Malibu Media Sanctioned Again For Bogus Copyright Abuse & Intimidation

from the start-adding-them-up dept

Back in September, we wrote about porn trolling company Malibu Media getting sanctioned for its ridiculous use of "Exhibit C" in its legal filings against people it accused of unauthorized downloads of porn content that it held the copyright on. Exhibit C was a completely useless exhibit that had nothing to do with the actual case at hand, but listed out other content that Malibu insisted the same person was downloading. None of the titles listed in Exhibit C were content where Malibu Media held the copyright. Instead, it was almost always titles of porn videos that would be considered very embarrassing for some people. The obvious intention: scare people into settling early to avoid having their names attached to a federal lawsuit where the records showed a long list of explicitly named movies that someone had downloaded. The court in the Western District of Wisconsin sanctioned Malibu's lawyers $200 per case, for a total of $2,200.

Now, in a similar finding over in the Eastern District of Wisonsin, Judge Rudolph Randa has basically found the same thing and piled another $600 in sanctions for three cases in that district onto Malibu Media. Another $600 is pocket change of course, but there are a ton more of these cases out there, and if more and more courts start recognizing the game that Malibu is playing... we could be in for another Prenda-like domino effect. The court makes it clear that it recognizes that Malibu Media is abusing the judicial process to try to convince people to pay up. Hopefully more courts will begin to recognize this as well.
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Filed Under: exhibit c, sanctions
Companies: malibu media


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  • icon
    That One Guy (profile), 13 Dec 2013 @ 4:22pm

    Ah those double standards...

    A whopping $200 fine for attempted extortion, sure must be nice to be a scum-bag lawyer, even when they get caught they barely get a slap on the wrist.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 6:22pm

      Re: Ah those double standards...

      While Malibu owners Brigham and Colette bought a mansion that costs 16,000,000 in June 2013...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 8:31pm

        Re: Re: Ah those double standards...

        Hey, to be fair, they could have afforded the mansion that cost $32,000,000 if not for piracy.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 5:35pm

    Chicken Mike! Chicken Mike!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 13 Dec 2013 @ 6:10pm

      Re:

      And you wonder why you get reported... back to time-out for you.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        The Wanderer (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 9:34am

        Re: Re:

        I'm not even entirely sure what he's talking about. My best guess is that he's trying for a "Chicken Little" reference, but if so, he's doing it wrong.

        To reference an established phrase while changing the words, especially if it's a short phrase, it works much better if you can keep the scansion the same. In this case, "Little" has two syllables, but "Mike" only has one, so the modified version doesn't scan the same way as the original.

        It would work much better to use "Masnick" instead; that has two syllables, so it would keep the rhythm of "Chicken Little", and be much more likely to have people recognize what is meant.

        Still very much worthy of reporting either way, of course.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          That One Guy (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 12:06pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          You're over thinking it, that was AJ, who honestly thinks that making barnyard animal noises is a valid form of criticism and commentary.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            The Wanderer (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 12:16pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            I know who it is - I was trying to be amusing, by intentionally overanalyzing it. My comment wasn't really directed at him, per se.

            Plus I really am not sure what he's trying to say, et cetera, see previous post.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              That One Guy (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 3:22pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              Fair enough, kinda hard to tell sometimes what's meant as a joke and what's meant seriously, especially for something meant to be humorous in a more subtle fashion like that.

              As for the second, 'I'm off my meds, please ignore/report me', or something like that I'd guess.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 5:55pm

    Should be more like 20K and 2 years hard labor per attempted extortion

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Anon E. Mous (profile), 13 Dec 2013 @ 5:58pm

    This has never been about protecting someone works, this is all about the settlement game. While Malibu will follow thru on some cases, they like Prenda before them are hoping you are just going to settle.

    This is basically extortion and blackmail in a legal forum, take the courts out of it and you have what it really is.

    The fact that Malibu has an actual client that isn't a figment of John Steel's imagination or someone who looked after his dog is the difference maker on that front.

    But this is the same thing Prenda was doing which is use the courts to extract settlements from people with the threat of a lawsuit. Honestly they are no better than Prenda.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 13 Dec 2013 @ 6:04pm

    So, the legal system (eventually, sorta) works against copyright abuse...

    Then you can move on to things that affects us all everyday, Mike! I suggest Google's massive spying and data collation, or its alarming foray into robotics, or the appalling inequality at Wal-Mart, or the spread of violence caused by video games: the "knockout" game, or even the truly astounding valuation of Twitter at $26 billion when its profits are a mere 168 million.

    But using the courts for copyright abuses has been attended to without your help, and though far too small a punishment, that's due to the medieval guild that controls all lawyers, a judge rarely punishes any, which would make you another good topic of wide interest.

    Just because a lot of people have gotten a lot of easy money off teh internets doesn't make it a plus overall: at the very least, the Internet enables spying on scale and in detail as never before.

    14:02:26[p-5-8]

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous, 13 Dec 2013 @ 6:16pm

      Re: So, the legal system (eventually, sorta) works against copyright abuse...

      The spread of violence caused by video games? I've played a lot of video games over the years, and none of them have ever gotten violent with me...at least, not in the real world. But what would you know of the real world?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 8:39pm

        Re: Re:

        out_of_the_blue just hates it when due process is enforced.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Andrew Norton (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 11:20am

      Re: So, the legal system (eventually, sorta) works against copyright abuse...

      As a former Robotics engineer what's so alarming about Google's foray?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 13 Dec 2013 @ 6:34pm

    I'd like to see the "x-art" tag added to this story and other related stories. Calling plaintiff "Malibu Media" is exactly what it wants: this "company" was created with a sole purpose of filing shakedown lawsuits, and therefore to shield the actual pornographer from unwanted publicity.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sophisticatedjanedoe (profile), 13 Dec 2013 @ 7:30pm

    I love Judge Randa's style: no emotions, no harsh words, but intelligently, calmly, thoroughly explaining Lipscomb and his "plaintiffs" what pieces of shit they are.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2013 @ 9:10pm

    the bulk of porn really doesn't deserve copyright protection.

    the minority that is worthy is utterly bizarre and typically from Japan

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 12:29am

    And don't forget their star witnesses who shows up in court to cry on demand about how ripped off they are admitted that she infringed copyrights and "stole" from other artists.

    Is she willing to hand over thousands to those artists she stole from?

    I guess it is only a bad thing when it happens to her, not when she does it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mike Acker (profile), 14 Dec 2013 @ 1:17pm

    RICO

    sue the bitches under RICO for extortion

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2013 @ 4:03pm

    average_joe greatly detests it when due process is enforced.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Nov 2014 @ 12:36am

    average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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