That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying you can’t sue somebody for using your work in a manner you didn’t agree with - that’s basic copyright law. I’m saying you can’t sue somebody for using your work in a manner you did agree with.
By posting movies they held the copyright to on a bit torrent site, weren’t Hansmeier and Steele agreeing to let people download it?
There may be more to the story. It’s never been established who it was that reported that Lords was underage. There’s a rumor she did it herself. She certainly benefited from it. It took all the other x-rated movies she had made off the market while giving her a great deal of publicity and increasing the demand for her x-rated movies. And she was the only person who could now legally sell an x-rated movie of herself.
That said, the other person who benefited was Vanessa Williams.
98% of all lawyers give the other 2% a bad name … such a shame too …
I believe the answer is found in the punchline to an old joke:
“I think we’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
Thanks for the additional information. Like I said, I couldn’t handily look up the details at work.
I’d just like to say that “Hansmeier & Steele” would be the perfect name for a gritty TV drama about porn law.
According to Popehat, things were perking along, but they were too arrogant and thin-skinned to run a businesslike con. They started filing defamation suits against critics who accused them of wrongdoing. That’s when they had to start lying to courts. And they were arrogant about that, too.
One high point in the saga was a judge issuing a Sanctions Order laden with Star Trek quotes. It began:
Potheads are contemptible in your opinion? :dubious:
Some of my best friends are potheads. Me too.
i wouldn’t say it’s “contemptible” but being proud of being a pothead is a bit sad if you’re over the age of, say, 14.
So, not contemptible, but they should live in shame?
No, just in a van down by the river…between crime solving gigs…which as far as I could tell they never actually got paid for…so either somebody (ies) were doing tricks or somebody(ies) were selling “scooby snacks” on the down low.
I have to think that’s the real focal point of the argument. Had they bought the copyrights, and then restricted themselves to going after people who were downloading it from sites where the movies/clips/photos were uploaded by other people, then they could have easily just raked in cash without doing anything particularly sketchy.
But by uploading it, the implication was that they were fellow pirates, except that they then shook down other downloaders. Kind of like a for-profit honeypot server.
Sometimes I despair of the human race: setting up a scam, and not arranging for someone untraceable to upload the damn stuff ?
Actually I do seem to recall the RIAA in the past uploading files to trace addresses, but you’d have to check on TorrentFreak for details.
I read that as ‘in a pram’.
Excellent.
Well, they did indulge in a little identity theft to fake the ownership of one video. And then they threatened the employee whose signature they had faked . . . on his answering machine.
While, as a lawyer, I find Prenda’s scheme unconscionable, as a copyright-respecting member of the public I can’t help thinking that maybe people who illegally download copyrighted material get what comes to them.
If a person makes available for download material that they own the copyright for, how is it illegal to download it?
Y’know, pitting douchebag lawyers two at a time you’re gonna be at it for a looong time.
But these two characters really got overenthusiastic with the profiting from douche strategies. Like the others said, they could have simply held the ownership and gone after fileshare pirates as “legit” rights squatters(*), but wanted to make it easy for themselves to harvest the names and set up a for-profit honeypot. Then they got into lying to the court, big mistake.
(*Setting aside that I respect those doing porn more than I do rights/patent squatters, but the law is the law)
You mean that you’re cool with the blackmail?
That’s what makes this interesting, in my opinion.
A majority of the downloaders wouldn’t have known that the uploads were done by the owners. As far as they were concerned, they were breaking the law, no different than if it was uploaded by a fan.
So they would have had the intent to violate the law & followed through on it–not much different than a “To Catch a Predator” sting. You aren’t off the hook just because the 13 year old you thought you were propositioning was actually a legal adult.
The difference is that, on the other end, it was done by a private entity (without government approval) with the apparent intention of lining their own pockets. That’s where your question comes in of whether or not their actions constitute permission to download freely.
So, to sum up: most of the people who downloaded it did so thinking that they were stealing it; whether or not they were is up in the air. The question would be if that actual disregard for the law outweighs the seemingly illegal actions on the other side. That likely won’t be a question that’s answered until a lawsuit against them from one of the alleged victims goes to trial, as it’s actually irrelevant otherwise.