Talk:Prenda Law

Revert to "X-Rated" instead of "pornographic"
I reverted this edit because 1) a law firm wouldn't describe its own clients' works as "pornographic," a pejorative term; but 2) a defendant's family members might well use the term "pornographic" in stating their disapproval of the defendant's taste in videos. Not all "X-rated" videos are necessarily "pornographic", one is a superset of the other. We can discuss this when you get back. Regards Mbstone (talk) 07:33, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Revert to re-include attorney Paul Duffy of Prenda Law
"Paul Duffy of Prenda Law, Inc." was ordered by Judge Wright to appear on April 2, 2013. (Ref. #10) Mbstone (talk) 02:23, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Duffy has again been excised for no good reason. Paul, is that you? Mbstone (talk) 23:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've added him back, with a cite (to Prenda's own site!). There are others out there, if need be (e.g., the Deep Dive Techdirt article cited below). Floatjon (talk) 07:52, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Article Title: Prenda Law vs Anti-Piracy Law Group
Is there a reason why we retitled this to Anti-Piracy Law Group, when the parties involved are being widely covered as Prenda Law? According to attorney Morgan Pietz's chart of Prenda Law-related people, the Anti-Piracy Law Group is a recent variation. Which is associated only with Paul Duffy. Reader505 (talk) 19:56, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Disclosure
Pursuant to relevant Wikipedia policies regarding conflicts of interest, I would inform readers that I am a former litigation opponent of Prenda Law, and I am a witness in Ingenuity 13 LLC v. John Doe, 12-CV-08333, Central District of California. While I have made every effort to present only verifiable, attributed, factual information, and to present a neutral point of view, I am biased. In my opinion, the behavior referenced in the article merits appropriate judicial sanctions, bar discipline and/or criminal prosecution against those involved.Mbstone (talk) 23:45, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * YAAAAY! A hero!  Specifically, you don't sound like you're saying that because someone's paying you to to be p1ssed off, as lawyers do for a living.  You sound like you really care about justice. It's so rare for anyone with any power to give a damn when alleged bad people allegedly do allegedly horrible things to the manifestly innocent.
 * --Dave Bowman - Discovery Won (talk) 08:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, I have no financial interest in the outcome of the sanctions proceeding before Judge Wright, nor in the outcome of any litigation involving Prenda Law or any of the persons or entities named in the article. I have not been, and am not being, compensated, directly or indirectly, for writing or editing this, or any, Wikipedia article. Mbstone (talk) 09:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

An In-Court Summation
If I may, I would like to add a link to fairly detailed review of the day in court touched upon in the main article at Prenda Law's Attorneys take the fifth rather than answer judge wrightsquestions since it offers some details that might conceivably stand noticing in the main article.

One thing I found curious: The behavior of the company and its lawyers grossly mirrors the Scientology corporation in the personal activities of Scientology's lawyers Helena Kobrin, Ava Paquett, Kendrick Moxon, and Eliot Abelson, complete down to the formation of fictitious corporate names, fake personal names, written threats paper mailed and emailed to thousands of virtually-random people, and various other RICO Predicate Acts which are alleged in the main article.

Also the behavior here is a mirror of activities that DirectTV engaged in putatively in their own "anti piracy" shenanigans which follows the activities outlined in the main article here. So point being, Prenda Law's alleged activities have historic expression which have resulted in other corporate criminals going to prison and massive fines (not to mention loss of reputation) so Prenda Law's activities are not unique.

It might be worth noting previous like-minded criminal activities committed by Scientology, DirectTV, and their lawyers in a section in the main article touching upon previous historic activities committed by other companies. Damotclese (talk) 21:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * While that would be very good information to present in court, I don't believe that a description of what happened to other similar companies is relevant to an article about Prenda.
 * Dave Bowman - Discovery Won (talk) 08:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Watch language!
Allegations of improper or criminal conduct within the article should either be attributed to the person or persons who made the allegation, or should be labeled appropriately, for example, "what Judge Wright called 'extortion'" or "alleged extortion." It's improper, and potentially defamatory, to refer to such allegations as if they were statements of fact, e.g. "Judge Wright characterized Prenda's extortion." Mbstone (talk) 07:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Woh, thanks for the warning! Yeah, every word has to be carefully chosen so as not to assert people's guilt. Wow, I guess I just got free law advice! :-)
 * Dave Bowman - Discovery Won (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You mean, you learned something about law and language. Nothing I post to Wikipedia is, or should be construed as, "law advice." Mbstone (talk) 08:28, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Haha! The specificity and care with which you speak makes me regret my decision not to go into law (when I discovered, to my horror, that lawyers have to assert statements they KNOW are false).
 * Dave Bowman - Discovery Won (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Attribution isn't Law 101, it's Journalism 101. Notice that nearly every newspaper, radio or TV news story uses attribution, such as the words "Police say," or "Authorities believe" or uses words like "alleged" or "accused" or "charged with" when describing what an accused criminal is accused of. Unless the reporter saw the building burn down, it's "Fire officials say...." Mbstone (talk) 10:47, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Misc.
Program note: Apparently a bond was posted by attorney Paul Hansmeier in response to the sanctions order, and consequently there might not be any new developments in Ingenuity 13 LLC v. Doe (CACD 2:12-CV-08333-ODW) (the case in which Judge Wright awarded $80K in sanctions) for as long as several months while the matter percolates through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mbstone (talk) 21:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Name and shame?
Do we really want to link to the "name and shame" page? On the one hand we are reporting the fact that Prenda is publishing the names of defendants, which is reprehensible conduct on the part of Prenda. On the other hand, I doubt that any of these individuals has been formally named in a lawsuit or served with a civil complaint and their names aren't yet a matter of public record. Doesn't linking to the Prenda site containing their names only serve to assist Prenda in embarrassing them? I'm going to remove the references to protect their privacy. Mbstone (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with not linking to the page itself. We should, however, cite a reliable source that describes the page. If such a source cannot be found, it's questionable whether we should mention the page at all. Theoldsparkle (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The page IS a reliable source! We don't need to find someone else to tell us what's on it!  That is SO typical of Wikipedia.
 * Dave Bowman - Discovery Won (talk) 18:09, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My point is not really about reliability; it'snotability. If no external reliable source has considered the "page of shame" notable enough to report, then including it here verges on original research. Theoldsparkle (talk) 13:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

"Invasion of privacy" is a tort, something you can get sued for. If "John Smith" was formally named in a lawsuit, that would be one thing. That would be a matter of public record. So far Mr. Smith is only named in the lawsuit as 127.0.0.1 or whatever his IP address is. Aside from the fact that nobody wants to potentially become liable to Mr. Smith, or to subject Wikipedia to potential liability to Mr. Smith, it's just plain wrong to out these people merely to prove that Prenda Law names and shames defendants. Mbstone (talk) 00:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The practice of shaming would-be defendants is mentioned in at least one of Pietz's filings in the case. Case 2:12-cv-08333-ODW-JC, Document 52, page 5, lines 20-21. Sorry, not sure how to link to it. "(ii) Prenda makes a point of publicly shaming named defendants on its website, as a warning to others;". Later in same document, page 26, lines 20-22. 'Second, Prenda’s routine practice of publicly shaming the people it “names” on its website is another circumstance that should be taken into account when evaluating the objective reasonableness of Mr. Gibb’s conduct here.'. I do not recall any of Prenda's later filings denying those points. Perhaps this would be a sufficient reference? Reader505 (talk) 22:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC

"Notability" isn't my concern. There are reliable sources other than the link itself. My concerns about tastefulness and privacy are stated above. One more concern: I don't want to include every possible fact and every court filing; I don't want to render the article TL;DR. Mbstone (talk) 02:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Jacques Nazaire -- The "California Has Homos" Defense
Prenda Law's California Has Homos Defense is one of the more unusual court filings to stem from the Prenda Law RICO predicate acts of late, and it seems that from a historic perspective, this latest court filing by Attorney Jacques Nazaire should get honorable mention in the main article somewhere.

What do you think? Nazaire attempted to prejudice the Georgia court by claiming that Federal case law allowing gay marriage in California means that (some how obviously) the Georgia court should ignore case law in California, regardless of the fact that (1) the copyright case in Judge White's court is Federal, (2) gay marriage has nothing to do with copyright unless one's talking about property rights being handed to surviving family members and (3) Federal laws trump local laws.

To quote from the court filing

'9. While this Court may or may not agree with some of the issues presented in the California case, unbeknownst to the defendant, the California case will not necessarily become a mandate on this Court. It is solely within the discretion of this Court to follow or not follow the decisions made in the California case.'

10. The defendant should realize that California has different laws than Georgia, a different Governor than Georgia; a different legislative body than Georgia, different business needs than Georgia and different views than Georgia and as such all of its decisions cannot serve as a mandate for Georgia.

'11. For example the California Courts have legalized gay marriage. Perry v. Schwarzenegger 704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal., 2010);Certified question, 628 F.3d 1191 (9th. Cir.); Answered 52 Cal.4th 1116(2011) Affirmed, 671 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir.) Such a decision cannot serve as a mandate on Georgia Courts to legalize gay marriage as well. '

What is also unusual is that the Prenda Law lawyer also claims that financial sanctions, loss of license to practice, and criminal indictments against himself should not be imposed because, in part, California allows gays to marry. It's one of the many bizarre legal filings by Prenda Law which, as one commenter called it, seems to have been hired off of Craigslist.

My suggestion is that the main article get updated with a summary of Prenda Law lawyer Nazaire's latest court filing, offering a link to the PDF filing itself. In my opinion, in the coming years as more and more "copyright trolls" are slapped down by courts, this filing should remain significant. Damotclese (talk) 22:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah. But if I attempted to chronicle every Prenda case nationwide, and all of the allegedly frivolous and/or idiotic pleadings filed therein, the main article would be tl;dr. You can have at it if you like. But I wouldn't go on at length about the SSM issue lest you turn the main article into an SSM debate -- bringing out the strongly held opinions on both sides and possibly resulting in edit wars and, ultimately, more heat than light. Mbstone (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In this case, the court has now authorised discovery against Prenda/AF Holdings as of the July 2 hearing. Only case to go to discovery so far. 76.97.232.184 (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Section headers and titles
The Section headers and titles seem to be random, and moreover, in violation of our manual of style. Bearian (talk) 21:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Copyedting needed
There are many places in this article that need copyediting work. For example, present tense often is used where past would be more appropriate. Too much information, often trival, in included. The sentences are far too long; some are over 20 words long. It is written in too a technical manner for a layperson to follow. Bearian (talk) 21:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

James K. Fogarty section
It seems like the section dealing with Fogarty is only tangentially involved with Prenda Law firm (I mean, the name of one of the partners was written on a business card? C'mon!) and doesn't actually involve any actions by individuals involved with the company or the company itself and is just trying to imply guilt by association.

So, a probation worker convicted of drug distribution recommended one of their lawyers? Is that really notable enough to be included in a Wikipedia article, no matter whether it is sourced or not? Unless someone can make a good argument for its relevance to this article on a law firm (not an individual), I'm going to delete this section. Liz Read! Talk! 18:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree and Fogarty section deleted
The article covers (correctly) both the firm, and its "principals" (as so characterized by the court), because of the kinds of relationships and interactions described in sources such as the various law case rulings. So whether individual or law firm isn't the issue for me. I'd go with the other points made but not that one.

I gather the essence of the story is:


 * 1) in the opinion of some commentators, a specific county court's judiciary has become somewhat tainted by an air of poor or suspect judicial decision-making related to the law firm's cases. (One writer - fairly or otherwise - used the term "a den of corruption" for this, which shows the strength of feelings involved )
 * 2) The law firm (or others related to it) engage someone to deliver subpoenas to defendants, in the course of doing so, the delivery person also offers a card from an attorney about that plaintiff and who is widely seen as a principal of that law firm, and suggests the defendant calls to negotiate or discuss
 * 3) Completely separate from his work (no reliable source claims differently) the legal document courier is reported to also sell drugs to one or more judges in that county. One of them dies.

None of this seems at all relevant to the article.


 * 1) If a law firm decides to file within a specific county they favor then that's completely unremarkable
 * 2) Law firms and attorneys/principals/affiliates use other persons to serve documents; if the courier from a law firm/affiliates also offers the defendant a card from an attorney related to that matter at the same time, that seems completely unremarkable.
 * 3) No meaningful source makes the insane claim of a meaningful connection between the law firm or any attorney, and their delivery courier's private activities. It appears to have been a completely separate personal activity of the courier.

In other words, none of this has any bearing on this topic (Prenda et al) at all. It's also off topic and no substantial link is supported or suggested by any reliable source. (It might be that tomorrow this all changes and new facts emerge, but the fact is, they have not, as of today, and sources do not cover such a claim, as of today). There is no nexus, to use a legal term. Some legal couriers will have unlawful private activities, which may explode; that doesn't mean  in any way  that those they work for are connected to the off-topic story.

'''As Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, I have deleted the entire section on "Fogarty" as undue weight and BLP (take your pick, the article and event would both touch on individuals enough for that). It's salacious but irrelevant so we shouldn't cover it.'''

FT2 (Talk 09:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Lede section
Could someone who actually knows what this article is about please do something about the lede? The wall of text would be bad enough without the references, but the constant and prolonged move to superscript makes it quite hard to read. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:30, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I find the article illegible. I guess it's because the people concerned are litigious, and thus Wikipedia editors have erred on the side of a ridiculous amount of citations to prove what's said.  Correctrix (talk) 06:03, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

An alternative lede.............

Prenda Law, also known as Steele | Hansmeier PLLP and Anti-Piracy Law Group,[3] was a Chicago-based law firm that ostensibly operated by undertaking litigation against copyright infringement.

The United States District Court for Central California in a May 2013 ruling issued a damning indictment of the firm, effectively charging that the entire business model of Prenda Law was based not on the idea of preventing copyright theft, but on profiting from that theft – even to the extent of actively promoting such theft.

The firm's modus operandi, as described in the ruling and media coverage, was to identify individual members of the public who had downloaded pornographic material, then threaten them with litigation (and, of course, public exposure) over allegations that they breached copyright. The firm would offer to settle the copyright case out of court in exchange for an agreed sum.

A variety of factors indicated that this operation was not a genuine intent to enforce copyright, but a “trolling” operation designed to maximise profits to the principals of Prenda Law. 1.	The level of the settlement figure was generally set at just below the cost the defendant would incur to mount an active defence 2.	Proceedings against robust defendants were often dropped 3.	The principals of Prenda Law gave misleading statements to the court concerning their relationship with the alleged plaintiffs (ie copyright owners) 4.	Forged signatures were used to file court documents in a further attempt to conceal the identity of the plaintiffs 5.	There was evidence that some of the copyrighted material had been deliberately seeded to the internet from IP addresses owned and operated by Prenda Law in a clear attempt to induce copyright infringement

86.134.25.212 (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Federal indictment and arrests
I added information about the arrest and charges against Steele and Hansmeier in the lede. As mentioned before, the article is complex and difficult to follow and could probably do with some restructuring, however I suspect that if and when this case gets to court then it will need a major rewrite again should the allegations by law enforcement throw up more information. Shritwod (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130902195651/http://blog.muddlawoffices.com/mloblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-04-02-Transcript.pdf to http://blog.muddlawoffices.com/mloblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-04-02-Transcript.pdf
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