Thursday, January 13, 2011

Graham Syfert on This Week in Law

http://twit.tv/twil



Check out Episode 93 - Here's Graham with almost no sleep from doing late night client work.

US Copyright Group Drops Cases Against Thousands of BitTorrent Users


US Copyright Group Drops Cases Against Thousands of BitTorrent Users

The US Copyright Group (USCG) campaign to turn piracy into profit is starting to fall apart. Today, the anti-piracy lawyers dropped 97% of the alleged BitTorrent file-sharers from the Far Cry case because of a lack of jurisdiction. This setback seriously limits the profitability of the law firm's business model, and is a clear victory for thousands of people who were pressured to pay expensive settlements.
torrentfreakSince the beginning of this year the United States Copyright Group (USCG) has sued tens of thousands of BitTorrent users who allegedly shared films without the consent of copyright holders.
One of the copyright holders who teamed up with USCG are Achte/Neunte, the makers of the movie Far Cry. This case originally had 4,577 defendants, all of whom were accused of distributing the film via BitTorrent.
However, three weeks ago District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ordered USCG to limit their case only to those defendants who the Court has jurisdiction over, and in an amended complaint filed today the anti-piracy lawyers have done just that.
Of the thousands of defendants, only 140 remain in the latest complaint. The remaining 4,437 were dropped from the case without prejudice. The new complaint specifically states that the remaining defendants reside in the District of Columbia, where the case was filed.
“The named Defendant resides in this District. Although the true identity of each remaining Doe Defendant is unknown to the Plaintiff at this time, on information and belief, each remaining Doe Defendant may be found in this District and/or a substantial part of the acts of infringement complained of herein occurred in this District,” the lawyers write.
These recent developments are welcome news to the thousands of people who have been pressured to pay thousands of dollars in settlements over the past months, including those in the Hurt Locker case. As it now stands, all people being chased by USCG outside of the Court’s jurisdiction can have their case dropped.
“This is certainly a reassuring decision for file sharing defendants in parallel cases around the country although they remain vulnerable to file sharing suits brought in their home states,” Stewart Kellar, a California attorney representing several defendants in the Far Cry Case, told TorrentFreak in a comment.
It has to be noted, however, that the cases have been dropped without prejudice, which effectively means that USCG can file suit against defendants again at a later stage if they so choose.
That said, having to file cases in dozens of states will significantly increase the workload for USCG’s lawyers, not to mention escalating costs. The question now is whether or not the scheme will remain financially viable.
Right now there is little doubt that what first seemed to be a relatively effective and profitable way to turn piracy into a healthy revenue stream, is rapidly turning into a nightmare for the anti-piracy lawyers and their partners.
Article from: TorrentFreak.

Class Action Targets Law Firm Pursuing Thousands of Alleged Movie Pirates

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/thr-esq/expendables-producer-sue-thousands-online-68257


Class Action Targets Law Firm Pursuing Thousands of Alleged Movie Pirates

November
29
3 comments
Last year, the U.S. Copyright Group made waves by joining thousands of anonymous defendants together in a handful of lawsuits. Representing producers of such films as The Hurt Locker and Far Cry, the enterprising Washington-based law firm claimed the defendants were infringing its clients' copyrights on BitTorrent and sought to first identify the alleged pirates, and then to either extract settlements or pursue them in court further.
Now the legal campaign has triggered interesting side battles. Last week, a class action lawsuit was filed against the USCG (aka Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver).
The plaintiff, Dmitriy Shirokov, claims that he and 4,576 other individuals have been subject to "settlement fraud and extortion" on the part of the USCG.
According to the 96-page complaint filed in Massachusetts District Court, the defendant is routinely demanding $1,500 from each identified file-sharer, which increases to $2,500 if not settled promptly. The proposed class action asserts that these demands are made with "deceptive threats of impending (and even more expensive) litigation" despite USCG not having any genuine intention to pursue the thousands of claims further.
USCG tells us the claims are coming soon.
The proposed plaintiffs also allege there are flaws in the copyright registration of Far Cry. Specifically, it's alleged that the registration was obtained under "false pretenses" and that the claims against the accused pirates came before the application of the copyright registration. The allegation, if valid, could impact the amount of damages that defendants have to pay producers down the line.
The class action is probably a long shot, but shows how the USCG is increasingly fighting more assertive defendants and an avalanche of paperwork.
Also last week, the USCG requested sanctions against a lawyer, Graham Syfert, who is selling form motions to quash to anybody accused of pirating Hurt Locker. 
For $19.99, customers have access to a do-it-yourself legal defense, including paperwork and instructions. In papers to the court, the USCG claims these form motions are "frivolous" and "procedurally defective." Nevertheless, it is causing the USCG trouble. The firm claims to spend $5,000 for the time and expense opposing each one.

Copyright Lawyers Sue Lawyer Who Helped Copyright Defendants

Copyright Lawyers Sue Lawyer Who Helped Copyright Defendants
image
Attorneys for the U.S. Copyright Group have filed a lawsuit against a lawyer who sold "self-help" documents to people who had been sued by the USCG, demanding that he pay the costs involved in dealing with the people who used the documents he sold.
Try to stick with me here, because this one gets weird. Back in August, an attorney by the name of Graham Syfert began selling documents that would allow defendants in lawsuits filed by the U.S. Copyright Group to respond in court without having to fork over the huge piles of money needed to hire an attorney. The USCG sued "thousands" of BitTorrent users who had downloaded films like The Hurt LockerFar Cry and Call of the Wild, demanding a settlement of $2500 to avoid the much more expensive proposition of going to court.
"One of the major problems that people encounter when trying to hire me on these cases, is that a settlement is approximately what an attorney would need to even begin a defense," Syfert said at the time. His package of paperwork, on the other hand, cost just ten bucks.
19 people have thus far taken advantage of Syfert's offer and submitted responses to the court using his package, not a huge amount by any measure but 19 more than Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, the law firm behind the USCG lawsuits, wants to put up with. The firm threatened Syfert with sanctions soon after he began selling his forms and also said it would double its settlement requests for anyone who used them; Syfert dismissed the threats with a "tongue in cheek" email and that was that, until earlier this week.
On November 22, Syfert received another email from attorney Jeff Weaver informing him that he had made a formal request for sanctions against him on behalf of the production company behind The Hurt Locker, one of the driving forces behind the USCG lawsuits. Weaver is apparently claiming that the 19 cases filed using the self-help package have cost his firm $5000 and he wants Syfert to pay.
Syfert has countered with his own claim for sanctions against Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver. "This is completely insane," he told TorrentFreak. "If 19 cases costs them $5000 in attorney time, I wonder how many cases it'd take before their business model crumbles. That is unless they are going to actually work for a living."
It's interesting to note, as the site points out, that the USCG is "upset for a reason." While all motions to quash and motions for protective order have so far been denied regardless of how they were filed, the motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction have not. In other words, Syfert's package is allowing people to mount an effective defense against the claim and the USCG is faced with the very expensive possibility of having to re-file thousands of individual cases in order to get around it.
Syfert's package of forms, which includes a motion to quash, motion to dismiss, an affidavit in support of the motions and a motion for protective order, now sells for $19.95, which is still a great deal. Believe me, you can't get most lawyers to pick up their phone for twenty bucks.

10,243 BitTorrent Defendants Added This Week

10,243 BitTorrent Defendants Added This Week

Thu, Jan 13 2011 01:30pm PST
WASHINGTON — It's been a busy week for porn BitTorrent case filings.
Since Monday, 10,243 John Doe defendants have been fingered for using BitTorrent programs to download adult videos owned by Axel Braun Productions, Elegant Angel, West Coast Productions and Lightspeed Media Corp.
With the exception of Axel Braun Productions' suit, all of the other lawsuits don't specify movie titles but make available serial numbers associated with the movies. Axel Braun Productions is suing his defendants for poaching "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody."
Here's a breakdown of the suits: West Coast Productions has filed two suits, one with 5,829 defendants and another with 1,434; Elegant Angel filed suit against 156; Axel Braun Productions against 2,823; and Lightspeed Media has targeted one Doe.
Some of the suits recently dropped by U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey in W. Virginia have been reconstituted in nearby District of Columbia.
Elegant Angel, Axel Braun Productions and West Coast Productions all had suits in W. Virginia originally filed by Kenneth Ford of Adult Copyright Co. Those suits are now handled by Ellis Bennett of Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver in Leesburg, Va.
Lightspeed Media's suit was filed in Chicago by attorney John Steele.