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Team Prenda Not Only Still Shaking Down People, But Also Threatening To Tell Their Neighbors About Porn Habits
from the they-just-don't-quit dept
It would appear that while Team Prenda is in denial mode when talking to the press, they're still going strong in the shakedown game. As highlighted by Fight Copyright Trolls, late last week, Paul Duffy was still signing letters sent out from "Anti-Piracy Law Group" -- the name cooked up as a replacement after Prenda's name became toxic. And the letters were sent out the day after Judge Wright's complete smackdown of the whole shakedown business. Even more ridiculous is that the latest batch of threat letters try to speed up the process by telling people they're going to contact your neighbors about what they believe are your porn habits. This is classic stuff, right out the playbook of John Steele/Paul Hansmeier and the like: when they run into trouble, rather than deal with it, they pile on another layer of tricks. In this case, one of the key issues that was raised in other cases, including the case in front of Judge Wright, was Prenda lawyer Brett Gibb's failure to have real proof that an account holder was the party involved in the downloading, especially in cases of open WiFi. While Gibbs had weakly claimed that the house was too far away from others for the WiFi to reach the neighbors, opposing lawyers (and then Judge Wright himself) pointed out that a simple look at Google Maps showed this was clearly untrue.
Team Prenda appears to now be using that to their advantage:
I can't imagine that this is going to end well for Duffy, Steele and Hansmeier, no matter how self-assured they like to appear. At best, this is an attempt to squeeze a bit more money out of this whole process before it's completely shut down, but given that the walls are almost certainly closing in on them, continuing to operate in this manner (and even stepping it up in some ways) isn't going to look good to those who are now investigating the matter.
Team Prenda appears to now be using that to their advantage:
The first step in this process is to conduct what is referred to as a 'pre-complaint investigation.' The purpose of this step is to gather evidence about who used your Internet account to steal from our client. The list of possible suspects includes you, members of your household, your neighbors (if you maintain an open wi-fi connection) and anyone who might have visited your house. In the coming days we will contact these individuals to investigate whether they have any knowledge of the acts described in my client's prior letter.The short form of this is: "pay up, or we contact your family, friends and neighbors to tell them you've been downloading freaky porn -- whether or not it's true."
I can't imagine that this is going to end well for Duffy, Steele and Hansmeier, no matter how self-assured they like to appear. At best, this is an attempt to squeeze a bit more money out of this whole process before it's completely shut down, but given that the walls are almost certainly closing in on them, continuing to operate in this manner (and even stepping it up in some ways) isn't going to look good to those who are now investigating the matter.
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in the time it takes to find a neighbors number they could send another thousand letters.
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I doubt they know what defamation is =/
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Nope, never has a more untrue statement ever been uttered.
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Still at it eh?
Either they are complete morons, or they have some ulterior motive to keep going, such as MPAA/RIAA kickbacks.
They should have been disbarred, long ago... this kind of behavior is a disgrace to the practice of law, and to humanity in general.
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Re: Still at it eh?
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Re: Re: Still at it eh?
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Re: Re: Still at it eh?
They should sell action figures, maybe T-shirts or something to spread the good word. I mean who wouldn't want a "Team Prenda" T-shirt?
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Lock 'em up!
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Re: Lock 'em up!
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Just when you think they can't do anything more stupid...
The only other thought I have is that these guys are moving into dangerous territory. And I'm not talking about courts, money, or rights; I'm talking about the personal physical kind. They had better be careful, since they are so infamous at the moment it wouldn't be hard to come by information on their whereabouts. If they threaten the wrong person (since there us all kinds of crazy on the net), the whole deal may be over before the courts even have time to deal with it.
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Re: Just when you think they can't do anything more stupid...
'since there are all kinds...'
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Re: Just when you think they can't do anything more stupid...
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In their defence
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- you and your neighbors, visitors,
- possibly their neighbors, and their neighbors neighbors
- anyone with a computer, cell phone driving or passing by your area
- anyone with an internet connection if your computer connects to the internet
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- Our client actually owned the copyright we claim someone infringed on.
- There were any actual evidence any sort of infringment happened.
- Copyright actually covered porn in the U.S.
- We were even a valid law firm
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...I could buy that.
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Fine details of failure
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Possible way to fight back?
Could the trolls continued sending of these letters be considered criminal harassment?
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Re: Possible way to fight back?
If you ignored them, they'd actually file and hope you'd KEEP ignoring it so they could get a default judgement. Although, at that point you could perhaps get a lawyer and hope they dismiss, as they seem fond of doing.
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Suppose you are such a neighbor
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At work
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Included in the category of "slander per se" are statements of serious sexual misconduct. A public statement that someone engages in sexual behaviors that are generally considered perverse would fall into this category.
So, let me make sure that I have this correct.
They are saying they are going to contact your employer, all of your neighbors, etc... and accuse you downloading specific porn titles.. and it's extremely probable that the titles will be perverse titles, because it's porn. It's almost guaranteed.
Would this not result in massive numbers of lawsuits and/or counterclaims (assuming there is even a lawsuit to counterclaim in the first place) for slander per se?
They're already getting some counterclaims on these cases now, I am not sure how many, but at least some. There was that Connecticut case - I believe SJD wrote a post about it at the end of January - where they were counterclaimed for defamation and abuse of process.
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Lets use a State court for a round the way copyright case.
Lets not mention our expert (IIRC) is also the person who missed seeing the systems he ran being hacked for months.
Lets use the new company name and have Duffy sign, because all of the other names are shot if they google.
Their day of reckoning needs to come much faster and end these threats.
Oh and Mike - I still am curious what reports that at the time seems outlandish and now look factual.
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average_joe must be so proud.
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6 degrees of separation
The letter is insane, but this part is just...
ANYONE who MIGHT (access the range of wifi) at the house.
They may as well put an ad in every publication in the county just to narrow it down a bit.
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They can visit my dog sparky!!!!
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Where's RICO?
I said in some previous stories that these guys are so addicted to the easy cash from these porn lawsuits that they would change and refine their methods to keep the settlement money train rolling.
I predict that we will see new LLC's incorporated in far flung destinations where secrecy is golden, new films to be sued over and new attorneys on the front with the old Prenda gang pulling the strings behind the scene.
Remember Steele had said just says ago he isn't affiliated with any Prenda cases but yet he works for the LW SYSTEMS who in turn is owned by LiveWire Holdings which Steele also is affiliated.
Now we ought to give Robert Stack a call and maybe he can feature Steele on Unsolved Mysteries and explain the phenomena of how Steele keeps ending up in Prenda related cases when he does no work for them and isn't associated with them.
These guys from my research on RICO and how one would qualify for a RICO case seem to fit the bill in my opinion.
I think we are going to see the Prenda gang rake in as much money as they can before the IRS, various State Bar's and the State & Federal AG's bring the curtain down on them.
I am glad that the various ISP's have banded together to try and get the order for ISP to provide subscriber information quashed, and I hope they are successful in getting this scheme shut down.
Now with that being said I doubt you will see the Prenda follow the order to halt contacting the subscribers, I would suffice to guess they will do what they did in the case before Judge Wright and continue to contact subscribers and claim like they did in the case that it was an accident.
These guys wont stop until they lose their ability to practice or are in jail in my opinion. Look at what is happening now, they just change the Law group name and kept at.
I find it un-believable that they would mention credit card data and mentioning to the neighbour and to the possible employer of the subscriber. In my opinion that's bloody well extorsion, and fits in with my thoughts that these guys should be charged under RICO.
Looking at the fact that came down from 4000.00 dollars to 2500.00 dollars makes me think that they are playing the odds that some may settle instead of hiring a lawyer and the costs with doing that and fighting would be above the 2500.00 threshold.
These guys are going all in in a race to beat the Judges starting to hammer them on Judges Wright's reporting to the other Judges of what transpired in the case that was before him.
Lets hope that the IRS and the State & Federal AG's step up their game before these guys start raking in cash from some poor S.O.B. I hope that they included the friendly defence lawyer who so readily agreed to this discovery without even a whiff of a fight, because in my opinion their is some collusion going on... lets hope a Grand Jury looks at it that same way.
While I would love to see the Prenda gang behind bars, I doubt we will have seen the last of them
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Me: Go ahead, I will contact my lawyer to put you in jail for harassment, defamation, psychological/moral damages and I'm sure my lawyer can think of a few more things to rake in.
Case solved. Next?
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What Paul Duffy's Wife (#Prenda) Thinks
DTD :)
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Re: What Paul Duffy's Wife (#Prenda) Thinks
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Re: Re: What Paul Duffy's Wife (#Prenda) Thinks
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Isn't it illegal to threaten to blackmail? I guess who cares right... not like anyone's giving a damn about laws anymore.
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