In roughly two weeks time, people all over the European Union will be going to the polls to elect the next European Parliament. Five years ago, the Swedish Pirate Party had a substantial victory with over 7% of the vote, and while the German Pirates didn’t get a seat, they did claim over two hundred thousand votes.

Now, five years later, more Pirate parties are now in a position to contest the election.

Today we provide a quick run-down of the Pirate candidates in the various countries, sorted by incumbency and seat apportionment (Note: many links are to non-English language websites)

Sweden (20 seats)

The only country with incumbent MEPs, the order of Sweden’s two main candidates is unchanged from 2009, with Christian Engstrom first, followed by Amelia Andersdotter. Amelia, the youngest ever MEP when she was elected, is also one of the candidates for the EU commission presidency.

Christian told TorrentFreak: “The struggle to protect freedom on the Internet will continue, from defending net neutrality to fighting against mass surveillance. We must explain to the politicians from the older parties that the Internet is not a toy, and that we must defend our fundamental rights as vigorously in the online world as in the offline.”

The full list of candidates competing for the 20 seats is available here.

Germany (96)

Competing alongside Sweden in 2009, Germany also has the most seats of any country, with 96 up for grabs. While they didn’t quite hit 1% last time, they’ve been doing well in various regional elections for the last year or two, and they’re hardly a new ‘unelectable’ party either, with 250 seats at various state and local governments. The 5% election threshold was ruled unconstitutional in 2011 and a proposed value of 3% was also struck down a few months ago, meaning that just over 1% of the votes are needed to start winning seats, well within their grasp.

“Our vision for Europe,” lead candidate Julia Reda told TF, “is based on the Internet: on sharing, collaboration and a community of peers. We need Pirates in the European Parliament to reform copyright and enable the sharing of culture and knowledge across national borders.”

France (74, contesting 56)

France is one of a select few countries that use a regional constituency system, rather than a national list. The French Pirate Party is running 13 candidates in the North west, 20 in the south west region, 26 in the South East, 10 in Centre, 30 in Ile-de France (which includes Paris) and 9  for the overseas territories of France.

Interestingly, there are at least twice as many candidates on each regions list than there are seats available, meaning that at least half the pirates are never going to be elected no matter how well they do.

United Kingdom (73, contesting 8)

Like France, Poland and Italy, the UK is also split into several constituencies, with the UK Pirate Party only contesting one, their headquarters region of  North West England. They’re focusing on this area after having had some success in local elections in the recent past, beating, or equaling the coalition-government party candidates. In keeping with the open nature of the party, they’re also raising money for the election via crowdfunding platform Pozible.

Candidate Jack Alnutt is firm on why people should vote Pirate. “The European Union needs more transparent and open governance, more democratic involvement with increased powers for the Parliament and better protection of our fundamental rights. The only way to make this happen is to vote Pirate in May.”

Spain (54)

The situation in Spain is more complex than normal. There have been two competing pirate groups for a while, Partido Pirata – the national party formed in 2006 which covered the whole of Spain – and a group of regional parties that have now banded together under the banner Confederacion Pirata. It’s this latter group that is running candidates nationally.

Their list of 50 candidates is headed by Dario Castañé from Barcelona, a 29-year-old computer engineer who describes politics as “a passion of mine”.  With seats being awarded on just 2.5% of the vote last year, they have a strong chance of getting at least one Pirate into the European Parliament.

Poland (51, contesting 16)

Poland is another constitution-based system. Here only 6 pirates are running for election, but they’re also running in a coalition, with the Direct Democracy party, the Libertarian Party, and a number of independent candidates.

Four of these are going to compete for the 4 seats in Łódź [district 6] (spots 1, 3, 4, and 5), with the other two pirates on the ballot in the Silesian area [district 11] to the south (second on the list), and Lublin [district 8] to the east (fourth on the list).

Netherlands (26)

The ten Pirates contesting the Dutch seats are led by scientist Matthijs Pontier. They recently celebrated the first elected Pirate to the Board committee of Amsterdam West with 3.6%, and fell just short of other seats in the Amsterdam South committee (3.5%) and city council (1.8%)

With no threshold to win seats, getting a seat is not outside the realms of possibility for them, especially if they can keep the momentum going.

Czech Republic (21)

The 21 seats in the Czech Republic will be contended by a full spread of Pirates. Leading the list is 34-year old Dr Ivan Bartos, Ph.D, an expert in database systems and part-time musician.

Current polls have them running a little short of their target to get a seat, but as with the Swedish party five years ago, they’ve a strong youth following which may be underrepresented in the polling. This gave them a ‘win’ in a student mock EU election with 19.2% of the vote from the 25,000+ students aged 15 and older polled. Worst case, that’s another few thousand votes next time.

Greece (21)

In Greece, the Pirate-Green cooperation that has existed in the European Parliament has continued, with a coalition list comprising candidates of both the Greek Pirate Party, and the Ecologist Greens party, along with several independent candidates.

In 2009, the Ecologist Greens won one seat with 3.9% of the vote. What impact the Pirates will have on any Green candidates is unknown, but with a formal alliance, it’s certainly expected that there will be some.

Austria (18)

Another party in an alliance, this time though, the coalition of three parties, all without national-level representation, as well as a few independents. Instead of a coalition with the Greens, as in Greece, the Austrian Pirates have instead joined forces with the Communist Party and the Change party to form the group ‘Europe Anders”.

The list is headed by current MEP Martin Ehrenhauser (elected on a pirate-like anti-corruption and pro-transparency platform via the “Hans-Peter Martin’s list” in 2009) with the first Pirate in fourth. There is a 4% threshold.

Finland (13)

Finland uses a non-preferential list, meaning that (as we understand it) you vote for candidates, which also count for the party. The party is allocated seats based on the votes for all its candidates, and party fills those seats based on the vote count for the candidates.

Their most obvious candidate for a seat is Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, whose campaign launch we covered recently. He was also nominated as the Pirate Party Europe candidate for Commission President with Amelia Andersdotter as mentioned earlier.

Croatia (11)

It’s almost déjà vu for Croatian Pirates. They are one of only three Pirate parties to have previously contested a European parliament election, along with the Germans and Swedes. In their case, however, it was during an extraordinary election last year on their acceptance to the EU, where they scored 1.13% of the vote, putting them 12th of 28 parties.

This year it appears that most parties have joined into a few coalitions or partnerships, with several European group affiliations mixed, but there are still 25 groups listed on the ballot. It certainly makes for an interesting election for the 13 pirates on the Croatian Pirate Party list who are bucking the local coalition trend and standing alone.

Slovenia (8)

In Slovenia, they’re being a little more “realistic” (in their own words) and fielding only a single candidate. Rolando Benjamin Vaz Ferreira is a translator specializing in English and German as well as his native Slovenian.

The feeling is upbeat and positive though, telling TF: “We’ve received incredible support amongst those who know of us, may it be voters, journalists, civil servants and even other party officers. Our biggest limiting factor is how many people we can reach in time.” In 2009, 9.7% was needed to win a seat, a figure that might be possible if the anti-corruption sentiment that has swept the country leads to a strong pirate vote.

Luxembourg (6)

As one of the smallest and most overlooked countries with only 6 seats available, the barrier is high (some 15%) but  party president and list-leader Sven Clement is a mixture of optimist and realist. After getting 2.96% in last October’s national election he’s hopeful for an improvement, but a double-digit increase is unlikely.

Clement told TF that despite that, people should still vote Pirate to ensure they can receive the kind of public financing the larger parties enjoy, enabling them to compete on a more level field.

Estonia (6)

The Estonian Pirate Party is also not running any candidates of its own in this election. They are, however, endorsing an independent candidate instead. Silver Meikar supports the Pirate platform, and has reportedly agreed to include a Pirate adviser as a member of his staff, if elected.

As with Luxembourg, with only six seats available, there is a high threshold for election, but only 8.7% of the vote was needed in 2009 for a seat.

Italy (73)

There is some debate about Italy and if they are running a ‘pirate’ candidate, hence its entry at the end of the list. As far as we can tell, the Italian Pirate Party is acting as an advising party on digital rights for the coalition “The Other Europe”, a left-wing coalition that includes the Communist Refoundation Party, Left Ecology Freedom, and the Labour party.

Italy, like France and the UK, uses a regional constituency system. However, which candidates in the coalition’s regional lists are Pirates (if any) are not known to us at this time.

Belgium (21)

Belgium is one of the earlier casualties. Despite having produced a candidate list for both it’s Dutch and French-speaking regions, they were unable to collect enough public signatures in time to make it onto the ballot.

Election dates

The European Parliament elections will take place on the following days

• May 22nd for the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,
• May 23rd for Ireland and the Czech Republic.
• May 24th you can vote in Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, and the French Overseas territories and a second days voting in the Czech Republic
• May 25th is for all other EU countries.

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

It’s a system that first started in Europe with

The aim for copyright holders is to avoid litigation while generating revenue. Their evidence is often questionable and as a result those that fight back often have their cases dropped – trolls tend to prefer the escape option over the consequences of an adverse verdict.

After moving to the U.S., settlement programs gained prominence through the actions of entities including Prenda and X-Art. These schemes have come under increasing fire in U.S. courts, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that a new country is now on the agenda.

Citizens of Finland are now being subjecting to pay-up-or-else letters, but the decision to target this Nordic country isn’t the most obvious one, thanks to less favorable laws than those in the US.

Letters that have recently gone out to some Finnish Internet subscribers (translated example below, from a DNA customer)  accuse them of downloading porn using BitTorrent and include an offer to settle for ‘only 600 euros’ (about US$825). A vague reference to the police is also included,  ratcheting up the pressure to comply.

According to Ville Oksanen, vice chair of the EFFi and Post-doc researcher at Aalto University, under Finnish law the account holder is presumed to be the infringer by the courts, unless the or she can show that someone may have used the account.

In addition, the loser of a case pays the costs, unlike in the U.S. where each side pays its own costs with a few exceptions (such as a baseless case). More and more courts around the world are starting to look closely into these kinds of cases, and in some instances throwing them out. That’s not so good if you’re liable for the substantial cost of defense.

TorrentFreak has been able to confirm that the letters relate to content from the Hustler stable, who committed to “turning piracy into profit”, presumably through these troll tactics, as far back as 2009.

Why this scheme is starting in Finland now is unknown, although the crowdsourced copyright law may make it less profitable in the future. According to Oksanen, the law as written would remove some sections of copyright law, making account-holder identification much harder.

The lawfirm behind this letter, Hedman Partners, did not respond to requests at the time of publication.

With thanks to rehanna, vhautaka and mikachu

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

Needless to say, this process is far from flawless. In the past we’ve covered countless false, inaccurate, and just plain hilarious DMCA claims, but YouTube’s takedown process is particularly problematic.

As we have noted previously, YouTube copyright claims are in a class of their own, thanks to a one-sided notification system that has no evidentiary requirement. Nowhere was this more apparent than the Mega song takedown of late 2011, but it’s a constant problem.

The main issue is that automated bots don’t (or rather can’t) understand fair use, although to be fair, it’s an area of copyright law most labels seem to want to ignore when it suits them, and one that won’t be fixed until Lenz v Universal finishes its slow trip through the courts.

But in the meantime, many artists are still stuck dealing with systems that ignore significant sections of copyright law in order to keep things under lock and key, artists like Dan Bull for example.

Dan, as regular TorrentFreak readers will know, is an artist that relies heavily on fair use to create his music, and he recently gave fans an idea of just how much of a pain it can be.

For his 2010 [NSFW] song “I’m not pissed”, he reveals a screen-grab showing 18 separate claims that have been made against it. While some of them were released after being disputed, two of them, BMG Rights Management and PRS, rejected the dispute and stand by their initial claim.

“It is up to me to prove myself innocent by asking eighteen different publishing companies through an automated system to revoke the automated claims. Each publisher has a month to reply, with no obligation to even do so. If even one of the eighteen publishers says ‘nope’ then it’s back to square one,” Bull explains.

“Any financial loss or restrictions on my channel are entirely on me, and will not be compensated for once the claim is lifted. This has been going on since last year with no end in sight,” he adds.

It’s a situation that discourages new artists and stifles creativity. Despite the claims of the major labels, and until some actual consequences are introduced for false, inaccurate, or over-reaching claims, it’s going to harm the greater creative world, just to enable the big guys to profit.

Meanwhile, Dan has expressed his ire at YouTube in the way he knows best, through [again NSFW] song.

And yes, he’s pissed now.

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

The Massachusetts Pirate Party – one of the few that has managed to negotiate the US’s labyrinthine laws to become registered – is allowed to collect Bitcoin donations.

A few days ago the Pirates received a response back from the Director of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF).

“A political committee can accept contributions in Bitcoins,” it said, marking a strong positive for the use of the cryptocurrency. However, the Bitcoin blessing is not without its share of restrictions.

As with any other donation, Bitcoins can only come from a US citizen or permanent resident and there is an annual limit of $500 per person.

In addition, within five days the Bitcoins have to be converted into US dollars “through a high-volume public Bitcoin exchange open to transactions in the US.”

Another restriction is that the Pirate Party cannot spend the Bitcoins themselves. In this, it’s considered no different from stocks and shares.

Perhaps less favored by potential Bitcoin donors is the requirement to have an accurate name and residential address for every donation. This is somewhat of a blow for its advocates, but standard procedure for political contributions.

Now that the approval is in, the Massachusetts Pirate Party aim to be ready to accept donations in Bitcoin within the next two weeks.

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

In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 that the Sony Betamax recorder was legal, due to its significant non-infringing uses. This led to the consumer entertainment revolution of the last 30 years.

Everything from DVRs to tablets to MP3 players were made possible. Even the camera in your cellphone owes its existence to that ruling, as otherwise the ability to produce a copy of a copyrighted work (even of degraded quality) would have been enough to scupper its production.

Of the Betamax debate, however, the bit most people recall came from Congressional testimony some two years earlier, with MPAA President Jack Valenti telling Congress how the machine was ‘the Boston Strangler’ of the industry.

What most don’t remember though is that it was only one of four arguments made at the time. He also argued that the movie business was a really risky one, and that VCRs would impact the already tough advertising business. Additionally, machines made overseas would kill the US economy because of imports. And of course, OMG PIRATES!!!!!!!

So, how true were those claims? Sure the US economy’s pretty bad, but overseas electronics are not really a factor in that. Indeed, domestic production of machines to compete would probably have started before Valenti’s speech if it weren’t for… Valenti and his ilk. It happened later with MP3 players too, with the threats over the Diamond Rio in 1998 delaying their introduction.

What about advertising? Since we’ve had fast-forward buttons for 30+ years, all adverts are gone, right? No, as most people know, Google makes a fortune from adverts, even skippable and blockable ones. Sure some are made unskippable, but that’s only in the last few years – they could be sped-through at will during most of the 90s. It’s yet another non-starter argument.

How about the Risky Business part? Well, there’s another name for ‘risky business’, it’s called ‘business’. All businesses are a risk and most don’t last a year. And here the movie studios have not done themselves any favors over the past thirty years. While blockbuster films like ET, Ghostbusters and Superman III hovered at $30-40 million dollar budgets in the early 80s, the likes of Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 now cost more than $200Million. The first rule of pleading poverty is don’t massively increase your risk and spending. Not that they’ve had it so bad, with record year after record year.

Finally, how’s that piracy angle? Well, let’s start with VCRs themselves. Back in 1987 we had video sales surpassing the box office for studio income, so it doesn’t seem to have hurt them there. In fact, once they were resigned to it, it took them only four years to turn things around.

So what about the wider economy? Everyone remember the much maligned MPAA LEK study, that claimed piracy cost the world economy $6.1Billion in 2006? Well, Blockbuster, a company that existed ONLY because of the Betamax decision, had revenues of $5.5Billion in 2006. In other words, a loss to the economy the MPAA almost certainly exaggerated was almost wiped out by JUST ONE company that the MPAA almost prevented from existing.

To call Blockbuster the only beneficiary of the Betamax decision is short-sighted. US sales for that same year in ‘home video’ were another $5.4 billion just across the top 100 titles. Now anti-piracy activism looks a little short-sighted.

When you look back on all this and what that decision by the SCOTUS meant 30 years ago, there’s certainly something to worry about when it comes to further restrictions. Just these two things alone made a TEN BILLION DOLLAR increase to the US economy in one year, which would have been lost if the judges had listened to the same people whining about a $6 billion worldwide loss.

With that in perspective, any future claims of loss and damages should certainly be considered with a pinch of salt. Meanwhile it’s a happy 30th to the Betamax decision.

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

The question is, however, whether these cases will have any affect on the pro-copyright lobby in Washington, which continues to call for ever more stringent legislation.

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain suffered a string of take-down notices mainly stemming from music and TV clip usage.

While some were clearly over-reaching, in many ways that helps to express the current frustration and one-sidedness of copyright these days. Now his vice-presidential candidate is experiencing life as the target of a copyright suit.

Sarah Palin, former Alaska Governor, tea party darling, and Fox News pundit has been targeted in a copyright infringement suit over a photograph. The picture, showing a flag being raised at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center, was edited and posted by Palin’s Political Action Committee (election fundraising group) SarahPAC on Facebook.

According to the complaint SarahPAC uploaded the photo on September 11, 2013, slightly modified to appear more ‘patriotic.’ As a result, North Jersey Media Group, owner of the photo, is suing for copyright infringement, requesting either damages and defendant’s profits, or statutory damages.

SarahPAC have now denied the allegations, claiming fair use. It’s a claim that has no better than a fair chance of winning, but one which handily points out that infringement on a site with commercial activities, does not make it a commercial infringement.

Regardless of the merits of this particular case, however, it’s part of a growing trend in which politicians are being increasingly taken to task and targeted  for infringement. The result is that these lawmakers are made more aware of the disparate nature of copyright law with regard to common practice, as well as its chilling effects on free speech.

The biggest question though, is if this increased targeting of politicians will make them think twice about the continued expansion of both copyright duration and punishments for infringement.

Historically, speaking out against stifling copyright policies is not always the best career move in Washington. Last year’s paper by Derek Khanna got him fired from the Republican Study Committee Caucus after displeasing some members, including the country-music friendly Rep. Blackburn.

But perhaps the tide could change?

After all, it’s well known that politicians are all for making laws that benefit contributors, right up until those same laws start targeting politicians. Then the laws start to be relaxed in the name of freedom, and justice, and that’s not a bad thing at all. As for Palin, odds are she’ll settle.

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

But in copyright nothing is ever so simple. In fact, even a TimeLord’s brain, capable of dealing with the intricacies of time and space, would find it a complex subject.

At the heart of the assertion is that in the New Year the first episodes of Dr Who will fall into the public domain. However, the reality isn’t as clear-cut as it seems. While the broadcast copyright will expire, the other copyrights in the episode will still exist. This means that the broadcast may well fall into the public domain but the episode itself won’t.

Under the UK’s 1956 Copyright Act, broadcast copyright expires 50 years from the end of the year when a show was first broadcast. This means that the first six episodes (the four comprising An Unearthly Child – the first story – as well as the first two of the seven episodes in The Daleks) will expire 50 years from the end of 1963, on January 1 2014.

However, the episode as a whole won’t be in the public domain. That’s a whole lot more complex.

Copyrights for the episodes themselves expire at the end of the year that is 70 years after the death of the following persons, whichever comes last:

- The principal director
- The author of the screenplay
- The author of the dialog, or
- The composer of music specially created for and used in the film

Since the director of the first four episodes, Waris Hussein, is still alive, the 70 year clock hasn’t even started. Likewise, Christopher Barry, the director of the majority of the Dalek’s episodes, is also still alive. So we’re looking at 1 January 2085 as a realistic earliest date (assuming neither die in the next month, and they’re the last surviving).

Legal blogger William Tovey has done some investigation on the topic and found that the earliest definitive date an episode drops into the public domain will be The Aztecs (the sixth story of season 1) in 2083. However, if (still living) script-editor Donald Tosh didn’t contribute to the dialogue, then The Time Meddler (season 2, story 9) will beat it into the public domain in 2057, followed by The Smugglers (season 4 opener) in 2068.

And this is where even the Gallifreyan brain goes crazy.

Ninety-four years before the first Doctor Who episode drops into the public domain in the UK is just nuts, and that’s not the actual first episode. That will have been under copyright for at least 130 years before entering the public domain. And this all depends on the term not being extended again.

Worse, this is only for the UK. Copyrights in every other country will be calculated using their own systems and timescales, and one is left with the belief that the real reason time travel was invented concerned perpetual copyright.

So while people in the UK will be able to share the broadcasts come January 1, in order to do anything more they’ll need to wait at least 45 years, while people in other countries will have to run the gauntlet of their own local copyright laws.

The complexity and extended term length is enough to drive anyone interested in honesty and fairness crazy. It’s a no-brainer to suggest that a paragon of virtue like the Doctor, more interested in doing right than following the letter of the law, would have real trouble following copyright law as it’s currently written around the world.

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

According to reports in the print newspaper Ma’ariv earlier this week, Members of the Knesset (MK) Meir Sheetrit and others will be presenting a bill soon to legalize downloading of copyrighted material.

Alleged losses will instead be compensated via levies.

While levies are not always the fairest way (because they assume every use of a levied technology is an infringing one) it will reduce the pressure to legislate extensively on online behavior, a trend we’ve seen in copyright-lobby heavy countries like the US and UK.

The law is apparently supported by the Israeli collecting society ACUM, who have a powerful and well-connected supporter in Meir Sheetrit (who has held several ministerial positions over the last 15 years, including Justice).

The main issue has been one of religion, specifically Halakha, which we looked at several years back. With this new law though, it could probably remove any lingering doubts on that front from those who have resisted until now.

When we have more details on what would be levied and for how much, we’ll follow this up.

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

Over the past year they’ve been hit for roughly $311,000 in damages and costs, while hitting a roadblock in developing new revenue.

Little over a month ago the ongoing saga received yet another twist when a significant blow was dealt to the embattled law firm by the mother-in-law of Prenda front-man John Steele.

After a month of deliberation the court has now handed down additional good news for five accused BitTorrent pirates. Yesterday’s ruling made it clear that there is no evidence that AF Holdings holds the copyrights to the titles they sued the individuals over.

“The copyright-assignment agreements [...] in each of these five cases are not what they purport to be. Alan Cooper denies signing either agreement and also denies giving anyone else the authority to sign them on his behalf. AF Holdings failed to produce any credible evidence that the assignments were authentic.”

As a result of this fraud, U.S. Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel ordered the company to repay the four defendants who already settled their cases, including their legal fees. In addition, the judge dismissed the suits against all five alleged file-sharers.

“The Court has been the victim of a fraud perpetrated by AF Holdings, LLC. The Court concludes that the appropriate remedy for this fraud is to require AF Holdings to return all of the settlement money it received from all of the Defendants in these cases, and to pay all costs and fees incurred by the Defendants.”

The order further suggests that there may need to be more investigation into the Prenda law firm and its principles. As a result, the court ordered the following (among other things):

The Clerk of Court shall send a copy of this order to the following individuals and entities for the purpose of further investigation:

- The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota

- The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office

- The Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board

- The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois

With the above, the ruling echoes that of Judge Wright, bringing the firm to the attention of lawyer disciplinary boards and criminal investigators.

Of course, the total amount of damages so far doesn’t even come close to the alleged $1.9 million that Prenda took in settlements during 2012, but with the IRS, FBI and even state law enforcement investigating, asset forfeiture is always a possibility.

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

In Federal courtroom 9W, in downtown Minneapolis’s US courthouse, a somewhat bluster-filled hearing dealt more blows to Prenda law, and their clients AF holdings. Two bombshells stood out; That AF Holdings “CEO” Mark Lutz has gone missing, and that even members of Steele’s family are working against him.

While most of the hearing proceeded as a normal smear-fest for Steele and co, attempting to discredit caretaker-turned- ID theft victim Alan Cooper (a strategy that has largely failed in every other court it’s been attempted in) the revelations about who tipped Cooper off to his name being used really stunned some people, chief amongst them Steele himself.

Cooper was alerted by a text from a “Kim Eckenrud” (spelling unknown) who sent a copy of a document with Coopers signature on with the advice to get an attorney. Kim is John Steele’s mother in law. Steele later tried to dismiss this, saying she’s religious and a frequent poster on anti-troll sites, who disapproves of his porn work. Or it could also be the work of Anonymous Pirates on the Internet, resorting back to the claims of internet bullying that have been echoed in other Prenda/AF Holdings cases.

To underscore this, he had earlier recounted a tale where someone posted a picture of his house and child, with the message “Best caliber to kill Steele’s family? When and Where?“. That was also why he stopped practicing law, because of threats from pirate blogs, he claimed, choking up and having to stop for water. He did seem to be silent about the police’s reaction to it though.

It was not the only bombshell of the day however, as when it came time for AF Holdings CEO Mark Lutz to testify, he was nowhere to be found. It’s reminiscent of a month earlier, when he failed to show up after being order to appear in San Francisco, and no-one knew where he was. Then it turned out he was ‘detained’ at the airport for 16+ hours without being allowed to contact his attorney. This time though, no-one knows where he is. Steele went to pick him up (as they were on the same flight, and produced the boarding pass to the judge as proof) and he wasn’t at home.

While there were no rulings, as yet, it doesn’t look good for Prenda, and the associated principles. The hearing’s order stated that the burden on proof was on Steele&co to prove the documents legitimate, which they completely failed to do, providing zero evidence beyond character assassination via hearsay.Despite Steele then driving around Miami looking for him, he was still missing, and has now missed three different court-ordered appearances.

This has led some to speculate that he’s now not only been thrown under the bus, by his Prenda cohorts, but possibly under some concrete as well (although Steele did refrain for speculating that Anonymous Internet Pirates had kidnapped him)

Additionally, with Steele testifying on issues he’d previously “taken the Fifth” for in California, he may have doomed his appeal in that case, and possibly opened himself up for a contempt motion (by answering he may have nullified his 5th plea, turning it into refusal to answer a question)

All in all, not a good day for Steele and co, and certainly not a performance worthy of the ‘big leagues’.

Thanks to johnhenrylawyer and Nancy Sims for the courtroom reporting

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