Furious judge decries "blizzard" of copyright troll lawsuits

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Courts around the country are being flooded with mass copyright lawsuits. In a typical case, the owner of a pornographic film sues dozens of anonymous defendants in a single lawsuit, obtains their contact information, and then tries to extort a four-figure settlement from each defendant before the case reaches the courtroom. The potential embarrassment of having one's name publicly associated with pornographic works gives even innocent defendants a strong incentive to settle.

But as the volume of litigation has grown, judges have begun pushing back, refusing to approve these dragnet information requests. On Tuesday, an obviously angry New York federal judge ruled against plaintiffs in several porn copyright trolling cases. His 26-page ruling is a devastating critique of this entire litigation strategy.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/05/furious-judge-decries-blizzard-of-copyright-troll-lawsuits.ars?clicked=related_right

[Mulligan]

I love seeing these judges figure out what ELI figured out years ago... that copyright trollers are twisting and abusing the system to extort money from people.

[SJD]

It's interesting (and joyful) to watch how quickly standards change these days: recently a federal judge from another, Southern, district of New York, delivered no less devastating ruling. This would make headlines if happened prior to judge Brown's ORR discussed here, but now it's rather mundane news. And that's encouraging!   

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

I am so glad to see more rulings like this, a message needs to be sent that the courts should not be used for profit based extortionist business practices.