Today we take a look at a tangled web of copyright trolls who have set their sights on thousands of BitTorrent users. More specifically, the law firm Steele Hansmeier, the BitTorrent tracking company led by Hansmeier’s brother and the mysterious company MCGIP, which sued BitTorrent users for movies they didn’t make.
Over the last year a handful of lawyers have sued close to two hundred thousand alleged BitTorrent users in the United States. Many of these cases were launched by so-called “copyright trolls” who have re-engineered piracy into a healthy revenue stream. Today, we reveal a critical part of this legal bullying by taking a closer look at a settlement proposal sent out by John Steele, one of the most active anti-piracy lawyers around.
As the dozens of mass-lawsuits against BitTorrent users move through the U.S. courts, lawyers are slowly optimizing their strategies. This week an interesting case was filed at the Southern California District Court, as the movie studio Liberty Media filed a lawsuit against a BitTorrent swarm, “Swarm of November 16, 2010″ to be precise.
The mass lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent users in the United States that have been keeping the courts busy over the past several months are turning into a roller-coaster ride. Last week thousands of defendants celebrated a victory when they had their cases dropped, but just a few days later a judge ignored all procedural issues and gave the green light for the mass-lawsuits to continue.
A few weeks ago Comcast decided to settle one of the class action lawsuits brought against the ISP in response to its BitTorrent throttling actions. Affected users can now claim their part of the $16 million fund that was setup, but only if they state under penalty of perjury that BitTorrent was never used to download copyrighted content.
Comcast has decided to settle one of the lawsuits brought about over their use of the Sandvine BitTorrent throttling hardware to ‘manage’ their network. For those who were affected, there is the possibility of receiving a payment from a $16 million fund set up by the Internet service provider.
It’s almost a month after the MPAA targeted 5 of the bigger torrent sites. In the meanwhile Isohunt has been planning to fight the MPAA and is currently raising money to do so. Niteshdw on the other hand doesn’t have the money to fight and tries to settle without taking too much damage. The official [...]
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