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.

Filed Under: copyright troll, ethics, evan stone, sanctions
Companies: verizon

Copyright Troll Evan Stone Loses Again; Sanctions Upheld For 'Staggering Chutzpah' In Abusing Subpoena Powers

from the a-litany-of-failures dept

We've covered the story of copyright troll lawyer Evan Stone for a while now. He was one of a group of lawyers who jumped into the copyright trolling business a few years ago, figuring it was easy money to get info on people based on IP addresses, and then demand they pay up to avoid lawsuits. While these cases have been littered with highly questionable behavior by various trolling lawyers, Stone took it to new levels. In one of Stone's cases, the judge -- already suspicious of the whole scheme -- appointed both Public Citizen and EFF to defend the (still anonymous) accused Does against being revealed. While this was going on, Stone was told not to subpoena identifying info. So, Public Citizen and EFF were somewhat shocked when they heard from some of the accused, claiming that Stone had, in fact, subpoenaed their info. After confronting him, Stone tried to get out of the case by dismissing it. Of course, while doing so, he directly insulted the judge and attacked Public Citizen and EFF, claiming he was dropping the case due to the delay in time it was taking (ignoring the serious ethical violations).

Public Citizen and EFF reasonably sought sanctions against Stone for such egregious behavior. Sanctions are pretty extreme, and rarely sought and even more rarely granted. You generally have to do something completely over the top and unethical to have sanctions imposed. The court realized that Stone's actions were not just over the line by were barely in the same time zone as the line, and granted sanctions. The court was pretty clear and direct in slamming Stone, noting that it "rarely has encountered a more textbook example of conduct deserving of sanctions."

Stone appealed, but was found in contempt by the district court for failing to obey the sanctions, and ordered to pay legal fees. Stone, once again, appealed the whole thing -- and in a new ruling, the appeals court not only details the litany of both ethical and procedural misdeeds by Stone (including completely failing to follow the basic process of appealing such a decision), but reaffirms the sanctions against Stone. Basically, everything Stone does makes things worse. He now owes even more money and there's an appeals court ruling that highlights his basic failings even in handling the appeal itself. Here's just a snippet.

On appeal, Stone argues that the sanctions cannot be justified under Rules 26 and 45 or under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 or the inherent power of the district court. He also contends that the attorneys ad litem lacked standing to bring the sanctions motion and are not the proper recipients of the attorneys’ fees awarded by the district court. Stone raises this last argument for the first time on appeal and raised the other arguments for the first time in his untimely motion in the district court to stay sanctions pending appeal, which was filed after this appeal was initiated. None of these arguments, thus, was preserved for purposes of appeal, nor does Stone contend they were. Accordingly, all the issues Stone raises on appeal have been waived....

Nonetheless, Stone asserted, at oral argument and for the first time, that this court can consider his arguments because his appeal is one of “extraordinary circumstances,” involving only “pure question[s] of law [in which] a miscarriage of justice would result from our failure to consider [them].” .... 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.

Time to stop digging.

Filed Under: copyright troll, evan stone, sanctions
Companies: eff, public citizen

Court Finds Copyright Trolling Lawyer Evan Stone In Contempt; Orders Him To Pay Attorneys' Fees

from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept

Remember Evan Stone? He's one of a "new breed" of copyright trolling lawyers, who has been trying to sue large groups of John Does based on IP addresses, claiming they infringed on a client's work. Of course, the end game of these lawsuits is not to actually take these people to court, but to find out who they are, send them a nastygram... with an offer to "settle," and then get as many people to settle as possible. It's basically a way to use the court system to force lots of people to give you money. Thankfully, the courts have been cracking down on many of the more egregious players in these games. Evan Stone was one of the earlier players in this space in the US, but one who made a pretty big mistake last year while representing porn producer Mick Haig. One of his cases came before a judge who recognized how sketchy these lawsuits were, and told Stone that he couldn't subpoena for the Does' identities just yet, and in the meantime, he asked Public Citizen and EFF to represent the interests of the still anonymous users. Amazingly, Stone sent the subpoenas anyway. The appointed lawyers discovered this when they heard from one of the Does in question. When they confronted Stone about it, he dropped the case in the most petulant manner possible (basically whining about the judge appointing these meddlesome lawyers who kept him from getting his way).

In response, the lawyers at Public Citizen and EFF filed for sanctions against Stone... which they got, to the tune of $10,000. Stone, of course, appealed.

However, as you can see below, the court isn't buying it (not one bit). Not only does the court order him to pay attorneys' fees to Public Citizen and EFF (basically the $22,000 the lawyers asked for, though the court gets there through very slightly different math), but even more interestingly, the court also finds Stone in contempt and is requiring that he pay $500 per day until he pays the attorneys' fees owed...

Filed Under: contempt, copyright, evan stone, sanctions, subpoenas, trolling
Companies: eff, public citizen

Evan Stone Appeals Judicial Slapdown And Sanctions For Ethics Violations

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Last month, a court smacked down copyright troll lawyer Evan Stone, who had been caught sending out subpoenas to identify those he was suing, even after the judge had ordered him to wait until he could rule on the matter. This was a big, big deal, because it was a clear abuse of Stone's subpoena power as a lawyer -- especially since the judge recognized that the entire purpose of the lawsuit was to identify individuals in order to send "pay up" threat letters. The judge ordered Stone to pay a $10,000 sanction, alert other courts where he had cases pending, and to pay the legal fees of Public Citizen and the EFF, who represented the defendants in the case.

You might think that Stone would learn when it's appropriate to stop digging. But he hasn't. Instead, as That Anonymous Coward alerts us, Stone has appealed the ruling (pdf, and embedded below). There aren't many details, just notice of the appeal:

Notice is hereby given that Evan Stone, a subject of a sanctions motion filed by attorneys ad litem after termination of their ad litem appointment, appeals now to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from the sanctions order entered September 9, 2011 (Dkt. 17), which finally disposes of the only remaining issue in this case.

While brief, it suggests he's arguing that because the motion for sanctions was filed after he tried to weasel his way out of the case, they were improper. Remember, Stone filed (petulantly) to drop the case just days after he was alerted by Public Citizen lawyers that they'd discovered he was sending out subpoenas despite the judge's order. Pretending that dismissing the case lets him off the hook isn't likely to play well in court.

Filed Under: copyright, evan stone, sanctions, subpoenas

Copyright Troll Evan Stone Sanctioned For More Than $10k For Sending Subpoenas When Court Said To Wait

from the ouch dept

You may recall that the somewhat brash copyright trolling lawyer, Evan Stone, got into a bit of legal hot water earlier this year, in a case for porn producer Mick Haig. Stone had been trying to follow in the footsteps of other copyright trolls who shake down people for money by filing a John Doe lawsuit against them, but the entire purpose of the lawsuit is to find out who they are to send them "settlement offers," for much less than it would cost to mount a defense. In one of Stone's lawsuit, the judge had, quite reasonably, asked Public Citizen and EFF to act as the Does' attorneys prior to their identification, for the sake of seeing whether or not revealing their info was proper. As part of that, the judge had ordered Stone not to send any subpoenas to get identifying info until after the court had ruled whether or not that was proper.

And yet, Stone sent the subpoenas anyway, and began identifying individuals, even though the court was still determining if it was proper to allow this.

In response to being called on this huge ethics violation, Stone petulantly dropped the case and blamed the judge for bringing in Public Citizen and the EFF -- while basically ignoring the massive ethics violation and questions raised about whether or not he had received settlements from people whose identity he wasn't supposed to know yet. Public Citizen and the EFF asked for sanctions against Stone in response to this.

And, boy, did they get sanctions. Both Public Citizen and the EFF have blog posts about it -- and both suggest that you're best off just reading the ruling (pdf) by Judge David Godbey which is also embedded below.

The key points: the judge slams Stone and orders him to pay $10,000 in sanctions, take remedial steps (including filing the court order in every ongoing proceeding in which he represents a party) and pay the legal fees of Public Citizen and the EFF. He also needs to reveal if anyone he sent a settlement letter to paid up -- which would suggest he'll have to pay back that money too. While the ruling runs through the whole thing, this paragraph from the ruling both summarizes what happens and makes it clear that the court is not pleased:

To summarize the staggering chutzpah involved in this case: Stone asked the Court to authorize sending subpoenas to the ISPs. The Court said “not yet.” Stone sent the subpoenas anyway. The Court appointed the Ad Litems to argue whether Stone could send the subpoenas. Stone argued that the Court should allow him to – even though he had already done so – and eventually dismissed the case ostensibly because the Court was taking too long to make a decision. All the while, Stone was receiving identifying information and communicating with some Does, likely about settlement. The Court rarely has encountered a more textbook example of conduct deserving of sanctions.

The court also notes, "Stone’s representation to the Court that it should grant his motion so he could serve subpoenas, when in fact he had already done so, treads perilously close to violating a lawyer’s duty of candor to the Court."

From there, the court goes on to attack Stone's "substanceless" explanation for his actions, noting, "this court deals in facts, not counterfactuals." Ouch. It also dings Stone for arguing that his actions were okay because most courts approve such requests for discovery:

This argument also fails. Discovery proceeds in “normal fashion” according to the Rules of Civil Procedure. They provide that no discovery of any kind takes place prior to a Rule 26(f) conference unless the Court orders otherwise. Although Stone might believe that motions like the Discovery Motion are mere formalities and that courts routinely grant them, that misapprehension provides no basis for proceeding with preconference discovery without court order. The only “highly irregular” activity here is Stone’s disregard of the Rules and the Court’s orders, which would have constituted sanctionable conduct even if the Court eventually had granted the Discovery Motion.

Filed Under: copyright, evan stone, sanctions, subpoenas

Even As Copyright Trolls' Legal Strategy Appears To Be Failing, The Shakedowns Are Working

from the profitability... dept

We've noted that most of the judges handling the various mass infringement file sharing cases have been tossing most of the defendants, questioning the legal basis for lumping so many into a single lawsuit. And, yet, even with such failures, it turns out that the business is quite profitable (for now). Two separate articles about two of the lawyers in this game (and it is a game, rather than any sort of serious legal pursuit) demonstrate that.

The first, as highlighted by TorrentFreak is a profile about Evan Stone, the junior lawyer who has had a particularly hard time getting anyone in the legal community to take his cases seriously. This is the same Evan Stone who may be facing sanctions for his ethically dubious action of sending subpoenas to ISPs and getting names of account holders despite a court not allowing those subpoenas. Stone then responded with a ridiculously petulant filing to the court, and has since dropped most, if not all, of his cases -- though, he claims some indie film producers have signed up and he's gearing up to move forward. I would suggest that if any of those indie film producers read this, they might want to seek out a more competent lawyer who doesn't resort to insulting the court after he's called on a potentially serious ethics violation.

That said, it's not difficult to understand why he wanted to send out the subpoenas and get the names. Even though all of his cases have ended in failure, the article notes that approximately 40% of those who receive the threat letters settle... and Stone gets to keep 45% of the settlement money. That adds up. Even if you assume that the 40% settlement rate is inflated (it comes from Stone himself), he's making money on these questionable legal pursuits. All of his talk about "hating" file sharers in the article is for show. He's profiting from scaring people who don't want to go to court into paying up.

Similarly, Ars Technica has an article highlighting the voicemails left by another lawyer playing this game, John Steele, for the people he's sent legal threat letters to. And, of course, it becomes quite clear that the entire point of this strategy is to get paid. The voicemails repeatedly ask about the settlement or refer to the settlement and point out how it would be easier and cheaper to settle than to fight this in court. Amusingly, they leave out all of the difficulty Steele has had in getting a court to actually move forward with these lawsuits. Still, money is being made:

One can get a sense of how many settlements are being racked up by looking through Steele's various court dockets. Occasionally, he will voluntarily dismiss a batch of IP addresses from a suit without apparent reason; these appear to be people who have settled. In his Future Blue v. Does 1-300 lawsuit, for instance, Steele last week withdrew his claims against 15 IP addresses. If each one settled at $2,900 apiece, that's $43,500--not King Midas money, but hardly chump change, either.

Of course, this is also why these lawyers are getting more and more annoyed about the courts potentially cutting them off from such an easy cash generating venture (shaking down people is so much fun). In that profile on Stone, he claims that he may have figured out a way to get around having to actually go to court first:

He's hard at work on his latest strategy, one that'll help him fly a little below the radar on his pirate hunt: a subpoena provision in the Copyright Act that he's hoping will let him track down names and addresses without having to sue anyone first.

I imagine that would be news to the RIAA who already tried that and got shot down handily in court in the famous RIAA v. Verizon case. Of course, given his other mistakes, I guess it's no surprise that Stone apparently is unfamiliar with the case law on the matter.

Filed Under: copyright, evan stone, john steele, lawsuits

Public Citizen & EFF File For Sanctions Against Anti-P2P Lawyer Evan Stone

from the due-process dept

Remember Evan Stone? The anti-P2P lawyer (not the porn actor), who has been filing a ton of mass infringement lawsuits on behalf of porn companies. Like all of these lawsuits, the real intent is to frighten people into paying up prior to any trial. It's using the judicial system as a business model. In one of the lawsuits Stone filed for Mick Haig Productions, the judge wisely asked Public Citizen and EFF to act as counsel for the John Does who had been sued, to represent their interests before allowing Stone to move forward with the discovery process (which would allow him to subpoena ISPs to get the names associated with various IP addresses). Public Citizen and EFF filed motions concerning some of the problems with the overall case and the judge refused to allow discovery while considering those motions. However, Paul Levy at Public Citizen discovered that Stone had gone ahead and sent out subpoenas anyway, and some ISPs had already started turning over the info.

As Levy noted in a letter to Stone, this appeared to be a gross violation of legal ethics. A couple days after receiving this letter, Stone dropped the case with a petulant letter to the judge, blaming the judge for appointing lawyers who actually stood up for their clients' rights, rather than rolling over and allowing discovery. However, in the initial letter, Levy also asked Stone to provide details on all of the subpoenas that he issued, along with the cover letters to ISPs and details of any other communication with those ISPs. Finally, he wanted to know if anyone whose identity had been revealed through these questionable means had paid up and how much they had paid.

It turns out that Stone has refused to respond to these requests (including multiple phone calls to try to reach him), obviously hoping that Public Citizen and EFF would go away. Knowing Paul Levy, he's not the sort of person who gives up easily. Public Citizen and EFF have now filed a motion with the court asking the court to order Stone to provide this info, and then, once the info is provided, to determine whether the fault is Stone's or his clients, and to then either order attorneys' fees, sanctions or both. I've included the motion below, but here's the key part:

Mr. Stone surreptitiously issued unauthorized subpoenas to an unknown number of internet service providers ("ISPs"), demanding the disclosure of the identities of anonymous Defendants so that he could pressure the alleged downloaders of pornography into settlement. Incredibly, months later Mr. Stone participated in the briefing of the very question of whether he should be allowed to issue discovery... all the while allowing ISPs to process the improperly issued subpoenas. Plaintiff's counsel's behavior demonstrates blatant contempt for the rule of law and the authority of this Court.

Moreover, the full extent of Mr. Stone's actions is not yet known because he refuses to meet and confer. Accordingly, rather than requesting a specific form of relief, Defendants instead ask this Court to order Mr. Stone to fully account for his actions so that the Court and Defendants can be made aware of the harm inflicted and so that they may respond accordingly. Once the Court has ascertained the full extent of Mr. Stone's actions, and the extent to which his client should properly bear responsibility for his actions ostensibly performed on his client's behalf, the Court can then decide whether an award of attorney's fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505, discovery sanctions under the Federal Rules, or some other relief is appropriate. Defendants ask this Court to impose some sanction for Mr. Stone's conduct to send a message that should hardly be necessary: abusing the Court's authority to improperly investigate and push settlements onto litigation opponents will not be tolerated.

Filed Under: discovery, evan stone, process, sanctions
Companies: eff, mick haig productions, public citizen

Public Citizen & EFF Plan To Continue Pursuing Evan Stone Over Questionable Subpoenas

from the keeping-it-going dept

We recently wrote about the odd situation in which mass copyright letter sender lawyer Evan Stone hastily, but petulantly, dropped a case, after the lawyers representing the defendants (from Public Citizen and the EFF) noticed that he appeared to have totally ignored the fact that the court had not allowed him to issue subpoenas, and had gone ahead and issued them anyway. Rather than respond to any of the questions that Public Citizen lawyer Paul Alan Levy asked Stone, he just dropped the case. Levy has now put up a blog post digging into the details, including why this move was more or less an admission by Stone that he'd made a huge mistake. The key point, though, is that Public Citizen and EFF appear to be planning to continue to pursue the motion to make sure that Stone did not contact any of those sued directly.

But there are some oddities here -- he claims that as a result of our filing, he has lost the opportunity to take discovery; does that mean that he believes our arguments are meritorious, and hence that his motion should be denied? After all, the judge ordered the ISP's to preserve identifying information for the Does, so it is not as if that information was going to disappear while he was waiting for a decision. And previously he claimed that these were 670 people who had seriously damaged his client by obtaining its copyrighted product illegally and then re-distributing it illegally. If his client has been injured, why has he dismissed the claims with prejudice, which means not only the client cannot bring suit in a proper jurisdiction but also that the Does are now prevailing parties who are entitled to seek an award of attorney fees under the Copyright Act?

My guess is that this is all about Evan Stone and not at all about his client. Stone's business model depends on easy settlements in the four figures, and he must have recognized that a win would not come easily. In my view, it is also fair to read the dismissal as an admission of our argument that he has no claim for fees and statutory damages. Thus, the litigation of the case on the assumption that he could use the threat of litigation to demand four figure settlements was no longer possible, and Stone may just have been unwilling to continue to represent his client without that possibility. Moreover, it seems likely that Stone worried about the possibility of a sanctions motion, and about having to answer questions incident to that motion about his communications with the ISPs and with the Does, and that he dismissed with prejudice in an effort to cut off such inquiries. The very fact that he is dodging the questions makes me worry that he may have already made some profits from our clients for which he does not want to be accountable. What he may not have recognized is that dismissal of a case not only sets up a motion for attorney fees, but does not deprive the court of jurisdiction to consider sanctions. And because we have an obligation to protect our Doe clients, we are going to have to pursue such a motion until we are satisfied that none of them has been abused.

Levy also highlights a bigger point, which is that more judges when confronted with these mass infringement lawsuits should act like the judge in this case did, and not just rubberstamp subpoenas for identifying information:

The larger lesson is that, no matter how clearly meritorious the plaintiff's claim may be from a first review of an ex parte motion for early discovery, more judges should emulate Judge Godbey and Judge MacKenzie by deferring a ruling on the motion for leave to take immediate discovery until there has been an opportunity for consideration and adversary litigation. Judging from the panicked calls that my EFF colleagues and I received after the notices of subpoena went out, the mere receipt of notices of subpoena alarmed a number of innocent people until they got word that the ISP's were going to hold off on production. The mere need to decide on a short schedule whether to respond to a subpoena may be harmful, and sad to say there are ISP's out there who just assume when they receive a subpoena that their clients are likely criminals who should be identified as soon as possible (I'll have more to say soon about the scoundrels at Bluehost). Judges should demand some evidence of wrongdoing before they allow discovery to identify the alleged wrongdoers, and if they are not sure of their ability to evaluate the papers in their own chambers, they should consider appointing pro bono counsel to respond to the motion.

Demanding this sort of inquiry does not protect those whose online conduct is tortious, because plaintiffs with valid claims have little difficulty making the showings that are demanded under the Dendrite standard, especially in copyright suits over downloading. But it holds out the prospect of protecting some innocent people.

Hopefully more judges will agree.

Filed Under: copyright, evan stone, file sharing, subpoenas
Companies: eff, public citizen

Mass Copyright Lawsuit Lawyer Petulantly Drops Lawsuit After Called Out For Apparent Ethics Violations

from the nice-try dept

One of the lawyers who has been at the forefront of filing many of those massive P2P infringement cases for porn producers, with the intent of getting people to pay up "pre-settlement" fees to avoid an actual trial (and being accused publicly of downloading porn), Evan Stone, keeps running into problems. Stone, who apparently only became a lawyer a few months ago, seems to have pushed his luck in yet another case, not expecting lawyers on the other side who might recognize what was going on. However, Public Citizen and the EFF, acting as lawyers for those being sued, discovered that Stone had sent subpoenas to ISPs seeking the identity of file sharers even though the judge in the case had not yet determined if such subpoenas would be allowed.

It appears that, as in other similar cases, Stone filed a bunch of John Doe lawsuits on behalf of a porn producer, in this case Mick Haig Productions. Public Citizen and EFF were appointed to defend those sued while the court determined if the overall lawsuit was appropriate. While the court was still considering the question of the legitimacy of the lawsuit and any subpoenas attached to it, Stone apparently just went ahead and sent subpoenas to various ISPs demanding the identity of those accused of file sharing. After discovering this, Paul Alan Levy wrote Stone a letter (pdf) pointing out that this was a serious ethical breach. The full letter is embedded below and it's a must read, but here's just a snippet:

Inquiring further, I was able to obtain a copy of the subpoena that you sent to Comcast and of your cover letter, which concealed from Comcast the fact that Judge Godbey had never granted you permission to serve subpoenas in this case. Inquiring still further of other major ISP's, we have learned that you have served other subpoenas in the case, that the date required by one of the notices of subpoena for a response to avoid identification is January 31, and that some ISP's have provided you with identifying information.

We are very disturbed by this information. Because the rules of procedure to not allow you to take discover at this phase of the lawsuit without express judicial permission, the subpoenas that you have issued to the ISP's that we have been able to contact to date essentially misrepresented that discovery was open in the case, and gave you access to information to which you are not entitled. It is, as well, arguably a serious abuse of process that may be independently actionable. Given the fact that your standard practice is to send settlement demand letters to Does once they are identified, we must acknowledge the possibility that you have been communicating with our clients. Yet, because those clients are represented by counsel (until the disposition of the discovery motion), your contacting them directly would be a serious violation of legal ethics, because we have never given you permission to contact our clients.

The full letter not only asks him to withdraw the subpoenas, but also to provide Public Citizen and the EFF with the details of the subpoenas issued, apparently for the purpose of asking the court to sanction Stone for his apparent abuses.

Stone, perhaps realizing he was in a bit of trouble, responded by dismissing the lawsuits. Though he did so somewhat petulantly. His filing is also included below, but in it he mocks Public Citizen and the EFF, and complains that the court appointed them in the first place, claiming they are "renowned for defending internet piracy and.. for their general disregard for intellectual property law." He also mocks their response to his original motion as "absurd." Of course, in all the childish lashing out, he never seems to mention the fact that he subpoenaed info from ISPs almost certainly in violation of the rules of procedure. Instead, he just claims that the process is taking too long, so the plaintiff "feels it has lost any meaningful opportunity to pursue justice in this matter." That's a pretty laughable statement.

Of course, now the question is whether or not Public Citizen and the EFF will continue to seek relief from the court for Stone's actions.

Filed Under: copyright, evan stone, process, subpoenas
Companies: eff, mick haig, public citizen