In September 2019, I published a post under the same title. The post highlighted the strategy used by attorneys retained by adult film studios to collect damages from persons who allegedly downloaded their client’s adult film content.
There are few problems with this approach, but one of the most fundamental is that these plaintiffs claim to identify the person who actually downloaded the content, when, in fact, there is no digital forensic evidence to prove it.
*See my previous post which provides the details of how these legal actions work: Copyright Trolls and Their Sinister Ways
Defendants often pay the claim to avoid any public association with adult film content.
It was reported in Bloomberg Law today that U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly in January wrote:
“Many courts have articulated concerns about the motivations involved in pursuing these types of cases, which appear to be extortive, forcing individuals, who would be embarrassed by allegations that they have been visiting pornographic websites, to pay nuisance-value amounts to keep their names out of publicly-available documents.”
But, in 2019, a retired police officer refused to pay the film studio, counter-sued, and the plaintiff dropped the suit.
And not only that, but it was also reported in Bloomberg Law (link below) that the film studio was ordered to pay almost $48,000. in legal fees to the retired officer’s attorney.
How about that!
“Big Law Lawyer Turned Porn IP Enforcer Loses After Rare Defense” Bloomberg Law
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