A few months after the first cases were started the tables were turned. One of the alleged pirates sued the lawyers for fraud, abuse and extortion, due to their role in the “copyright troll” scheme.

Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver were named in a class-action lawsuit together with movie studio Achte/Neunte and the German tracking company GuardaLey, who together went after thousands of people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie ‘Far Cry’ using BitTorrent.

Through the lawsuit, spearheaded by Dmitriy Shirokov, the troll victims were seeking relief based on 25 counts including extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse and unjust enrichment.

Among other things, the “copyright trolls” were accused of building their case on shoddy evidence and a false copyright registration.

Last year the Massachusetts District Court denied the class action, which meant the case continued with Shirokov as the only plaintiff. This severely limited the scope of the verdict. However, after more than three years Shirokov did win his case.

During the proceedings, where the law firm remained as the only defendant, it became clear that Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver could not present critical pieces of evidence. The company claimed that the requested documents were lost in a computer crash.

As a result, the law firm had no other option than to concede defeat, which it did through an offer of judgement. In a recent ruling Judge George O’Toole ordered Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver to pay $39,909.95, which includes attorney fees.

TorrentFreak spoke with Jason Sweet, whose firm Booth Sweet represented Shirokov. Sweet notes that the outcome is a “bittersweet victory,” as the class action status was denied earlier. Also, the awarded fees are a far cry from those requested.

Nevertheless, Shrirokov and his legal team are happy with the outcome. Their main goal was to make it harder for copyright trolls to operate in Massachusetts, and they believe that was achieved.

“The case did accomplish what we wanted it to. That is, to deter others from starting similar cases in Massachusetts. It served its purpose,” Sweet tells TF. While the case does not mark the end of copyright trolling schemes in the United States, it won’t make them any easier either.

As for Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, they will now have to pay their dues. The law firm has left the copyright trolling trade already, and the recent verdict makes it unlikely that they will ever return.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The lawyers in question track alleged BitTorrent pirates and threaten to take them to court. But, as is common with these schemes, all people have to do is pay up a settlement fee and the whole thing simply goes away.

Critics of these practices have described the people involved as ‘copyright trolls,’ and some of the defendants are fighting back. DGW, for example, is currently involved in a class action lawsuit where the law firm is accused of fraud, abuse and extortion.

Considering the above, it came as a surprise when we learned this morning that the DGW law firm is presenting an educational webinar under the umbrella of the American Bar Association. Titled “Finding Anonymous Copyright Infringers,” the course promises to teach fellow lawyers all the tricks they need to catch those pesky pirates.

According to the announcement, part of the webinar will “focus on the hot topic in copyright litigation involving federal litigation against the backdrop of torrent and live web-streaming.” During the webinar participating lawyers will learn more about “utilizing pre-discovery subpoenas [...] and a variety of other legal tools to pursue infringement claims against anonymous infringers.”

Basically it reads like a crash course on how to become a copyright troll by the very people who pioneered the scheme in the US. Lawyers who participate in the webinar are eligible for mandatory CLE credit, and we expect that the ‘teachers’ will be compensated for their insights as well.

DGW lawyers Thomas Dunlap and Nick Kurtz will be accompanied by the EFF friendly defense lawyer Paul Ticen. He is expected to address how BitTorrent users have put up a successful defense in court, which is a dangerous exercise considering the negative framing of the course.

This vision is shared by Robert Cashman, a Texas lawyer defending dozens of individuals in mass BitTorrent lawsuits.

“It seems awfully dangerous and stupid to get on a panel with the plaintiff attorney copyright trolls and tell them all of the defense’s strategies,” he told TorrentFreak.

“The way this whole thing is set up, I am afraid it will be the plaintiff attorneys versus the lone defense attorney. I expect to see bloodshed,” he added.

Whatever the outcome, we encourage participants in the course to fill us in on the details. Heck, we might even buy the CD-Rom, which will obviously be pirated by an anonymous Doe in the near future.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

By targeting at least 24,583 alleged BitTorrent users, Voltage Pictures hoped to recoup millions of dollars in settlements to compensate the studio for piracy-related losses. And so it happened.

After former RIAA-lobbyist Judge Beryl Howell signed off on the subpoenas, the suspected infringers were asked to pay thousands of dollars to settle their case, or else.

As the case dragged on, the major roadblock for Voltage Pictures turned out to be the Internet providers, who were often only releasing the personal details of a few dozen defendants each month. As a result, the Hurt Locker makers had to file extension after extension to keep the case alive. Judge Howell eventually ran out of patience and decided not to grant a new extension this month, thereby closing the case.

Although this appears to be good news for the tens of thousands of defendants, a range of questionable actions from Voltage Picture’s law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver suggests that they might be in for a surprise.

Over the past months TorrentFreak talked to several defendants who were notified by their Internet providers that Voltage Pictures had sent a subpoena to reveal their personal details. By itself this is nothing new, were it not for the fact that these people’s IP-addresses were among the thousands that were dismissed from the case weeks earlier.

It turns out that after removing IP-addresses from the complaint, the lawyers were asking the ISPs for identifying information of the account holders anyway. Initially we thought that this must have been an isolated incident, but after contacting some lawyers we heard that it was most certainly not.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, BitTorrent defense lawyer Robert Cashman described the actions as unethical and sanctionable, and told us that the Judge would probably not allow this to happen if she knew what was going on.

“I am having this same issue with a potential client,” Cashman said. “As far as I know they cannot have the names from the ISP as the IP-addresses no longer belong to putative defendants,” he said. “A number of in-house attorneys at one of the ISPs are looking into the issue now to determine whether or not to comply with the request.”

From the people we talked to thus far we heard that at least some ISPs have complied, probably because the ISPs nor the defendants knew that the IP-addresses were no longer listed as defendants. Questionable behavior to say the least, but it gets worse, much worse.

BitTorrent defense lawyer Blair Chintella informed us that aside from going after dismissed defendants, the lawyers are also targeting people who’ve never been listed as a defendant in the first place. In a separate article Chintella provides additional background on the issue, where he believes Voltage Picture’s lawyers are out-of-order.

“Recently I’ve been contacted by one or more people whose alleged IP addresses aren’t listed in the court records,” Chintella says. “This appears to be not only an ethical violation but a legal issue giving rise to one or more claim under state or federal law.”

So it appears that the lawyers were using the court subpoenas to get the personal details of people whose IP-addresses were never listed in any complaint. Although it’s not clear how many times this has occurred, it’s possible that the lawyers went after thousands more people than they told the court.

To get their take on the situation, TorrentFreak contacted law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, but received no response.

While it’s clear that the practices outlined here warrant further investigation, it is doubtful that they will be looked into as the case is now officially closed. People who have recently received a settlement letter should remain vigilant though, as the Hurt locker makers may start to file individual lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the number of people sued in the US for alleged BitTorrent downloads has surpassed 250,000, and new mass-lawsuits are added every week.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

—

I have been practicing in the area of copyright infringement and specializing in bittorrent cases essentially since they started in the District of Columbia.  I wanted to write this short anecdote to raise awareness to an important issue regarding the Voltage Pictures case (and possibly other cases as well).

I frequently have prospective clients who contact me because their Internet account information is being subpoenaed by Voltage Pictures.  Before I do a consultation, I always verify that the IP address listed on the letter is indeed part of the lawsuit – i.e. that it’s listed in the complaint or a similar document.  However, recently I’ve been contacted by one or more people whose alleged IP addresses aren’t listed in the court records. As I’ll explain below, this appears to be not only an ethical violation but a legal issue giving rise to one or more claim under state or federal law. To better understand it’s useful to know the procedural background for the case.

The initial Voltage Pictures complaint didn’t include a list any “John Doe” IP addresses even though the case was styled: “v. Does 1-5,000.” Usually a plaintiff will attach to a complaint a list of IP addresses in these types of lawsuits so there is at least a “putative” defendant that is being sued as a John Doe. The fact that the plaintiff didn’t do this is arguably improper, but I won’t go into detail on this point.

Needless to say, the first time that the plaintiff mentions any specific IP address is on Exhibit C to the plaintiff’s June 7, 2010 motion that seeks permission to subpoena various ISPs. The motion asks permission to subpoena Internet account information for over 600 IP addresses attached as Exhibit C as well as “any other infringers that plaintiff identifies during the course of this litigation, as Plaintiff’s infringement monitoring efforts are on-going and continuous”. The motion concludes by asking the Court to issue an order permitting discovery in substantially the same form as the “proposed order” attached to the motion. The only problem, however, is that the plaintiff failed to attach a proposed order.

For reason unexplained (perhaps a simply mistake – judges are human too), the Court nonetheless granted the plaintiff’s motion on June 25, 2010. In doing so, it didn’t specify whether it was giving the plaintiff permission to conduct discovery regarding any IP addresses detected in the future (apart and in addition to those listed on Exhibit C). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the plaintiff either didn’t notice or – or noticed and didn’t seek clarification from the Court, and continued to subpoena the information for thousands of IP addresses in addition to those listed on Exhibit C.

For reasons unexplained yet again, it was not until April 4, 2011, approximately ten month later, that the Court clarified its previous order by stating the following:

. . .the plaintiff construes the June 25, 2010 . . . Order . . . as not restricted to the 687  specific IP addresses listed in Exhibit C to the motion. Rather, plaintiff construes this order as granting plaintiff leave to “conduct discovery on all of the Doe Defendants . . . that Plaintiff Voltage identifies during the course of this litigation . . .  The basis for this  broad interpretation of the June 25, 2010 Expedited Discovery Order apparently stems from a  footnote that the plaintiff included in its original motion. . . . The broad subpoena authority sought by the plaintiff in a footnote in its motion filing, however, was not specifically addressed, let alone expressly sanctioned, in the June 25, 2010 Minute Order approving expedited discovery. In short, the plaintiff’s broad interpretation of the June 25, 2010 Expedited Discovery Order is incorrect.  The plaintiff has only been granted leave to seek identifying information for those IP addresses that have been specifically proffered as relevant to this action by being listed on Exhibit C of plaintiff’s mot ion for expedited discovery. ECF No. 4.

In response to this new order, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint on May 31, 2011 listing over 24,500 IP addresses and on July 19, 2011 asked the Court for permission to conduct discovery regarding them. On July 25, 2011, the Court clarified that a previous order entered on March 31, 2011 had already given it permission to subpoena ISPs for the contact information regarding any IP address listed in an amended complaint (the Court mistakenly says March but the order was actually entered on May 31). Following this clarification, the plaintiff continued to subpoena the account information for thousands of Internet subscribers.

I wanted to write this short analysis because recently I’ve been contacted by one or more people whose alleged IP address isn’t listed in Exhibit C to the plaintiff’s motion seeking to conduct discovery nor the amended complaint. This is a serious issue because the Court’s July 25, 2011 order should have clarified that the plaintiff is only permitted to conduct discovery with respect to the IP addresses listed in the lawsuit as John Does. If this has happened to you, please speak with an attorney in your jurisdiction because may have a claim for “abuse of process” (versus the plaintiff or DGW) or a claim under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 47 U.S.C. § 551 or other federal or state laws (versus the plaintiff, DGWor your ISP).

Unfortunately, if you’ve already settled you likely don’t have a claim because Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver (the plaintiff’s counsel) usually insists on completely one-sided settlement agreements (another good reason to hire an attorney to negotiate for you). If you’ve already settled and feel gipped, you might consider filing a bar complaint with the District of Columbia to make sure that this doesn’t happen to others. I recommend speaking with an attorney beforehand, however, to ensure that you aren’t breaching any confidentiality provision.

With everyone’s help, we may not be able to kill these ugly troll lawsuits altogether but at least we can level the playing field a little.

Yours truly,

Blair Chintella
www.chintellalaw.com

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Their most successful movie, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, attracted much of the attention when earlier this year it became the subject of a record-breaking lawsuit.

According to court documents filed this week, Voltage Pictures have voluntarily dismissed around 90% of the original 24,583 Doe Defendants from The Hurt Locker lawsuit. They were dismissed without prejudice, so in theory they could be filed again at a later date. A full list of the IP addresses dismissed from the case can be found embedded below.

In excess of 2,300 potential Does remain in the suit from a range of ISPs including Atlantic Broadband, Bresnan Communications, Charter, Comcast, Mediacom, Midcontinent Media, Qwest, RCN, Sprint, Verizon and Windstream.

Furthermore, according to the documents Voltage have homed in on a number of now-named defendants; Claudio Vazquez, Modern Classics Inc, Sergio Sapaj, Roy McLeese, Kelechi Lane, Shyam Madhavan, Susan Glass, Daniel Bremer-Wirtig, Michael Sein, Elena Ditraglia, .. and J Barry Harrelson.

Defendants Vazquez, McLeese, and … were dismissed, Glass was served and has filed an answer, Harrelson was served and is yet to file a response. Defendants Lane and Modern Classics have been served but have not responded – Voltage are going for a default judgments against these.

Voltage say they have been unable to serve some of the other named defendants above, and have not yet received identifying information for 2,278 IP addresses, mainly due to ISPs stalling due to “motions purportedly filed by the Doe Defendants.” For this reason they request extra time from the court.

“Plaintiff requests at least an additional 60 days in which to effectuate service on Defendants Bremer-Wirtig, Ditraglia, Madhavan, Sapaj, and Sein and to name and serve, or voluntarily dismiss without prejudice, the remaining Doe Defendants,” the court papers read.

How many of the original 24,583 defendants settled with Voltage Pictures for thousands of dollars remains unknown.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Since last year, Voltage Pictures, the makers of Hurt Locker, have been working with the Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver law firm (better known as the U.S. Copyright Group) to target Internet users who allegedly shared their Oscar-winning movie online.

Give us thousands of dollars in settlement, they say, and we won’t ruin your life with an expensive lawsuit.

Last month Voltage exported their scheme north to Canada and through the Federal Court in Montreal the obtained an order which forced three Canadian ISPs – Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable Inc. and Videotron GP – to hand over the personal details of subscribers Voltage claim infringed their copyrights.

Following a review of the IP addresses provided to the first ISP, Bell Canada (shown below), an eyebrow-raising nugget of information has come to light.

The third IP on the list – 207.61.47.217 – looks much like any other. It is accused of sharing the movie using uTorrent v2.2.1.0 on May 4th 2011, and in itself that is nothing unusual. But further investigation shows that this particular IP address has a rather famous owner.

As shown here, not only is the IP provided by Bell Canada it can also be traced back to the Bell Centre. That’s because it’s operated by none other than the Montreal Canadiens hockey team.

The big question now is whether Goudreau Gage Dubuc LLP, the law firm hired by Voltage to carry out their Canadian shakedown, will send their usual settlement demands to Montreal Canadiens. If they do, this could get very interesting indeed.

It is highly likely that many individuals are able to obtain Internet access via 217.canadiens.com, the domain from which the infringement was allegedly logged. The problematic issue of pinning an infringement to an individual on a multiple access IP was highlighted perfectly in the Swedish Film Institute case recently. Furthermore, Montreal Canadiens have very, very deep pockets and lawyers on tap.

Hockey fans and opponents of these copyright shakedowns will be hoping that this particular Hurt Locker timebomb is dealt with by Canadiens via a boarding or their enforcer, rather than being subjected to an empty net goal, as Voltage might prefer.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

According to papers just filed, USCG will again partner with The Expendables creator Nu Image to chase down yet more BitTorrent users, this time those who allegedly obtained and distributed the Jason Statham movie The Mechanic.

The filing lists 4,165 IP addresses that were allegedly making the movie available between July 1st and August 8th this year. The number of ISPs targeted is small – Charter, Comcast, Cox, RCN and Windstream. Absent are Verizon and Time Warner, ISPs that have previously put limits on their levels of cooperation in these cases.

In recent months USCG have suffered major setbacks when submitted IP addresses were found to be located in the wrong jurisdictions, but you wouldn’t guess it from confident statements in their most recent filing.

“Although the true identity of each Defendant is unknown to the Plaintiff at this time, on information and belief, each Defendant may be found in this District and/or a substantial part of the acts of infringement complained of herein occurred in this District,” it reads.

Yet, in tests carried out by TorrentFreak, we discovered that of 4,165 IP addresses filed, just 2% can be traced back to the correct jurisdiction, in this case Maryland. The biggest group, 13.1%, are IP addresses in California. Columbia represent just 0.4% of the total.

This problem over jurisdiction is nothing new. In August, USCG and Nu Image voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit targeting 23,322 U.S. Internet users who allegedly shared The Expendables.

The suit, at one time the biggest ever of its type, was crippled when District Court Judge Robert Wilkins decided that Nu Image could only go after those individuals who were reasonably likely to be living in the District of Columbia, the district where the suit was filed. In that case, 99% of the IP addresses filed were out of jurisdiction.

With Judge Wilkins ruling unfavorably, shortly after USCG also dumped their lawsuit filed on behalf of Cinetel Films, the makers of the horror flick “I Spit on Your Grave”, which listed 1,951 BitTorrent users as defendants. That too had been filed in Columbia.

USCG have now chosen the District of Maryland to file the papers for The Mechanic’s settlement shakedown. Time will tell what the presiding judge there will have to say on the issue of jurisdiction, but if he or she has had an eye on the cases in Columbia, our findings above – that 98% of IP addresses relate to the wrong district – should prove of great interest.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Some of the most high-profile customers of the law firm – who for the purposes of their settlement work are known as the U.S. Copyright Group – are Voltage Pictures, the makers of the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker.

Now it seems that the United States just isn’t a big enough market for settlements, so Voltage have taken their pay-up-or-else lawsuits north – and expanded into Canada.

Earlier, through law firm Goudreau Gage Dubuc LLP, Voltage Pictures applied for an order from the Federal Court in Montreal which would force three Canadian ISPs – Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable Inc. and Videotron GP – to hand over the personal details of subscribers said to have infringed its copyrights.

“Voltage Pictures LLC owns the copyright of the film ‘Hurt Locker’. The defendants have copied and distributed the film via the Internet without the permission of Voltage Pictures LLC,” says the order.

Voltage adds that although it has obtained IP addresses, without the help of Canadian ISPs the studio cannot convert them to real-life identities.

“Voltage Pictures LLC requests permission to interview internet service providers in advance in writing so that they disclose the names and addresses of customers who match the IP addresses already obtained,” says Voltage.

“Once it has identified these customers, Voltage Pictures LLC may send notices and, where appropriate, add these individuals as defendants in this action.”

On August 29th, the Federal Court in Montreal granted the order and gave the trio of ISPs just two weeks to hand over the names of subscribers. Since today is September 9th, and the weekend is almost upon us, one might assume that the details have already been handed over, or will be by Monday.

According to Canadian lawyer Michael Geist, there is no indication that the ISPs challenged the court order or that any public interests were given the opportunity to intervene.

“The prospect of thousands of Canadian peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits – with potential liability of tens of thousands dollars per person for a single movie – highlights why the government was right in Bill C-32 to reform the statutory damages provision to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial infringement,” writes Geist.

“Non-commercial infringement was capped under the bill at $5000 for all infringements, though it can go far lower. This case confirms that mass lawsuits with the threat of thousands in liability is a real possibility in Canada and why changes to the law are needed.”

Canadian Internet users, with their relaxed attitude towards their culture of file-sharing, are likely to be outraged by the action taken by Voltage. Certainly one to watch.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The class-action lawsuit targets the movie studio Achte/Neunte, their lawyers and the tracking company who went after thousands of people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie ‘Far Cry’ on BitTorrent.

Through the lawsuit BitTorrent users, spearheaded by Dmitriy Shirokov, are seeking relief based on 25 counts including extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, abuse of process, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse, unjust enrichment and consumer protection violations.

The case is ongoing in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts and thus far not much progress has been booked by either of the parties involved. However, previously unreported filings reveal that the evidence the copyright holders claim to have against the alleged file-sharers may be even weaker than expected.

The court filing in question shows how USCG is basically a front for the partnership between the German based pirate tracking outfit GuardaLey and the law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver.

Unlike the image often portrayed in the media, the plaintiffs claim that GuardaLey is the main motivating power behind the lawsuits. One email brought in as evidence clearly shows the company actively approaching law firms to work with them and plugging their scheme to various copyright holders.

It is clear that the evidence gatherers are by no means an objective party. On the contrary, it can be argued that this German based company is the prime reason why more than 200,000 people have been sued in the United States. And if it couldn’t get any worse, the evidence GuardaLey actually collects against the BitTorrent users may be totally useless.

The documents filed by the attorneys of the plaintiffs, law firm Booth Sweet, reveal that GuardaLey’s evidence gathering techniques are far from optimal.

The attorneys refer to a German court case where GuardaLey was sued by one of the law firms (Baumgarten Brandt) they partnered with. The law firm filed suit after it discovered that GuardaLey was aware of several technological flaws concerning their evidence, but chose not to disclose them. The law firm won the case.

Based on an independent review the German judge concluded that GuardaLey’s evidence gathering technology does not check whether the accused actually downloaded (or uploaded) content. A major flaw that was previously exposed by the University of Washington, where copyright holders accused a printer of pirating.

The findings are especially troubling because some major BitTorrent trackers insert random IP-addresses into BitTorrent swarms. These IP-addresses are not actually trying to download any files, but they may be accused of doing so based on GuardaLey’s evidence.

TorrentFreak contacted attorney Jason Sweet of Booth Sweet who believes that GuardaLey has continued to use the same technology in all of its U.S. based cases.

“That’s what the lawsuit in Germany was about. That Guardaley knew of the flaw, but continued using it to identify infringers. We haven’t seen anything that would indicate they’ve corrected the problem or are using different methods. I believe they’ve even made statements to the contrary – that they use the same tech for all of their cases,” attorney Jason Sweet told TorrentFreak.

This means that among the more than 100,000 BitTorrent users who were sued by USCG in the U.S., many are likely to be wrongfully accused.

“The real issue is that innocent people are getting swept up along with the infringers, and no effort is being made to sort them out. That’s because despite Achte’s protestations, this case was designed to do one thing only – generate revenue. And for them an innocent person’s money is just as good as a guilty person’s,” Sweet told us.

And there is more. Documents filed at the German court further suggest that GuardaLey might also operate pirate honeypots.

“GuardaLey operates a ‘honeypot’—that is they represent “by means of a falsified bit field, that it was always in possession of 50% of the file being sought.” If the actual file is being offered than an implied license is operative. If it is a garbage file, than no infringement occurs. In either instance, IP addresses are being identified that did not infringe,” the plaintiffs assert.

The above is a very worrying discovery that may become a pivotal issue in the ongoing lawsuits in the U.S. Could it be that the evidence used by GuardaLey in the cases against the thousands of BitTorrent users in America is just as weak?

Unfortunately, in these pay-up-or-else schemes the evidence never gets as far as a proper review because the copyright holders are only after settlements. However, the class-action lawsuit against USCG and partners could get to the bottom of this.

If the evidence turns out to be as weak as described above, it would probably mean the end of the “extortion-like” practices.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In total, cases have been filed against more than 200,000 alleged infringers, many of which are accused of downloading and sharing adult films.

A significant number of the defendants are likely to be guilty, but there’s also a lot of collateral damage. Firstly it’s unclear how accurate the evidence gathering techniques of the copyright holders are, and even when they have the correct IP-address it doesn’t necessarily follow that the account holder on file is actually the infringer.

Doe 2,057 in the case of Imperial Enterprises v. Does claims to be one of these wrongfully accused persons.

This May he received a letter from Comcast informing him that Imperial Enterprises had filed a lawsuit against him for illegally downloading and sharing one of their adult titles — Tokyo Cougar Creampies. To some people this title may seem inviting, but it’s not the type of content Doe 2,057 is interested in.

Not least because he’s legally blind.

“To be honest, it’s a little ridiculous. My movie-watching ability is nonexistent. My kids watch movies, but they are 4 and 6, so they don’t watch porn either. Well, hopefully they don’t,” the Doe told the Village Voice Media.

Although it’s not impossible for blind people to be interested in porn – after all there are plenty of auditory stimuli and interesting dialogues – it’s not really the target group for this type of content. So if this blind man is innocent, who downloaded and shared the movie?

According to Doe 2,057 one of his neighbors must have used his open WiFi connection to grab the file.

“I didn’t have time to set up the wireless network in my old apartment,” he explained. “I was working 18-hour days, so I just told my wife to go to Best Buy and pick up a router. She installed it, hit next, next, finish, and — boom — that was it. We lived in a very upscale building; there was no riffraff. We just assumed we didn’t have anything to worry about.”

But now he does have something to worry about, and that’s the few thousand dollars Imperial Enterprises is demanding from him in settlement.

Although it’s absolutely not certain that a judge will hold him liable the alleged offense, like many other defendants he believes that settling is the best option available. Hiring an attorney will cost just as much as the settlement fee, but without any guarantee that he’ll be off the hook.

“The sad part about this entire porn thing is it will cost more to go to a judge,” Doe says. “At the end of the day, I’ll probably settle and pay the fee to make this go away.”

And he’s not alone. TorrentFreak has spoken to several people who swore their innocence but paid up just to get rid of the threat.

The copyright holders and lawyers are very aware of the position these defendants are in, but they gladly take their money. With most neutral observers, however, the whole scheme should raise an eyebrow to say the least.

Can we really call that justice?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.