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Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

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Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#41

Post by jacquesm »

grellas wrote: post #36

Judge Wright took tremendous offense to the idea of lawyer-sharpie types trying to use his court (among others) as home base for a naked scheme of extortion. Think about how he characterizes the lawyers and their conduct: (1) they were lawyers with failed practices; (2) they figured a way to shake down victims out of an aggregate of millions of dollars; (3) they did this by threatening to expose them as downloaders o…

It is a real pity that it takes such naked extortionist behaviour to get a judge angry. If you look back through for instance the SCO lawsuit there were several points where I thought something like this was going to happen but it never did. Judges in general are terribly patient with plaintiff misbehaviour.

That's probably a good thing but many a life has been ruined like that.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#42

Post by ewoodrich »

bickfordb wrote: post #37
downandout wrote: post #21

While I sympathize with the disdain everyone has for these guys, this judgement is the result of some lawyers that took several possibly illegal shortcuts. This case sets no precedents about the viability of copyright trolling going forward, and in fact the judge's obvious bias may serve as grounds for a successful appeal in this case. So, while this makes for amusing reading, at the end of the day it won't mean much…

What is the judge's bias?

Against deceitful lawyers/plaintiffs. (I agree with you). When a federal judge allows it to visibly boil over into obviousness, as in this case, should indicate how lopsided of a case it really is.

Ignoring the Star Trek references, the judge established a large number of "findings of fact", where specific factual elements and legal repercussions were identified or quantified. This is a very compelling approach for appellate/higher courts, and should suggest the intent of resiliency in the language by the judge.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#43

Post by zarify »

"Without better technology, prosecuting illegal BitTorrent activity requires substantial effort in order to make a case. It is simply not economically viable to properly prosecute the illegal download of a single copyrighted video."

Is this likely to have any implications for a wider range of copyright-by-IP address cases? Since I've only given a cursory glance past the details of other (let's say music and video) cases, this level of 'proof' sounds quite similar to what is being offered elsewhere.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#44

Post by haberman »

grellas wrote: post #36

Judge Wright took tremendous offense to the idea of lawyer-sharpie types trying to use his court (among others) as home base for a naked scheme of extortion. Think about how he characterizes the lawyers and their conduct: (1) they were lawyers with failed practices; (2) they figured a way to shake down victims out of an aggregate of millions of dollars; (3) they did this by threatening to expose them as downloaders o…

It's interesting to me that the judge lets so much raw contempt show. I am more accustomed to judges presenting a dispassionate attitude; I always figured that this was an important part of their role of making impartial rulings in an adversarial system.

Would showing this much unmasked disgust towards one party leave a ruling more vulnerable to accusations of bias on appeal (presuming this can even be appealed)?

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#45

Post by downandout »

bickfordb wrote: post #37
downandout wrote: post #21

While I sympathize with the disdain everyone has for these guys, this judgement is the result of some lawyers that took several possibly illegal shortcuts. This case sets no precedents about the viability of copyright trolling going forward, and in fact the judge's obvious bias may serve as grounds for a successful appeal in this case. So, while this makes for amusing reading, at the end of the day it won't mean much…

What is the judge's bias?

A good appellate lawyer would likely argue that the judge's over-the-top reaction, along with his written commentary showing clear disdain for the business model of the plaintiffs and the attorneys, shows that the judge was unfairly biased against them from the outset of the case. I don't know if they would ultimately prevail on appeal, but the judge certainly opened the door for it.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#46

Post by DanBC »

Reading this I'm kind of optimistic.

Star Trek quotes? Firefox screenshot? Amazing. I read a lot of negative stuff about US law. I hope that's because people are interested in the negative stuff and there's biases operating to not publicise that good stuff.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#47

Post by DanBC »

jopof wrote: post #17

Confused -- Why all the rigamarole, instead of going RIAA-style after the thousands-to-millions of actual porn copyright-infringers?

They did go after very many people. They did these cases one at a time because it's easier to do that for them. People either paid up, or they didn't pay up in which case PrendaLaw dropped the case.

This case is awesome because they tried to do exactly that, but an alert Judge thought something not just unpleasant but actually fraudulent was going on.

What that says about all the other cases (where Prenda got millions, apparently) is open for discussion.

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#49

Post by r00fus »

haberman wrote: post #44
grellas wrote: post #36

Judge Wright took tremendous offense to the idea of lawyer-sharpie types trying to use his court (among others) as home base for a naked scheme of extortion. Think about how he characterizes the lawyers and their conduct: (1) they were lawyers with failed practices; (2) they figured a way to shake down victims out of an aggregate of millions of dollars; (3) they did this by threatening to expose them as downloaders o…

It's interesting to me that the judge lets so much raw contempt show. I am more accustomed to judges presenting a dispassionate attitude; I always figured that this was an important part of their role of making impartial rulings in an adversarial system. Would showing this much unmasked disgust towards one party leave a ruling more vulnerable to accusations of bias on appeal (presuming this can even be appealed)?

Perhaps he shows such contempt because he feels Prenda law is besmirching their profession, and the basis of law in general?

Re: Judge Wright issues Prenda Law order

#50

Post by pdovy »

downandout wrote: post #45
bickfordb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the judge's bias?

A good appellate lawyer would likely argue that the judge's over-the-top reaction, along with his written commentary showing clear disdain for the business model of the plaintiffs and the attorneys, shows that the judge was unfairly biased against them from the outset of the case. I don't know if they would ultimately prevail on appeal, but the judge certainly opened the door for it.

I'm curious, what can they really appeal here? It seems like the biggest impact of the ruling is the circulation of the ruling to other jurisdictions and the referral of the matter to local / federal authorities. Is that something that is immediate and an appeal can only reduce the monetary finding, or is the whole order in stasis if they appeal?
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