Copyright Troll Claims Sanctions Against Him Are 'Bulls**t' And He's Going To Keep Sending Questionable Subpoenas

from the good-luck-with-that dept

After losing again for significant ethical lapses in sending subpoenas to identify individuals he was trying to shake down for payments -- at the same time the court had ordered him to wait for a fair hearing on whether those individuals could protect their anonymity -- Evan Stone apparently still does not realize the seriousness of what he did. In an interview with Ars Technica, he appeared both dismissive and defiant of the ruling against him, for which he owes tens of thousands of dollars:
“They just punted, and said you waived your arguments, so we have to affirm,” he told Ars Friday morning. “I'm ready for someone to take this up, this issue of copyright subpoenas in the Fifth Circuit. That's really the bigger issue. I'm just going to move on from this whole sanction thing. I think it's bullshit and I think it shouldn't have happened. I’d rather move on with my life than be right. That's what I’m going to do. We're going to do some more copyright subpoenas, and we're going to bring them before the district and see if they are accepted or denied and then bring them before the Fifth Circuit.”
This is an interesting revisionist history. First off, that's not quite what the court said. It did note that, through Stone's own incompetence as a lawyer, he waived any significant arguments against the sanctions, but that did not minimize the court's serious concerns about Stone blatantly defying its clearly-stated requirement of first holding a hearing to see if the anonymity of the users could or should be protected. Remember, the appeals court didn't just "punt," it also stated:
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.
To pretend this is merely punting because of Stone's own failings as a lawyer underplays both how he screwed up in handling his own appeal, as well as the court's concerns with Stone's ethical lapses that resulted in the sanctions in the first place.

That he's going back to sending out subpoenas and pretending that what just happened to him is no big deal is somewhat stunning. Of course, what's even more stunning is that anyone would hire Stone to do more copyright trolling. Whatever you think of the practice, Stone has clearly demonstrated -- and been told by a court -- that he's not doing it right. Why would anyone hire that guy to do the same thing again?

Stone also apparently tried to pin the blame on Verizon for the mess that he's in. Again, in his discussion with Cyrus Farivar at Ars:
But beyond his questionable legal tactics, Stone lamented the fact that larger ISPs, like Verizon, (against whom he filed a subpoena in late May 2012 over a pirated work of anime in an ongoing case) fight him “tooth and nail,” while smaller ISPs simply “cough up the user information.”

And, he argues, Verizon isn’t protecting their users out of principle or out of an interest in legal fairness, but rather to protect their highest-paying customers, which, according to Stone, are pirates.
That's a pretty obnoxious statement and there's not much support for it in real life. Verizon protecting its users' privacy against lawyers trying to identify them for a trolling operation isn't about protecting revenue, it's about protecting individuals' basic rights against bogus legal threats and people who abuse the court system as a business model.
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Filed Under: copyright troll, ethics, evan stone, sanctions
Companies: verizon


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  • icon
    ahow628 (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:41am

    New law firm

    Hey guys, there is a great new law firm that just started up. It is called Stone and Carreon. You should definitely check them out.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:55am

      Re: New law firm

      He could be called Andrew Stone so we could name the firm ACS Law and laugh over fate. ECS Law sounds close enough though.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 5:38pm

      Re: New law firm

      Shouldn't that be Carreon, Gibson, Streisand, Stone(d) and Finesse?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    fogbugzd (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:49am

    I hope Stone does continuing issuing subpoenas. He is doing a magnificent job of demonstrating what happens when this type of abuse of the legal system is allowed.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      DH's Love Child (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:55am

      Re:

      I agree. I bet the other trolls..um copyright lawyers wish he would die a quick death because he has to be seriously fucking up their business models.

      Maybe he and Steven Gibson should get together and show us all how this business should work.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:13pm

        Re: Re:

        And I agree! Good news is that the matter from the bottom of the barrel, lawyers who don't care about their reputation or even future, jump on the trolling wagon: quick-and-dirty money was always a magnet for these folks.

        As a result, some of them (obviously, not the smartest ones) forget about the troll's Rule# 1: always fly under the radar. A crook from Michigan, Paul Nikoletti on Friday appealed IL judge Harold Baker's ruling denying the early discovery. I hope that most of you remember Judge Baker, the author of the "legal meme" IP !=person, a judge who was the first to use the phrase "fishing expedition" referring to trolling cases, a judge who killed Steele's novel "reverse class action" lawsuit.

        Thank you so much, Mr. Nikoletti! Bringing attention of the Circuit Court of Appeal is exactly what your fellow con artists need!

        What do you think the outcome of this appeal will be? Your bets, gentleman!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:19pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          On a side note, look at the footnote #3 of the judge's order: it has a link to my Scribd account: I'm so happy: not for myself — for the fact that the adversarial voices are heard: in most cases no opposition exists at the moment when judges allow discovery, and this is one of the most predatory features of the trolling lawsuits.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Almost Anonymous (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 4:00pm

      Re:

      And the Year of the Double Down keeps rolling along...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:57am

    Unlike in normal, run-of-the-mill litigation, in trolling business, the client-lawyer relationship is somewhat different, I would say perverted. Therefore saying that "...anyone would hire Stone to do more copyright trolling" is a bit misleading. It should be something along these lines: "...Stone would find anyone willing to use their copyrights and name in the exchange for a small percentage of the shake-down proceeds."

    Maybe I'm being too picky, but general public still thinks that studios hire troll lawyers, and the latter "just doing their job," "whatever is best for the client." Many mainstream media outlets, reporting the news sometimes don't even name lawyers int he articles.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 11:58am

    If copyright trolls won't respect the law then why should we respect their copyrights?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:01pm

    So glad there's one lawyer out there who's a dick and who does copyright cases. This is Techdirt gold. Attempt to discredit the system anyway you can! Yaaaaarrr!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:12pm

      Re:

      One? You must mean Charles Carreon. I mean Rakesh Ramde. I mean Steve Gibson. I mean Evan Stone.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      MrWilson, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:14pm

      Re:

      You haven't been paying attention. There are a whole bunch of lawyers who have been copyright litigation-threatening settlement trolls, they just haven't been as public with their dickishness. Unfortunately, some of those lawyers are now working at the Department of Justice.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:32pm

        Re: Re:

        Yep. A few bad apples that copyright skeptics (ahem!) can turn to for surefire arguments that the system as a whole is screwed. That's the point of the countless articles about these few people right? To milk it for all the anti-copyright FUD it's worth? I mean, this idiot lawyer is just one guy. But I'm sure we're all supposed to look at him and think the whole system sucks. Of course, you can find idiots in anything. Copyright isn't special for having a few assholes.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:44pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          How many lawyer apples are in a copyright bushel? If I compared these apples to oranges would that make me liable in fruit court?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:53pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Don't get me started....

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:54pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Can we add you to the list?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          The eejit (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 2:01pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          And you missed the point where whole corpoate entities joined the club to try and make money.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Leigh Beadon (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 3:31pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          But I'm sure we're all supposed to look at him and think the whole system sucks.

          Um, no, you're supposed to add him to the huge and constantly-growing pile of diverse evidence that the whole system sucks.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 10:38pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Just like how you look at The Pirate Bay and assume that everyone who doesn't support copyright is a thief. That's fair, right?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Beech, 17 Jul 2012 @ 1:26am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Even if he was the ONLY one doing this, it still shows that people are capable of doing it. So he may not be the only one for long. It's like we're in a besieged medieval town, and you're saying, "It's only ONE member of that visigoth horde that walked through the crack in the wall! You want to repair a whole wall because of one guy?!"

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:41pm

      Re:

      One?

      While one of the previous commenters has mentioned the few most recent, we could go back years. There's been a steady stream of completely over the top behavior of copyright lawyers going back at least as far as the RIAA cases 8 or 9 years ago.

      Hiring PIs to follow an 8-year-old girl around and trying to trick her into saying her mother downloaded music? Check.

      After being told they were suing a dead person, continuing the case against the family, while claiming to be compassioniate by allowing them a few weeks to grieve? Check.

      Not dropping cases after being shown that the person they were suing did not own a computer and did not have internet service (only cable TV)? Check.

      Refusing to drop cases for months and years after it was blatantly obvious even to them that they had the wrong person? Two or three Checks.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      techflaws (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 10:14pm

      Re:

      Attempt to discredit the system anyway you can!

      No need, it's happening by itself.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Deirdre (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:14pm

    I've known a few attorneys who were sanctioned and it was very unusual with a little contrition for the sanctions to not be reduced on appeal. Maybe Stone didn't know about the contrition part of appealing sanctions.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Pixelation, 16 Jul 2012 @ 2:03pm

      Re:

      "...it was very unusual with a little contrition for the sanctions to not be reduced on appeal"

      Hopefully the judge will be presented with his statement during the appeal.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:16pm

    Why did you skipped the comments where a supposed Evan Stone poorly defends himself on his technological based assumptions, on a tech website. It was so funny it was kinda sad..

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    khory, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:19pm

    My favorite quote is in the last part of the Ars article-

    “There is no commercially available service that can even take advantage of the top-tier bandwidth,” he said. “You don't need 50Mbps down to use Hulu, Netflix, iTunes or anything. Who the hell pays for 50Mbps down? P2P file-sharers. That's who pays. That's on the Internet side, they're making profits from those who want to file-share.”

    This guy thinks there is no use for a fast internet connection other than illegal file sharing? Really??? So we should artificially keep slow connections because someone might DL some files?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:21pm

      Re:

      Read the comment section of the linked Ars' story: Ars community carefully crashed his arguments.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 8:42pm

      Re:

      Wonder what he'd say to 110Mbps residential service. THAT would be something to video and slap up on YouTube.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:23pm

    In all fairness, Verizon's stance is TOTALLY about protecting revenue, and any statement otherwise is silly... They just realize that ignoring the civil rights of all of their customers would seriously reduce that revenue.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    apauld (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:39pm

    The thing that annoys

    The thing that annoys me is that the sanctions don't seem to be high enough. As someone in the ars comments pointed out, even if a small percent of the subpoenas led to a small percent of settlements, he could still be at a break even point. He might even be doing better than that.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:02pm

      Re: The thing that annoys

      The thing that annoys me is that the sanctions don't seem to be high enough.


      Par for the course.

      Look at Barclays: 800 trillion dollars riding on Libor. Yeah, not billion, but trillion-with-a-T. Barclays gets rapped on the knuckles for $450 million, less than half-a-B. Less than half of one-thousandth of a T-trillion. A couple executives take early retirement—with their pensions. So what? Eventually, it all blows over—and Barclays will come out ahead. The fines? Just the cost of a profitable business.

      That's how the game works these days.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 12:56pm

    "The more I think about it old Billy was right
    Let's kill all the lawyers, kill'em tonight"
    "The Eagles - Get over it"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mesonoxian Eve (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:28pm

    Silver lining people: there's a 4x8 residence awaiting him if he continues and that's one less person off the street who is purposely doing real harm to real people.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 2:14pm

    Yeah, just keep waving that subpenis around impotently smally McMicrodick(troll at law)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2012 @ 2:38pm

    Methinks the courts will show him the error of his ways. And hey, then he can star in his own porno. Hell he's even got the name...

    Evan Stone in: Behind Bars?
    Jailhouse Stone?
    Prison Blues?
    Prison Browneye?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 5:41pm

    Oh Evan... come play....

    I can only hope his ego gets the best of him and he shows up here.

    For nearly 2 years I've tracked his asshat's cases. Waited for a Judge to notice he had unclean hands in many of his cases (he participated fully in swarms he sued). And finally he gets smacked... and he just keeps going.

    I'll just C&P my comment from Ars here in case he decides to show up.

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/copyright-troll-10000-sanctions-upheld-by-appeals- court-are-bullst/?comments=1&post=23058929#comment-23058929

    @efstone - Oy! Troll, back under your bridge. Or shall I recap for our home viewers the comedy that is your career.

    Shall I start with your 3rd hand fax machine, that early on was still broadcasting a charities phone number?
    Being yelled at by the Judge for using an answering machine to handle calls for your law firm that was in a PO Box?
    Ever sue when you didn't actually have a copyright?
    Ever fibbed on dates on applications?
    Ever appropriated the trademark of an East India Company?
    Ever lie to the media about not doing porn cases again after you told off Hustler?
    Ever check the size of the swarm before suggesting your employer acquire the rights to 2 movies and then launch Doe lawsuits before the ink was dry?
    Ever have someone participate in a swarm to capture IP addresses, with an unmodified client meaning you had unclean hands as you were making the infringement worse?
    Former VP of a cell company does not an investigator make, and its humorous on some level that there is a verizon van in the street view of your home.
    Who has the bigger ego you or Michael Lucas of Lucas Entertainment?
    Ever regret taking on a website that had me as a member?
    Landing Debbie Does Dallas was just for an ego boost wasn't it?
    Do you still have the Xiu Xiu Live DVD available?
    Do you regret not purchasing a private registration for your domains, it was fun to mock the ugly couch on streetview.

    I've been onto you and your scam since September 2010, I've laughed every time you stumbled.
    I showed people you were not the great and powerful oz but a little man just out to scare them, your failures made it so much easier.
    You file paperwork late, you violate the law, and somehow its always someone else's fault.
    You might have felt powerful scaring that teen in the Dallas Observer puff piece, and you say your not a bully.
    You are a joke.
    You make Steele look competent, do you understand how sad that truly is?
    I've enjoyed your fall, it took much to long, but like fries... Ding your done.
    Troll go down the hole....

    I remain
    TAC
    p.s. Ohai! @sophisticatedjanedoe he annoyed me enough I registered here...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    doreen, 16 Jul 2012 @ 9:46pm

    as Eddie implied I'm blown away that a person able to profit $7977 in four weeks on the internet. did you look at this site NUTTYRich dot c o m

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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