

Prenda Law ordered to pay $261K to defendants - cheapsteak
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/unhappy-thanksgiving-for-prenda-law-ordered-to-pay-261k-to-defendants/

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pwg
Key quote from the article:

"Unlike other awards, Hansmeier, Steele and Duffy are __personally liable__
for this award." (emphasis added)

So they can't simply close up the firm and walk away from the carcass. Their
own personal funds will disappear, which is actually the proper punishment for
this type of action on their part.

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anoncow
>The Prenda "porn trolls" were really just an annoyance to the ISPs until they
sued the companies; that put AT&T and Comcast in a situation where "they will
be strongly motivated to win the case and ensure that no one tries this tactic
again," wrote Lee.

If they hadn't sued Comcast and Bell, would the judgment be different?

~~~
latk
The judgement _on the case_ would probably not be much different, considering
that the Prenda lawyers have also lost various other cases without naming any
ISPs as defendants.

 _This order_ discusses a motion by Comcast and AT&T for attorney fees, which
the judge deems appropriate because (a) Prenda unnecessarily elongated the
process by naming the ISPs as co-defendants without any valid claim, and (b)
as a reprimand for Prenda'a “willingness to lie to the Court” and “disregard
[…] of justice”.

The damages are tabulated as follows:

    
    
        Anthony Smith (main defendant)
          187.2h á $200.00/h – $409.00/h →  $72,367.00
        AT&T
          158.7h á $110.00/h – $295.00/h →  $38,987.83 + $870.29
          215.0h á $250.00/h – $555.00/h →  $80,524.50 + $864.92
                                      total $119,637.05
        Comcast
          132.0h á $212.50/h – $531.00/h →  $57,144.23 + $806.98
           36.9h á             $300.00/h →  $11,070.00
                                     total  $69,021.26
    
                          TOTAL JUDGEMENT: $261,025.11
    

So yes, Prenda would have to pay a lot less attorney fees hadn't they got the
ISPs involved, and possibly even none at all, considering that the motion for
fees was brought forward by the ISPs.

You can read the judgement yourself at
[https://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58...](https://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.100.0.pdf)

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skore
Very happy to see these cases be increasingly either laughed out of court or
used to punish trolls.

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chris_wot
It looks like after they are bankrupted, they will be going to jail.

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spdmn
i've been so sick of hearing about these guys "gaming" the justice system and
getting away with it. perhaps there is hope.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, this case is a little more disappointing than you might think. Prenda's
in so much trouble because they falsely represented to the court that they had
an unrelated, copyright-holding client, when in fact they held the copyright
(and kept all the money) themselves. No one is challenging the model of "own
the copyright to a porn movie, and then sue people who download it" (although
it has also been suggested that Prenda was the source of torrents for its
movies, which would complicate its claims).

~~~
wavefunction
It cannot be proven that Prenda was responsible for the torrent in the first
place (an IP address is not enough for proof of identity) but it's pretty much
settled at this point that Prenda paid for the production of the pornography,
had no intention of ever releasing the pornography for consumption, and posted
the original torrent so that they could go after "infringers."

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/21/quite-
ama...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/21/quite-amazing-
prenda-law-was-seeding-the-torrent-sites-it-then-sues-people-for-downloading-
from/)

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kenster07
There is hope yet for the patent system in America.

~~~
latk
This has nothing to do with _patents_. The article describes a case of
_copyright trolling_ , which is a completely different matter.

Of course there are _similarities_ between copyright trolls and patent trolls:
Both acquire certain rights and try to extort money out of small actors for
allegedly infringing use. In both cases the troll's calculation is that the
proposed settlement fee is just below the cost of an effective defense.

