Update (June 25, 2013): As reported late Friday in the Star Tribune, Mag. Judge Franklin L. Noel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota has taken the unusual step of re-opening closed cases to have a look at just how sleazy the goings-on were in cases related to the posts below and whether attorney conduct might have oozed past the line into sanctionable sliminess.
Update (March 11, 2013): The StarTribune is on the story (below) and has covered it well. Incidentally, the public comments to the StarTribune story seem (atypically) thoughtful, at least the initial ones. (Wouldn’t it be nice if the use of the internet evolved in the coming years so stupid, profane, spammy comments disappeared from website comments? Imagine.)
Original post (January 28, 2013): Not many people have it in their natures to get THIS sleazy:
- Obtain the copyright to digital pornography,
- Make it accessible on the internet but copyrighted so that anyone who downloads the pornography without permission can be prosecuted for copyright infringement,
- Start a fake collusive lawsuit to enable you to subpoena internet service providers as unnamed non-parties to the sham lawsuit as if they have supposedly relevant evidence for your bogus lawsuit, so you can match up the computer I.P. (internet protocol) addresses you got from the download logs to identify the computer owners, and
- Blackmail the computer owners with threats of copyright infringement lawsuits and public humiliation for downloading pornography unless they pay you hush money.
If such sleazy people exist, they are in a fairly elite platinum status of sleaze, don’t you think?
It seems they may exist. (Here is a link to the story on Ars Technica.)
Several lawyers, with Bassford Remele’s David Camarotto in the lead, appeared Friday before Hennepin County District Court Judge Tanya Bransford moving to quash the subpoena sought by “Guava LLC” in what several lawyers for non-party “John Does” and internet service providers argued was a sham lawsuit to obtain names to continue the sordid exploit described above. An affidavit was submitted to the Court that seemed to be consistent with their theory.
Minnesota Litigator was present for some the hearing on Friday. Judge Bransford did not seem particularly pleased with counsel for so-called Plaintiff, “Guava LLC.” Bringing a sham lawsuit, if this is found to have been the case, is hardly likely to pass muster with the Board of Professional Responsibility either, one would think. Stay tuned…