Copyright Troll Evan Stone Loses Again; Sanctions Upheld For 'Staggering Chutzpah' In Abusing Subpoena Powers

from the a-litany-of-failures dept

We've covered the story of copyright troll lawyer Evan Stone for a while now. He was one of a group of lawyers who jumped into the copyright trolling business a few years ago, figuring it was easy money to get info on people based on IP addresses, and then demand they pay up to avoid lawsuits. While these cases have been littered with highly questionable behavior by various trolling lawyers, Stone took it to new levels. In one of Stone's cases, the judge -- already suspicious of the whole scheme -- appointed both Public Citizen and EFF to defend the (still anonymous) accused Does against being revealed. While this was going on, Stone was told not to subpoena identifying info. So, Public Citizen and EFF were somewhat shocked when they heard from some of the accused, claiming that Stone had, in fact, subpoenaed their info. After confronting him, Stone tried to get out of the case by dismissing it. Of course, while doing so, he directly insulted the judge and attacked Public Citizen and EFF, claiming he was dropping the case due to the delay in time it was taking (ignoring the serious ethical violations).

Public Citizen and EFF reasonably sought sanctions against Stone for such egregious behavior. Sanctions are pretty extreme, and rarely sought and even more rarely granted. You generally have to do something completely over the top and unethical to have sanctions imposed. The court realized that Stone's actions were not just over the line by were barely in the same time zone as the line, and granted sanctions. The court was pretty clear and direct in slamming Stone, noting that it "rarely has encountered a more textbook example of conduct deserving of sanctions."

Stone appealed, but was found in contempt by the district court for failing to obey the sanctions, and ordered to pay legal fees. Stone, once again, appealed the whole thing -- and in a new ruling, the appeals court not only details the litany of both ethical and procedural misdeeds by Stone (including completely failing to follow the basic process of appealing such a decision), but reaffirms the sanctions against Stone. Basically, everything Stone does makes things worse. He now owes even more money and there's an appeals court ruling that highlights his basic failings even in handling the appeal itself. Here's just a snippet.
On appeal, Stone argues that the sanctions cannot be justified under Rules 26 and 45 or under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 or the inherent power of the district court. He also contends that the attorneys ad litem lacked standing to bring the sanctions motion and are not the proper recipients of the attorneys’ fees awarded by the district court. Stone raises this last argument for the first time on appeal and raised the other arguments for the first time in his untimely motion in the district court to stay sanctions pending appeal, which was filed after this appeal was initiated. None of these arguments, thus, was preserved for purposes of appeal, nor does Stone contend they were. Accordingly, all the issues Stone raises on appeal have been waived....

Nonetheless, Stone asserted, at oral argument and for the first time, that this court can consider his arguments because his appeal is one of “extraordinary circumstances,” involving only “pure question[s] of law [in which] a miscarriage of justice would result from our failure to consider [them].” .... We conclude, however, that no miscarriage of justice will result from the sanctions imposed as a result of Stone’s flagrant violation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the district court’s orders. Stone committed those violations as an attempt to repeat his strategy of suing anonymous internet users for allegedly downloading pornography illegally, using the powers of the court to find their identity, then shaming or intimidating them into settling for thousands of dollars--a tactic that he has employed all across the state and that has been replicated by others across the country.
Time to stop digging.
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Filed Under: copyright troll, evan stone, sanctions
Companies: eff, public citizen


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  • icon
    Jeff (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:10am

    Hmmm

    Stone and Carreon -> Long lost twins separated at birth?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Loki, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:38am

      Re: Hmmm

      If only the MPAA/RIAA had bought the rights to Righthaven and hired these two as their lawyers.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:41am

      Re: Hmmm

      Query: is Carreon pronounced like "Carry On"? Because if it is, the term Carreon Effect works amazingly.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:48am

        Re: Re: Hmmm

        I would pronounce it Carrion personally, as it more suits the dead horse he was flogging

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Anonymous Coward of Esteemed Trolling (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:51am

        makes sense

        it is now ! Carry-on-effect

        I always read it as car-E-on

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Anonymous Coward of Esteemed Trolling (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:48am

      seems legit

      Stone is a "shitty Pirate hunter" who hates gay people getting porn for free.
      Carreon is a "don't give a fuck" lawyer who law-beats-up charities.

      A charity that gives away free gay porn, must have pissed the twins off.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 11:21am

      Re: Hmmm

      Carry on Stone'd....

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      hmm (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 5:20pm

      Re: Hmmm

      Stone's career will end up as Carrion..[sic]

      and Carreon must have been stoned when he filed his lawsuits.......

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:44am

    Good, good. I was wondering why news are unfolding so slowly... The most strange thing to me is that Ars still did not write on this.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:50am

    deserves to be struck off completely, arse hole! others doing the same thing should be struck off also!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:51am

    Impact

    This is a big deal. Seriously From the comments to my yesterday's quick post about this event (emphasis is mine):

    Ordering champagne tonight! Whenever anything troll related gets before a Circuit Court and comes back bad for trolldom it is a cause to celebrate (umm SJD, please correct me if wrong, but this is the first troll related matter to get before a Circuit Court and, if so, more champagne!).

    This is especially good news for Does in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas; the Fifth Circuit’s jurisdiction.


    What I want to say is that although Stone was lashed not based on merits (or, to be more precise, on meritlessness) of copyright trolling, the last paragraph quoted by Mike clearly indicates that the Fifth Circuit is aware of the copyright trolling plague and obviously not happy about it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:58am

    His behavior probably is the result of dwindling financial resources(the fraking idiot didn't have any other resources to draw from), anger issues, coupled with a hint of stupidity which probably comes from vanity.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:59am

    Where are you, paywall bob? C'mon! We know how you defended John Steele and K-Beech and how you're an "independent producer"...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:04am

      Re:

      Steele and K-Beech? I missed it: defending Kevin Beechum organizing bombing of Chicago adult stores? I really missed a lot of fun!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:31am

        Re: Re:

        Come to think of it, where ARE the usual trolls? I see they were quick to defend the MPAA - aren't they brave enough to insult the whole Fifth Circuit and call them activist judges?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Loki, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:44am

          Re: Re: Re:

          The MPAA/RIAA have suffered so many defeats/setbacks lately (although they have devouted so many resources on so many fronts - instead of, you know, actually innovating and competing in the marketplace - that it's hard to stop them all) that I think they'd had to pull the trolls to concentrate more on the politicians (all of whom aren't 100% in their camp as they'd hoped).

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          llortamai, 13 Jul 2012 @ 9:31am

          Re: Re: Re:

          It's a holiday for us. We're not allowed to work or our masters will get angry. The phrase for the holiday itself is actually trademarked by Paramount due to the amazing movie franchise (with a reboot a couple of years ago....buy the movies!) so I can't mention it here without their express permission.

          To Pirate Mike and all of you poor schlebs here at Techdirt, happy today!

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:08am

    He should change his name to Evan Stoned.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 8:46am

      Re:

      I like the idea of some ridiculously bad and futile behaviour being referred to as evanstonian.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 9:50am

    A prime example why laws like ACTA should never see the light of day.

    Such laws would make it possible for scumbags like Evan Stone to get personal information far more easily meaning they could extort even more people at a much faster pace.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    DannyB (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 11:37am

    The court is just providing guidance

    The court is simply providing guidance for other patent trolls, just as they did in the farcical Righthaven fiaSCO.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2012 @ 7:44pm

    In other news, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/copyright-troll-10000-sanctions-upheld-by-appeals-court-a re-bullst/

    Stone has responded to the sanctions with the usual bullshit claims, including a line about how ISPs defend pirates because, clearly, only pirates are willing to pay for high speeds.

    Clearly, nobody else needs to do things quickly and reliably on the Internet.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That Anonymous Coward (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 9:18pm

      Re:

      Maybe had he not lied to a court or to the Copyright Office (fibbing about dates to make sure you get copyright allowing $150,000 is a nono) people might try to believe him.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 9:24pm

    *dances in circles*
    This took far to long to happen, so many bad acts undertaken and courts looking the other way.
    So has anyone done the math on the 2nd sanction yet?
    The court told him to pay the original sanction within a time frame or start paying $500 a day. He, IIRC, never filed the bond requested by the appeal court to hold off the $500 fine, so hopefully this has been rolling the whole time.

    He filed all of his appeals late, and the courts were far to giving in even listening to him. He has had more than enough rope, and he is still digging blaming everyone but himself for the illegal actions he undertook. I'm waiting to see him try to fight having to turn over how much money he extorted and the split between himself and Mick Haig.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2012 @ 10:13am

    You need an editor.

    Please get someone to proofread this stuff. You do the Free Culture lobby a disservice with these sloppy presentations.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Somponts (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 8:25am

    Re:

    Chill out bro, this is an informative post, and it's well redacted. Editors are not machines, and they can make mistakes too.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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