnecessary.

EE is the first mobile operator in the UK to offer 4G services. When it launched last October, it was criticised for imposing tight data caps - including a 500MB plan that could be chewed through in five minutes at the network's maximum speed.

Speaking at MWC 2013, [Olaf] Swantee said that on average users are actually getting through only 1.4GB a month. "It shows that the instinct for unlimited data plans is unnecessary," he said.

Now, on the off chance that you've spent the past week doing massive amounts of peyote, let me take a moment to explain why this kind of logic is so abysmal that it might actually be responsible for global warming. Olaf says that unlimited data plans are not in demand because their customers, who are already under their strict caps, on average use about 1.5GB per month. The logic is flawless...and by flawless, I mean backwards and evil. Of course EE customers that are under strict caps are going to do everything possible to stay under those caps. You're charging them extra if they go over! The very sample you're using in your justification nullifies your entire point.

Let's see...an appropriate analogy. Ah, got it! A dog owner buys one of those electric fence collars for Fido, puts the barrier around a twelve-foot squared kitchen, and then insists that the dog doesn't want to leave the kitchen because it rarely chooses to get the piss shocked out of it by stepping over the barrier. If someone tried to use that kind of sophistry on you, how long before you'd shove a couple of pencils in your ears to make the bad man's voice stop hurting you so?

So way to go, United Kingdom. You're officially accepted into the Dumb CEO League of Extraordinary Un-Logic. Play nice now.

A few months ago, the SimCity devs stopped by Reddit for an AMA and found themselves fielding several questions about EA's plans to release the game with an "always online" requirement. Requiring an internet connection to play a game, even in single-player mode, has been utilized by more than one company, often with disastrous results. Still, game companies continue to craft software with this requirement, mostly for anti-piracy reasons, although they often play up the "social" aspects as a sort of (completely transparent) smokescreen.

As was pointed out by several Redditors during the AMA, the online requirement was ridiculous and seriously inhibited playability. For one, no one's internet connection is perfectly reliable. Secondly, SimCity was going further than most games, allowing only server-side saves, meaning that players could easily lose progress if their connections dropped.

Six weeks later, a different Redditor signed up for SimCity's closed beta. Even in this limited release, servers were swamped and EA's infrastructure couldn't handle the traffic, something that didn't bode well for the massive amount of players looking forward to playing the full version when it finally launched. The Redditor pointed this out to EA in a lengthy, well-worded forum post that cited previous issues with other online-only game launches that had gone horribly.

This brings us up to date and, now, SimCity has finally been released. One eager SimCity fan (and Redditor), who pre-ordered the game. thought he'd put a little playtime in before bed, and ran head on into this dialog box:

So, the reality is even worse than previously indicated. Not only are your saved games server-side only and an internet connection required to simply fire up the game, but every game is "multiplayer," whether you're interested in playing socially or not, and every game requires an open server slot.

As the Redditor points out, this simply isn't an acceptable situation:

I figured from everything I'd read that the always-on part of the game simply required an internet connection, not a slot on a server like I'm about to PvP or something. I'd be more understanding if I could just play my private region by myself like I intended.

While many people were aware of the online-only requirement, this aspect of the game seems to have been completely underplayed. Why should a paying customer be forced to wait in line for an open server slot? This is a much more onerous requirement than simply requiring an online connection to verify software authenticity. Sure, it's meant to be a social game where people can visit the cities of others, but there should be some option for those wanting to play a "private" game.

EA had to have some idea of how much its servers were going be hammered after the issues it experienced during the closed beta. No one's expecting launch day to go flawlessly, but if you're going to require an internet connection that's reliant on open slots on regional servers, you are going to make paying customers very angry. Many of the people experiencing these problems paid for this game weeks or months ago and are having their loyalty rewarded with half-hour waits to spin the wheel on possibly accessing an open slot.

Not only are paying customers being locked out of playing the game they purchased, but other purchasers are still waiting for their downloads to complete or have their purchases authenticated and unlocked. The authentication servers are being hammered so badly that, according to TotalBiscuit's "review" video, people with pre-orders are purchasing second copies because these new purchases are unlocking immediately, while authentification of their pre-ordered copies is still seriously delayed.

Now, some people may ask, after viewing this dialog box, "Why not just play on another server with more open slots?" Well, therein lies another piece of bad news for SimCity players. Should you have actually managed to get online and start a city, you'll be exceedingly disappointed (and possibly homicidal) to discover that saved games DO NOT transfer between servers.

This all adds up to another spectacular DRM failure. When discussing piracy, game companies like to point out that a majority of their sales occur shortly after release, making these first few weeks critical to the success of the title. This critical sales period is used to justify DRM measures because, while every piece of software will eventually be cracked, anything that delays this inevitability results in a few more sales.

Sadly though, this same crucial sales period is when EA will be punishing its paying customers the most. By refusing to allow single players to start private, unconnected games (in case of a lost or unavailable connection), it's now racing around putting out server fires. Using the launch day traffic surge as an excuse for unplayable/unauthenticated purchases is not acceptable. EA knew the game would be popular. It even had advance warning thanks to the large number of pre-orders. But it's kind of hard to teach a company a lesson about DRM hurting paying customers when it already has their money.

For EA, this works out nearly perfectly. Sure, it's probably not evil enough to want players locked out for hours on end, but it probably considers these "hiccups" a small price to pay to keep piracy to a (temporary) minimum. Of course, considering someone else (the customer) is actually paying that price, it's really not sacrificing anything at all.

Okay... so I was just putting the finishing touches on a blog post about the latest filings from Prenda's Brett Gibbs and his opponent in a series of cases, Morgan Pietz, ahead of the planned hearing on Monday concerning various Prenda Law cases. As in the past, it was full of more attempts by Gibbs/Prenda to tapdance, with more evidence presented by Pietz that Prenda is up to no good (understatement of the year).

And... just as I was getting set to post it, I discover that Judge Otis Wright has had enough of the tap dancing, and has ordered just about everyone to show up in court on Monday for the hearing. And I do mean just about everyone.

John Steele? Yes. Mark Lutz? You bet. Alan Cooper? Oh yeah -- in fact, the judge ordered both Alan Coopers (the one claiming his identity was used by Steele and the one who supposedly "ran" AF Holdings) to show up, to see if there really are two of them. Paul Duffy? Yes. Paul Hansmeier. Yup. Of all the "players" from the latest filings, the only one missing may be "Allan Mooney" or "Alan Mony" or "Alan Moony" depending on which filing you're looking at (more on that below).

Sometimes it's difficult to actually get a sense of "tone" when you see some text, and that's doubly true of a court filing from a judge. But... this time, you get the feeling that Judge Otis Wright is not happy about all of this.

I expect that there will now be a flurry of filings with excuses and attempts to get out of appearing. I don't think that's going to work.

And... because I hate to let a perfectly good post go to waste, below is what I had originally written, but which has now been pushed down by this bit of breaking news. Consider everything below some additional background info for the main event coming Monday.

---

Brett Gibbs, who both is and is not a lawyer working for Prenda Law (depending on which time you ask him), continues his tap dance routine as we get closer to the expected showdown in Judge Otis Wright's courtroom on March 11th, in which sanctions against Gibbs, including the possibility of jail time, will be considered. The latest filing from Gibbs (filed by some lawyers he has hired to help him out), basically attacks nearly every statement in the declaration filed by the opposing lawyer, Morgan Pietz. It's really quite a work of art. First, he tries to get various declarations concerning evidence that Prenda sought to have AT&T identify IP address holders after Judge Wright had already ordered that such discovery stop. Gibbs claims that these declarations are "untimely." Then, pretty much every single statement from Pietz is challenged with a rotating list of claims, including: irrelevant, lacks foundation and/or personal knowledge, hearsay, improper characterization of evidence, assumes facts not in evidence, speculation and argumentative. Basically, nearly every single point that Pietz raises to show improper or questionable conduct by Gibbs and or Prenda should be ignored based on this filing. Given that Judge Wright hasn't exactly been swayed by Gibbs' arguments over the last month or so, I find it unlikely that he's going to be swayed by all of this tap dancing.

Oh, and still no indication of who Alan Cooper is.

However, in the same case, Pietz has also filed another document presenting evidence that suggests that Alan Cooper may not be the only name that was "faked" as a part of all of these lawsuits:

First, there was Alan Cooper. Mr. Gibbs has no real explanation for the Alan Cooper situation, other than to disclaim responsibility and deflect blame for the apparent fraud, etc., to his supposed “supervising” attorneys at Prenda Law, Inc. Unfortunately for Mr. Gibbs, it is his name on the pleadings and "counsel can no longer avoid the sting of Rule 11 sanctions by operating under the guise of a pure heart and empty head." Smith v. Ricks, 31 F.3d 1478, 1488 (9th Cir. 1994). Hopefully, Mr. Cooper himself can address theses issues at the March 11 hearing.

Now, there is also "Allan Mooney" a/k/a "Alan Mooney" a/k/a "Alan Mony." Newly discovered facts suggest that Alan Cooper may not be the only person who has had his identity misappropriated by Prenda in connection with its shell companies. Although some details are still hazy, suffice it to say that undersigned counsel (and many others) would very much like to question the real "Allan Mooney" on the record, under oath. Similarly, there is widespread interest in a subpoena to obtain testimony and records from the Minnesota bank that employs the notary who supposedly notarized Mr. Mooney's signature on legal pleadings filed in other jurisdictions. Then, of course, there is also Anthony "Salt Marsh" Saltmarsh. In short, "Alan Cooper" was not a mistake; there appears to be a pattern.

Furthermore, Pietz points out, the "rotating case" of characters that Prenda uses, seems to involve constantly switching roles so they can't be pinned down.

Another pattern with Prenda is that all of the persons involved constantly change hats; who is acting in what capacity seems to fluctuate to suit whatever the instant legal predicament happens to be. Inconsistencies include:

Mr. Gibbs is counsel of record for AF Holdings, LLC (e.g., C.D. Cal. No. 2:12-cv-5709, ECF No. 1) (7/2/12); Mr. Gibbs is "in house counsel" for AF Holdings (N.D. Cal. No. 3:12-cv-4221, ECF No. 22, p. 2) (1/30/13)3; Mr. Gibbs is not in house counsel to AF Holdings, and has never been anything other than AF Holdings’ "independent contract attorney" (ECF No. 49, p. 3) (2/19/13).

John Steele is "of counsel" to Prenda (Exhibit D) (4/20/12); John Steele is "not an attorney with any law firm" when questioned by Judge Scriven (Exhibit N, p. 135)(11/27/12); John Steele is back to being "of counsel" to Prenda in the St. Clair County Guava case (Supp'l. Dec. 15 (ECF No. 53)) (2/13/13).

AF Holdings copyright assignment is executed by Alan Cooper (e.g., C.D. Cal. No. 2:12-cv-5709, ECF No. 1) (12/20/2011); "Salt Marsh" is the "AF Holdings Owner" (Exhibit R) (7/20/12); AF Holdings is owned by a mystery trust, and never had any other members or employees other than its manager Mark Lutz (ECF No. 52, p. 28) (2/19/13, 11:00 a.m.); AF Holdings is owned by Livewire Holdings, LLC (ECF No. 49, fn. 1) (2/19/13, 6:00 p.m.).

Guava, LLC files a petition supposedly verified by client "Alan Mony" (ECF No. 51-1) (11/20/12); Prenda confirms "Alan Mony" is the client's name (Exhibit FF, p. 5) (2/12/13); Prenda files new verification, now spelling the purported client's name as "Alan Mooney" (Exhibit GG) (2/21/13); however, the real name of the "client" (who may or may not have agreed to lend his name to Prenda's efforts) is probably "Allan Mooney" (ECF No. 52, pp. 15–16).

Pietz has even spent the time to put together a graphic in which he tries to map out the various characters at play here. Given all of this, it seems likely that Judge Wright isn't going to simply agree that everything Pietz has to say is "irrelevant" and "lacks foundation." At some point, Gibbs, or someone else from Prenda is actually going to have to produce Alan Cooper and/or possibly Allan/Alan Mooney/Mony/Moony/etc. Watching Prenda's lawyers continue to try to tap dance their way out of this is really quite an astounding thing.

For obvious reasons, stories about drones concentrate on what they can do while they are airborne. But they have to come down at some point, and sometimes emergency landings mean that they cannot return to base. An interesting story from Italy recounts what happened there in these circumstances:

A 24-year old college student in Bologna, Italy was arrested by Italian postal police after attempting to sell a drone that had emergency-landed on his apartment's terrace last October. The student had posted the drone, a privately-operated Microdrones quad-rotor helicopter owned by Italian startup Eye Sky, on Subito.it, an online auction site. The asking price for the $40,000 drone: 1,000 euros [$1300].

The Ars Technica post notes the mistakes the student made that enabled the police to track him down (hint: don't post too many details when you offer a drone for sale), and that he now faces up to a year in prison, and fines. But what's interesting here is that the student in question even thought of trying to sell it. It's almost as if drones belong to a different, heavenly world, and when they drop out of it into our earthly one, they are regarded as a kind of lucky gift from the gods to do with as we please. Of course, for all their novelty, they're just another kind of physical object that is owned by someone, who won't be best pleased if others try to appropriate it.

However, this does raise the question of what exactly the public should do when a drone comes down in their garden or on their roof. As drones and emergency landings in cities start to become more common, who do we call? Do we perhaps need a central Office of Lost Drones that can come along and pick them up?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+