Dallas Buyers Club Demands Accused Pirate Take Polygraph, Asks For Judgment When He Agrees Anyway
from the graphic-detail dept
Anyone who has spent time with us here at Techdirt will be familiar with Voltage Pictures, the movie studio that perhaps is more famous now for being a copyright settlement troll than it is for having produced the movie Dallas Buyers Club. The studio has quite the reputation for sending settlement letters to those it accuses of having pirated the movie, typically with offers to settle for amounts in the thousands, and armed with the evidence of an IP address and nothing else. The frightened masses too often fork over the demanded settlement, not realizing that having an IP address is not evidence enough to prove guilt. It's a bullying business model that drips of sleaze.
But, like with many others that use sleazy business models, the sleaze doesn't end there. Lying and making false promises appears to be part of the model as well. Take the case of Michael Amhari, a California man on the receiving end of one of Voltage's settlement offers. The studio made several promises to try to get Amhari to settle, none of which it appears to have been willing to keep. For instance, Voltage wanted Amhari to take a polygraph to back up his claim that he wasn't the one who downloaded the film.
“Plaintiff demanded that defendant take a polygraph examination in exchange for a dismissal of the case. Plaintiff’s counsel disingenuously stated that he would bear all the costs for such a polygraph test,” Amhari’s counsel Clay Renick writes.
“When plaintiff’s counsel then agreed to take such a test with the proviso that defense costs and attorney fees be covered, plaintiff then refused to pay costs and revoked his offer to conduct a polygraph.”
Instead of coming to terms, Dallas Buyers Club asked the court to order a default judgment in their favor, which Amhari’s counsel asked the court to set aside.
In addition to playing these games with a polygraph test request, Renick is also asking the court to set aside the judgement due to all the other promises Voltage made to Amhari, with promises to dismiss its claim, that it didn't keep.
For example, they offered to dismiss the case if he would state under penalty of perjury that he was not involved, while pointing out another possible suspect. However, after Amhari submitted his declaration they moved for a default anyway.
“After receiving exculpatory evidence and the sworn declaration of defendant, Mr. Davis then refused to file a dismissal and proceeded to demand that defendant appear in the action or he would file a default. This behavior is galling and it should not be permitted by the court,” the defendant’s counsel adds.
Galling and quite exemplary of just how interested in any kind of justice Voltage Pictures is in this instance. Which is to say it isn't at all, because it appears to keep requesting information and evidence supporting Amhari's innocence and then rescinding its promises once its requests are met. That isn't someone looking for a just result. It's instead the actions of an incredibly irritating bully who is only interested in the extraction of money from someone it deems to be be bully-able. That the promises were backed by a legal staff that then has gone back to the court to try to get judgments against the defendant is breathtakingly cavalier.
Given that Amhari has agreed to pretty much every demand that Voltage Pictures has made, and has received none of the promised results, it would be nice for the court to slap the troll around a bit and at least revoke the previous default judgement.
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Filed Under: copyright trolls, dallas buyers club, michael amhari, polygraph
Companies: voltage pictures
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It should go without saying
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“When plaintiff’s counsel then agreed to take such a (voodoo) test with the proviso that defense costs and attorney fees be covered, plaintiff then refused to pay costs and revoked his offer to conduct a voodoo.”
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A verbal promise and an empty sack is worth... an empty sack
Semi-related, if his lawyer thought it was a good idea for him to take a polygraph test to demonstrate his innocence he needs to get a new lawyer, as his current one is clearly an idiot. You'd have better odds flipping a coin to determine guilt or innocence, and as far as I know polygraph results aren't legally admissible evidence anyway, so I'd say it's pretty clear Voltage is just doing it to wear him down.
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Re: A verbal promise and an empty sack is worth... an empty sack
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So an innocent person can swear they are innocent, and then are required to give them a new target to go after despite the claims made that the accused is the infringer.
Given the pattern in these cases, it should finally be clear that these are nothing but $400 fishing trips to reel in thousands. The system works against the accused, and the courts seem overly generous with the leeway the lawyers are given, while making sure the accused is held to higher standards.
The system is weighted against the accused, and makes just paying them the easy way to end the suffering. Even if you jump through every hoop, disprove every claim... the trolls slink away to avoid having to pay for making an innocent person defend themselves against baseless accusations.
They are supposed to only recover so much per work, and they rake in many times that amount with settlements made outside of the purview of the courts and keep going for more because no one has the will to stop these legal shakedown operations.
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“When plaintiff’s counsel then agreed to take such a test with the proviso that defense costs and attorney fees be covered, plaintiff then refused to pay costs and revoked his offer to conduct a polygraph.”
Unless the above quote is incorrect then it looks like he did agree to take a polygraph test in exchange for the plaintiff covering his legal fees as well at the case being dropped, at which point they rescinded the offer.
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Meanwhile Up North
A family friend that I do occasional tech support for received about 30 copyright notices overnight, forwarded from his ISP under Canada's Notice on Notice regime. The one he forwarded me originates with Vobile Inc. in California, on behalf of Viacom.
He's a senior citizen in his late 80s living in a retirement home. He has just the one PC connected to his cable modem, and no WiFi. There's absolutely no possibility that he was downloading "The Shannara Chronicles" with BitTorrent in the middle of the night as the notice claims.
Canada's Notice on Notice system no doubt limits RightsCorp/Prenda/ Voltage Pictures style shakedowns. But seniors are lucrative targets for fraud.
I've advised him not to contact Vobile. I emailed his ISP on his behalf, and they sent back a standardized form giving the distinct impression that they want nothing to do with it. They'll only hand over his information to the trolls if they get a court order.
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Re: Meanwhile Up North
But of course. Mental state maybe not so great, not likely to have the energy for defending themselves in court, retirement money just begging to be grabbed... if you're interested in the 'Extortion masquerading as copyright enforcement' business I imagine seniors make for quite the tempting target indeed.
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Re: Meanwhile Up North
Now if you'll excuse me I think I need to take a shower, as for some reason I feel like I just swam through an olypmic sized pool filled to the brim with sleaze and liquid sociopath after putting myself in the mindset of the type of person to run such scams in order to write the above.
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The other problem: the lawyer
At what point do we hold lawyers responsible for putting billing hours and income before what's right?
What does Voltage Picture really have to gain by going after this one guy? Is he the head of a Chinese cartel that's selling millions of bootleg DVD's? Is he part of a North Korean smuggling ring that's trafficking millions of DVD's? If not, then why spend all this time and effort to get a few thousand dollars from the guy?
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Re: The other problem: the lawyer
Because ruining someone’s life, whether they win or lose, helps convince others to settle quickly.
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Re: The other problem: the lawyer
Answer: Reputation to make future cases easier.
"We were willing to drive this guy into the ground even after he hired a lawyer and fought back by insisting on his innocence, so you'd best pay up before we do the same to you."
Copyright extortion isn't about guilt or innocence, it's all about going after a mark and making them too afraid to fight back, whether that's by making it cheaper to settle than fight back, telling them that if they fight back their lurid (accused) downloading habits will become public record for all to see or both.
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Gonna Be That Guy I Guess
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It depends on where you are.
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Aveagooday
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Austro-Hungarian Outcome
The final result for the Austro-Hungarian empire was that it ceased to exist.
Let us hope that the same happens to Voltage Pictures.
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I should be able to sue Voltage if they accused me of having such bad taste that I'd download ANY of their drivel.
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