Court Says BitTorrent Users Connected To The Same Swarm Are Not Involved In Any 'Conspiracy'

from the good-ruling dept

Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 1:01pm — Mike Masnick

Almost exactly a year ago, we saw yet another trick come out of the copyright troll's bag. To justify the increasingly failed attempts to sue a ton of people in a single lawsuit, there was a claim that all of the people connected to a single BitTorrent swarm represented a conspiracy to infringe on copyrights together. As we said at the time, this seemed like an incredibly weak argument, and it appears that at least one court agrees. A judge in Illinois has rejected that argument pretty soundly:

Moreover, it appears that the claims of civil conspiracy themselves are unfounded, because the plaintiffs have not pleaded the existence of an agreement among the alleged conspirators... Additionally, based on what has been pleaded, it does not appear plausible that plaintiffs could plead the existence of a conspiracy. Consequently, the court finds that the complaints’ allegations of civil conspiracy are only unjustified attempts to bolster the obtaining of irrelevant discovery about non-parties.

The court also notes (as many more are doing) that it's quite clear that this lawsuit was filed not to litigate the actual issues, but to uncover the identities of those they identified to try to threaten them into "negotiating a settlement."

It's good to see both of these things. Courts recognizing that these arguments are huge stretches of legal theory just to justify a bogus joinder argument is a huge step forward. On top of that, the fact that more and more judges seem well aware of the true intention of copyright trolls in using the court system as a part of their business model, rather than for a legitimate judicial reason, means that fewer and fewer courts will be willing to accept such an abuse of the court system.

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Filed Under: conspiracy, copyright, copyright trolls, joinder

19 Comments

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:Lobo Santo (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 1:23pm

I wonder
I wonder how long it will be until the Executive and Legislative branches decide it's time to put an end to this kind of "out of control" activity (eg rights/liberty sustaining behaviour) from the Judicial branch...
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surfer (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 1:36pm

Re: I wonder
did Beryl Howell forget his medication?

how dare the Judicial Branch have opinions of law without consulting the MAFIAA first
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 1:47pm

Re: Re: I wonder
psst she's a she.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 1:56pm

More fun failure for the trolls -
The trolls have tried to subpoena the other Does info by using Rule 27. The 4 targeted ISPs were so happy they sent lawyers to court. Comedy ensues.
http://dietrolldie.com/2012/03/26/sneaky-troll-attempts-a-flanking-move-and-is-denied-in-th e-matter-of-a-petition-by-ingenuity-13-llc-case-211-mc-00084-troll-gibbs/

And then a single Doe filing pro se managed to scare a troll so much they dismissed him with prejudice to stop the court from looking at more of his answer to the case. When you can show some serious irregularities with the copyright of an already copyrighted movie thats just been recut, they get nervous.
http://dietrolldie.com/2012/04/02/single-pro-se-doe-makes-k-beech-troll-jason-kotzer-dismi ss-him-with-prejudice-111-cv-02371-virgins-4-colorado/

There are lots of fun filings floating around right now, the wheels of justice might be slow... but they are catching up.
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 2:26pm

Well.
That document is certainly one of the most concise explanations of BitTorrent technology and WHY cojoined suits are a bad idea...the paragraph describing troll modus is spot on - getting IDs only for purposes of settlement. Unusual to find a court that doesn't view technology as some sort of voodoo.
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surfer (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 2:30pm

my bad
my bad, I thought the picture at the top of the page was the lawyer, and the small picture in the article was the journalist.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 4:13pm

It appears that the judge is pretty much clueless about bittorrent technology. Downloading the software and searching for a particular file, accepting pieces from various people, and in turn offering those pieces to other people appears to be enough to show agreement. They are operating together, because a single bit torrent node with nobody else to connect to would be, well, useless.

Bittorrent is pretty much by definition a conspiracy, because you always require partners in crime to get it done.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 4:36pm

Re:
Yes! Finally, someone who gets it!

Also, downloading a file from the internet is a conspiracy between the downloader, the uploader, the electric company, the internet service provider, the domain registrar, ICANN, and the producers of all the computers, keyboards, mice, routers, and cables involved.
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fogbugzd (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 5:06pm

Re:
>>Bittorrent is pretty much by definition a conspiracy

Hmmm.

It seems the judge disagrees with you.
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lucidrenegade (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 5:13pm

Re: Re:
They were late with his check. That's all.
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V (profile), 2 Apr 2012 @ 5:35pm

Good to see...
In an age where Intelligent Judges or Tech-savy Judges are almost an oxymoron, it's good to see we still have some sitting on the bench who can look at things objectively and in the light of technology.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 6:10pm

Re:
Based on how the RIAA - in addition to their various PROs - believes everything is a public performance, if the recording industry went belly-up civilisation would grind to a halt because everyone is exposed to music.

Including the above rationale of the above shill, the illegitimate obtaining of media is therefore the fault of everyone in the world.

Yes - even the judges and the RIAA. How can you expect Edgar Bronfman Jr. not to discipline his own downloader children! (P.S.: He didn't.)
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MrWilson, 2 Apr 2012 @ 7:17pm

Re:
So let me get this straight. A bunch of rich companies get together to fix prices and reduce competition in the market from smaller companies and amateurs and this is just good ol' God-fearin' American capitalism�, but a bunch of anonymous strangers using technology they downloaded from the internet to share their own culture is a conspiracy?

Freedom is slavery, Winston.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 7:42pm

Re: Re:
They only listen to judges that say things they like. They won't listen to the Supreme Court either that told them infringement isn't theft either.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 7:46pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 2nd, 2012 @ 4:13pm
I suppose you think the Supreme Court Justices in Dowling were "pretty much clueless" too huh?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2012 @ 8:05pm

Re:
Good luck trying to show "intent" and "agreement" LoL

Since I don't think you are very familiar with the law have a look.

Quote:
The main elements that need to be proven are a voluntary agreement to participate and some overt act by one of the conspirators in furtherance of the criminal plan.

USLEGAL: Conspiracy definition

thefreedictionary: Conspiracy

I want to see you show how all those people were aware of the illegality of the alleged acts.

Assuming they all are criminals won't fly in any court hopefully ever, you need to show somehow they all had intent and agreed to commit a crime, you could probably show that if you could show that they visited suspicious location and got the torrent from a well known illegal website otherwise you are out of luck.

Doesn't you love the ambiguity of the law?
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 2:31am

Re: Re: Re:
yep, they do tend to stick their fingers in their ears and scream 'la la la la...........
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abc gum, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:15am

Re:
"Bittorrent is pretty much by definition a conspiracy"

Since you are the expert in all things ... exactly what is contained within the files that these ne'er-do-wells are accused of conspiring to share and how are you verifying said contents is actually infringing? Or is it simply assumed to be infringing because it is on P2P? Certainly there is no P2P content which does not infringe - amirite?
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Ninja (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 12:06pm

Re:
The judge is clueless. Right. Look in the mirror please.

A single bittorrent node with nobody else to connect to is usually called the first seeder waiting for the peers because a torrent can only be created if the peer has the content.

Of course, it can always be a dead torrent with a lone peer waiting with hope for a generous seeder ;)
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