Prenda Tries Yet Another Loophole; But Entirely Plagiarizes Someone Else's Failed Attempt

from the not-particularly-shocking dept

Tue, Jan 29th 2013 10:42am — Mike Masnick

Prenda Law seems to be the gift that keeps on giving if you're writing about absolutely ridiculous attempts at copyright trolling. If 2012 was the year of Righthaven as the representative of brazen, hubristic, bullshit copyright trolling getting its due, 2013 looks to be the year of John Steele / Prenda Law (or whatever he's calling it these days). It is clearly going above and beyond what Righthaven only dreamed about. The latest is that Prenda has sought out yet another questionable loophole in trying to force ISPs to hand over subscriber info without having to first go to court. It's using a misreading of a Pennsylvania state law to do so (it's tried a similar move under a Florida state law, which flopped). However, as the good folks at FightCopyrightTrolls have noticed, the argument it's using in Pennsyvania has failed in the past as well. And not just that the general argument has failed but the specific, word-for-word argument. That's because Prenda or its local-lawyer-for-hire, Isaac Slepner, appears to have copied word for word (and stylistically too!) a filing for Liberty Media (represented by Jordan Rushie), and simply slapping the Prenda shell company Guava's name at the top. Rushie confirmed with FCT that he had nothing whatsoever to do with this new filing.

Plagiarism and copyright infringement are not quite the same thing -- and there have been discussions of whether or not you can really infringe on copying a legal filing (it happens often enough, though usually in snippets, rather than wholesale). Not that anyone took Steele's claims of "protecting" copyright seriously, but it really says something when the law firm billing itself as protecting against piracy chooses to copy top to bottom someone else's legal filing. Check out both filings below.

122623831 Memo Rushie (PDF)122623831 Memo Rushie (Text)

122624118 Memo Prenda (PDF)122624118 Memo Prenda (Text)

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Filed Under: copyright troll, john steele, jordan rushie, pennsylvania, plagiarism
Companies: prenda, prenda law

17 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 10:52am

Uh...
Pot, meet Kettle.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 10:59am

Re: Uh...
I sure by this point pot and kettle are old friends...
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 10:59am

Re: Uh...
Yep.
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S. T. Stone, 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:03am

So, at this point, do we consider this whole affair a comedy or a tragedy?
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Michael, 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:03am

Copying an argument
What kind of an idiot files an argument that previously lost? Isn't that a little like copying off of the dumb kid in class?
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Michael, 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:04am

Re:
horror
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Uh...
I swear this is a different kettle than the one you are thinking of just no one exactly knows where it is right now.
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DannyB (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:17am

Re: Copying an argument
Prenda is just giving guidance to other copyright trolls on ideas they should try.

Insanity is filing the same argument with the court over and over again and expecting a different result.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:23am

Jordan Rushie's comments
Love how Rushie commented at http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com and had a laugh at Slepner's expense. Especially since they work in the same building.
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sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 11:33am

It is a bit strange that I advocate this way, but to be fair, it's not the pleading itself that failed. Moreover, judge granted the motion yesterday (admittedly, it was not a known fact at the time this TD article was written).

I would love to attribute this event to the ignorance of the judge regarding Prenda and copyright trolls in general, but if it was a shitty memorandum, things may went a different way.
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Vidiot (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 12:42pm

Re: Re: Uh...
Ironically, Prof. John Kettle is an IP Law specialist at Rutgers University Law School. Go figure.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 1:17pm

Re: Re: Copying an argument
Well, it is a court with a human judge and since "Errarre humanum est", it is not as bad as knocking your head against the wall. Sometimes lawyers are willing to run a trial, just in case they can get away with winning it!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 1:38pm

Not infringment
It's not infringing.

First, no lawyer writes a motion because of copyright. Therefore it does nothing to "promote the progress".

Second, legal filings are not meant to be creative works. They are functional, not creative.

Third, it would be inherently unfair to preclude a lawyer (or non-lawyer) from writing a particular motion in a particular way just because someone else did first.
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sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 2:21pm

Re: Not infringment
Did anyone here claimed that any copyright was infringed? Professional integrity is being discussed here, not infringement.

FYI lawyers are OK with borrowing legal arguments, but there is a line, and crossing this line is bad-bad for a purported professional.

Copying a pleading word-to-word is a long shot from "writing a particular motion in a particular way."
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sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 29 Jan 2013 @ 2:37pm

Re: Jordan Rushie's comments
I liked Raul's comment (not public, but he'll forgive me):

(Context: the state case Liberty Media v. Does 1-441 was removed to the federal level after Charles Thomas petitioned, and the case was subsequently voluntarily dismissed.)

That is funny, the only way to complete this comedy is for another attorney to copy Charles' petition to remove and coincidentally find it assigned to the same federal judge.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2013 @ 4:21pm

Re: Copying an argument
Isn't that a little like copying off of the dumb kid in class?

Well, if the dumb kid is smarter then copying from him is better than doing it yourself.
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Wolfy, 29 Jan 2013 @ 7:14pm

What's surprising here, is that it's surprising to some people.
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