Lawyer Suggests That Prenda Law May Have Only 'Released' Movies It Sued Over As A Honeypot For Lawsuits
from the well,-look-at-that dept
Another day, another story having to with Prenda Law (the hits just keep on coming). Found via FightCopyrightTrolls, we discover some research done by lawyer Graham Syfert, who has taken on Prenda/John Steele in a number of cases, including the infamous Florida case that was tossed out for fraud on the court following an Abbott & Costello-worthy transcript involving John Steele, Mark Lutz, and a variety of guest appearances from others on Team Prenda (despite Prenda claiming to both have nothing to do with the case... and with hiring the lawyers for the case, who were all trying to get off the case).Apparently getting curious about the whole shell within a shell within a shell setup of Livewire/AF Holdings/Ingenuity 13, Syfert began wondering about just what copyrighted works were actually at the center of those lawsuits. As you may recall, Prenda, used to represent actual porn studios, but at some point shifted to a variety of shell corporations, which it's now accused of running itself (a big no no). But then what copyright was it using? Well, Syfert looked at the details of the lawsuits, and then looked around, and basically found that the "movies" in question never appear to be distributed in any way, except via BitTorrent, all seeded by the same user. Hmmmm....
So, four out of the Five Fan Favorites that Ingenuity 13 wishes to protect are shared by sharkmp4. (Other hash values referenced in complaints do not result in any valid torrent). One wonders if the "Five Fan Favorites" copy registered with the copyright office includes all of these sharkmp4 videos. Would that be proof that Prenda Law is seeding its own works and then suing? The honeypot. The venus fly trap. The pitcher plant? Or is sharkmp4 just another pirate?Syfert digs a bit deeper and digs up a bit more info on this "sharkmp4" character:
Now of course, this all begs the question: Who is sharkmp4? Well, the IP address associated with this user can be determined by a technically skilled individual who could load up all the torrents, join the torrent swarms and then find the common seed. However, there is no reason to do this, because it will come back with a Mullvad VPN on an IP in Germany owned by Leaseweb and get you nowhere.Well, almost nowhere. Because back at FightCopyrightTrolls, they add a little piece to the puzzle.
I want to point out to one coincidence that Graham did not mention (probably he did not know): a person who we strongly believe was John Steele had been commenting on this blog via Mullvad VPN (links at the bottom). Although it does not prove anything per se — a single exit IP address is shared by many VPN users — the fact that Mullvad VPN was allegedly used to seed certain pornographic movies is interesting.Obviously, not conclusive proof of anything, but enough to leave you scratching your head and wondering. It's not like Mullvad is one of the more popular VPNs either. And, of course if John Steele, or a representative of the copyright holder themselves is uploading and distributing the file in the first place (and that's the only place where it's released), there's a reasonable argument to be made that any downloads are not infringing, since it's clearly an authorized copy. At this point, Steele and Team Prenda are likely in enough hot water, but it seems like a court that wants to dig even deeper into the whole thing might uncover some more... interesting things during discovery.
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Filed Under: grayam syfert, honeypots, john steele, movies
Companies: prenda, prenda law
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Seeding
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Re: Seeding
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Re: Re: Seeding
They would then go into a maze of Criminal law - Fraud, extortion, blackmail, false pretences, to name a few and then a whole heap of civil torts with champerty, barratry and coercion at the top of that list.
In other words... screwed! And the pain... oh the pain would be excruciating.
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Re: Seeding
Say it isn't so... and I'll call you a fscking lair.
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Re: Seeding
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Seeding
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Comment all in the tag:
http://techdirt.com/
ZOMG! Yet another item on Prenda Law! A staple in the soporific "At The Bench" series. Mike sez (short version): "Wow. Wow. Wow. ... The story is gripping."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130303/23353022182/prenda-law-sues-critics-defamation .shtml
09:29:02[k-842-2]
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Re: Comment all in the tag:
Because I just can't find out what purpose s/he serves. Or what exactly it is s/he's trying to accomplish.
Unless s/he just wants to waste time...I guess that's a purpose?
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Re: Re: Comment all in the tag:
It appears he's posting contrary (if not rational) statments to curry payment form his corporate masters.
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Re: Comment all in the tag:
09:35:11[P3-RV-3RT]
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Re: Re: Comment all in the tag:
Still not clear on why you refuse to do so. Techdirt/Floor64/Mike already has your email $ IP Address Etc. What are you afraid of?
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Re: Comment all in the tag:
Take a loopy tour of techdirt! You always end up with the same comments. http://techdirt.com/
15/35/09
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Next Question
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Re: Next Question
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1) It is going to be very hard to demonstrate any actual financial losses resulting from copying because apparently there was no commercial market for the products in the first place. Of course with the wonderful, wacky world of statutory damages no one has to prove damages.
2) There may not be enough evidence to prove that Steel uploaded the videos, but there probably is enough evidence to justify asking him under oath whether he did upload it or knew who did. I sincerely hope that if that happens there is video in that court. Watching him squirm would be very entertaining.
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Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
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Re: Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
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Re: Re: Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
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Re: Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
I always thought that wording was odd.... until now.
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Re: Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
hacking cases no less...
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Re: Maybe he used it as a filelocker!
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Entrapment
File sharing is not illegal, and a rights holder who posts a file to the network legally can't expect to have his distribution rights upheld.
He chose to distribute the file, therefore he can't sue people for taking what was freely offered.
It's like rigging a claymore to your front door, then inviting people to come in.
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Gimme an "I"...
Gimme a "C"...
Gimme an "O"...
What does that spell?
"PRISON!"
"PRISON!"
"PRISON!"
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honeypot dream nightmares
http://i.imgur.com/fsUvv4D.jpg
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Re: honeypot dream nightmares
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Mullvad VPN is not in the USA (Sweden) so international considerations now come into it and a fair few people who have the technical skills (and no not anonymous... they might or might not be doing there own investigation... who knows they are capable though) are looking very closely at it all.
If this allegation turns out to be correct and provable then Prenda, Steele, et.al who might think they have problems with just the US Federal courts now, will have more than those courts to deal with.. Then we get into the realm of not even Saint Kitts and Nevis being able to protect them just for starters.
Oh and Discovery of there own electronic devices would then almost definitely commence. Though hey if they start deleting now (they could even use CCleaner *snorts*) it might take a bit longer to recover the data... and cause more criminal woes for them.
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Re:
I don't count as Anonymous?!
The recruiting poster said we all were Anonymous!
THOSE LIARS! :D
Its clear they were afraid of me, the sad thing for them is I'm not that talented. Now they have the attention of people who can do the things I only dream of being able to do...
that's going to end well....
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Oh yes they have very much gotten on peoples attention radar that would not normally occur, and a lot of these people normally stay in the background, though some are upfront and in-your-face - playing the old psych game which Sun Tzu would be proud of - and these people sometimes make up Anonymous, sometimes don't, sometimes are against anonymous, but are always and specifically VERY socially conscious highly cynical and don't take kindly to idiotic, egotistic people and/or organisations who like to think, speciously, that they are in any way a part of the 'big leagues'.
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I will not be happy until I get my footnote mention from a Federal Judge, its like the ultimate merit badge. :D I am so jealous of SJD and DTD over that...
I've seen more new people leaving breadcrumbs around, and taking some of the bits and pieces we've had but couldn't find a puzzle to fit them into and they find the puzzle.
I keep hoping we'll see an ACS:Law style epic event, where they just hand out the smoking gun to the world themselves.
With luck other trolls will get noticed and suffer the same fates. While they might not be on the same level of Prenda the misery and tricks they are using are just as sleazy.
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We can wish
Still it is sure worth checking into this as deep as you can when humans do make mistakes and they have never been that bright. Should proof of a honey-pot ever be discovered then they would sure be going to prison.
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Re: We can wish
I mean if you were going to post screenshots you might want to remove where the file is identified as being the master.
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Re: We can wish
https://mullvad.net/en/prices_terms.php#privacy
Mullvad is one of them. They dont keep logs and thus cant be forced to hand over information about who used what IP at any time.
Unless you find the torrent still on their computer and/or a saved login to sharkmp4 on piratebay i think your out of luck here.
Dont know who clued them onto VPN's. Maybe they learned something along the way posting on all the anti-troll blogs
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Re: Re: We can wish
There is a possibility that during one of their fishing trips they hit upon a series of IP addresses that lead them to VPNs and discovered they weren't able to get information about the users.
For a low cost someone could anonymously seed a bunch of files and gather information.
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"shark"
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I might complain of the weakness of the evidence but similar analysis leading mostly to accusation by insinuation is used frequently and successfully against file sharers.
Have suggested jokingly earlier the risk of flight was minimal but these people might be way down the rabbit hole. To early and evidence light to comment further but the bread crumb trail seems significant. Cant wait to get these guys on the stand.
A great allegation that any copyright maximalist would slather over to smear some accused IP violator. No wait, that is an IP violation! Round and round.
To early for an armed SWAT raid? (just a thought)
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In other words...entrapment.
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there is a list
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From the movie of the same name, "Entrapment is what cops do to thieves." Only law enforcement can do entrapment.
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Vexatious litigation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation
"most of which require that the litigant be proceeding pro se"
we think not since there are actually, "lawyers & firms" (term used loosely in these circumstances) making the complaints in behalf of the pornographers.
Is this a correct understanding of the quoted statement?
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I predicted something like this...
http://glossynews.com/society/201301140326/man-sued-for-copyright-infringement-wins-case-2/
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