Welcome to the TorrentLawyer Blog, a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC resource. The purpose of this sticky post is to be simplistic and help you to navigate this site (which has 200+ articles on copyright cases we have worked on since 2010). In short, if you arrived at this site, you are facing one of three paths:
1) COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT “JOHN DOE” LAWSUITS
You have been implicated as a “John Doe” defendant in a federal copyright infringement lawsuit (or worse, you have been served as a named defendant in one of these lawsuits).
WHAT TO DO NEXT: Click the “Cases We Are Working On” menu option (above), and select the name of your case and/or movie allegedly downloaded.
To make things easier for you, these are the primary lawsuits we are actively working on:
You received a DMCA notice (“Digital Millennium Copyright Act”) accusing you of downloading one or more copyrighted videos or music songs, and they have demanded a settlement claiming that if you do not pay, they will sue you for copyright infringement.
WHAT TO DO NEXT: Click on the “Cases We Are Working On” menu option (above) and select which company has sent you the DMCA Notice:
You are lost, or you do not know where to start. Relax, we are here to help you understand what it is you received from your ISP or in the mail, who sent it, and what is happening to you. Once you have an idea of exactly what is happening, we can then discuss how to respond.
FEAR should never be a consideration when considering a copyright attorney to defend you against a Strike 3 Holdings, LLC (or, Malibu Media, LLC or any other copyright troll) lawsuit.
I have written many articles describing the activities of copyright trolls AND so-called defense attorneys who claim that they represent defendants. I and others have called those attorneys that file hundreds of mass copyright infringement lawsuits “copyright trolls,” and I call attorneys who pretend to represent defendants (but who really run volume-based settlement businesses) “settlement factories.”
CREDIBILITY
For credibility, I and my staff at the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC manage our docket of clients very carefully. As you may have experienced yourself, in the eight years we have been representing copyright infringement John Does accused of copyright infringement, there have been many times where we simply do not take new clients. Each client takes a limited number of resources, and we do not run a volume-based business. [See here for more details.]
Thus, I have nothing wrong with answering your questions and directing you to an attorney who is competent to take your case. We have never taken a referral fee from an attorney, nor do we ever plan to. I hope you can appreciate this, even if after speaking to me I was not going to be your attorney.
I have only good things to say about EFF, and I support them 100% on so many of their efforts. I am about to criticize their Subpoena Defense List, but this does not reflect the respect, admiration and support I have always had for them.
The Good:
One resource that copyright infringement defendants often find is the EFF Subpoena Defense list. On this EFF.org list, there are possibly now hundreds of attorneys who can represent you in your John Doe-based copyright infringement lawsuit — many of them good attorneys who I have known for many years.
NOTE #1: It is interesting exercise to see who-is-who (which attorneys have been around for a while, and which are the newer attorneys who act as “copycats,” often merely settling cases), and you can do so by clicking on Archive.org’s “Way Back Machine”here:
NOTE #2: Just because an attorney is new does not mean that he or she is unable to take your case. I am merely demonstrating how much this list has grown since 2010.
The Bad:
EFF does not appear to filter this list, or at least they do not filter out attorneys who harm potential clients with misinformation.
If an attorney states that they will represent clients in a certain state, they will list them without vetting or verification.
Case in point — some attorneys list themselves as taking clients in multiple states. Any attorney can represent a defendant in any federal court in any state, as long as that federal court allows an out-of-state attorney to “pro hac” into that federal court (most do). It is deceptive for an attorney to indicate they are licensed in a particular state in which they are not licensed to practice law.
The EFF Subpoena Defense list size has also grown exponentially. In 2010, this list contained a list attorneys who agreed to proactively defend clients in these cases (of those listed, 20 of us were active in this space); back then, the purpose of the EFF list was to hash out the law of copyright infringement as it applied to bittorrent-based copyright infringement lawsuits.
Now, the list contains HUNDREDS of attorneys who are trying to capitalize on the hundreds of defendants who are sued in the federal courts each month, without regard as to who is a credible attorney and who is a settlement factory.
The Ugly:
The EFF Subpoena Defense List has become populated with attorneys 1) who are not familiar with the case law we have developed over the years, 2) who do not care whether a defendant SHOULD pay a settlement or not, and 3) who often MISREPRESENT the law to potential clients who call them desperate for help.
These settlement factory attorneys threaten accused defendants… even with JAIL time for a CIVIL lawsuit, when any attorney should know that copyright infringement lawsuits are CIVIL lawsuits — at their worst, they ask a defendant to pay money damages or they stop a defendant from committing a certain act — they do not accuse a defendant of committing a crime.
Unfortunately, over the years, I have found that there are a number of “settlement factories” on this list, one more was exposed to me this morning.
I do not plan on making this article yet one more article identifying copyright settlement factories and their tactics, nor do I expose the names of other attorneys who have some brilliant and smart sales tactics to lure you in. As you see — I do not post on this website often, nor do I maintain a hype-based, fear-based website on who is suing who in what state.
When you speak to a defense attorney about your copyright infringement lawsuit, 1) that attorney should inform you of the nature of the lawsuit, 2) they should inform you of the claims against you, and 3) they should provide you all of your options on how to defend yourself (even those options which do not profit that attorney).
If that attorney cannot assist you, he or she should not take you as a client (only to surprise you later telling you that you must settle, or else). Rather, he should refer you to an attorney who can assist you.
And never — NEVER — should that attorney misstate the law or threaten a client with fear-based tactics or veiled threats that a certain plaintiff attorney will do something that they would not ordinarily do.
I’ll stop here. In short, look up the attorney you are considering to retain as your attorney to represent you in your lawsuit.
Helpful Hints:
Do not be fooled with crafty sales tactics or web site blog articles written as soon as a lawsuit is filed.
Ask yourself when viewing an attorney’s website — is he trying to ensnare me to become his client? Did he have to pay per click for me to click on his website (we too have done AdWords campaigns over the years, but only rarely).
Usually, a settlement factory will always have an extensive Google AdWords campaign going, or they will position their website [either by explicit payment, by posting keyword-based useless content, or by posting alternative media, e.g., animations and videos to separate their multimedia ads from the other attorneys who are writing helpful content on the website] so that they show up at the top of every search engine ranking for every keyword).
A note on law firms without blogs:
Lastly, just because an attorney does not have an extensive blog [like we do] does not mean that they are incompetent about your case. There are a number of credible attorneys who I trust, and they do not have blogs.
If I cannot assist you or represent you myself, I will happily refer you to an attorney, even if he or she only has a one-page website. This attorney might be better than all of those copyright settlement factories who post with tags and keywords every time a lawsuit is filed in a particular state.
Your consultation with an attorney should be a pleasant experience.
I guess it is important to mention that the conversation with your defense attorney should be a pleasant conversation.
You should feel better about yourself and your case when you hang up the phone, and when you do, you should feel as if you were educated about your case and your options.
If an attorney has scared you, or has threatened you by what the plaintiff attorney will do or could do, or if the attorney has told you that your only option is to settle the claims against you (especially if you did not do the download), he is likely not the attorney for you.
Even the worst case scenario in these cases is a civil judgement against you, which are money damages. Nobody will ever take away your freedom, and nobody will ever put you in jail for downloading materials which are the subject of these copyright infringement “John Doe” subpoena-based lawsuits.
— CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.
NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together. That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.
To those engineers implicated in the recent Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. v. Does 1-107 (4:18-cv-02344) lawsuit:
I want to simply apologize for not being able to immediately speak to each of you. You are all asking for appointments for the same October 5th, 2018 deadline provided to you on your Charter Communications ISP subpoena letter. Please be patient.
Choosing “the convenient path” before October 5th.
No doubt, there are likely 10+ attorneys actively paying to advertise for your business. However, none of them are located here in Houston, Texas where the lawsuit is, where the courthouse is — where your plaintiff attorneys are. Thus, they will be actively soliciting your business to acquire you as a client for the purposes of satisfying the volume business they have set up around these lawsuits. I understand that it is convenient to jump and hire the first attorney who will have you as a client, but choosing the convenient path is exactly why you have been sued in the first place.
If you have read what I have written on the previous four waves of lawsuits (this is the 5th time they have filed lawsuits with 100+ defendants), you already know that I have successfully represented many clients against Siemens PLM and I have had clients that have both legitimized their prior illegal use by purchasing a license to their proprietary software. I have also had many clients who have had me explain that their use (although unlawful) was for personal use (off of the court docket, without their names being exposed) — they paid no settlement, they purchased no license, and they were dismissed from the lawsuit and no longer worry about being sued for their past acts of infringement.
The “cooperative” approach vs. the litigious approach.
There are two ways to approach a Siemens PLM software piracy lawsuit — 1) fight each claim on the merits of the copyright infringement claims against each defendant, or 2) (our approach) cooperate with the Siemens attorney’s attempts to sort through each of the 107 defendants to help them determine who needs a license for their past use, and who does not. Siemens is NOT a copyright troll (contrary to popular belief and their use of mass John Doe copyright lawsuits), and so having your attorney treat them like copyright trolls will cause you problems in your lawsuit. If you look at a timeline of their cases (which I have picked a representative set of cases over the years), you see that Siemens PLM pursues former John Doe Defendants, even after lawsuits are dismissed, so applying what I have taught over the years on this website and approaching their case with what I have described as the “ignore” route (as other attorneys might) is not the recommended path to resolving the claims in this lawsuit.
The way out of this lawsuit is simply the long way out. Hire an attorney (myself of someone like me), have him represent you just as I have suggested, and have him represent you through the entire lifecycle of this lawsuit. It will be over in a few months. Just let the attorney do exactly what he has (what I have) done in the past.
What about my October 5th, 2018 deadline? Can I file a motion to quash the subpoena?
As for your October 5th, 2018 deadline to file a motion to quash with the court to stop them from handing out your information, again, do not be fooled here. You likely do NOT live in Texas and so a motion to quash *IS* a viable option, however, it is not the recommended option. If you hire an attorney (myself or any other attorney) to file a motion to quash because you do not live in Texas, you will likely win the motion to quash and you will [most likely] be SEVERED AND DISMISSED from the lawsuit. However, be VERY AWARE that the immediate next act would be that the plaintiff attorney [from his computer using the PACER / e-filing system available across each of the federal courts in the US] would file the identical lawsuit against you personally, this time Siemens v. YOU, without the padding or anonymity that a John Doe placeholder status provides you, and without the padding that you might have sharing the liability of the lawsuit among 106 other similarly situated defendants.
In other words, don’t fall for sales tactics. Stay as private as possible (you can always contest the personal jurisdiction later and move the lawsuit into your own state if you are ever sued personally in this lawsuit). Up front, this is the 5th time Siemens PLM has sued, and I have never needed to do this nor have I had a client named and served in one of their cases. As I said, the approach is COLLABORATIVE with Siemens PLM, not litigious.
Retaining me as your attorney before Oct. 5th is a PREFERENCE, not a requirement.
In sum, while I always PREFER to have you be a client before your October 5th, 2018 deadline before your Charter ISP hands over your information, with the Siemens PLM cases, *this is not required.*
As I have written many times, Siemens (now with their James Quail attorney) handles these cases methodically and SLOWLY. It could take weeks before they even get to your John Doe entity. For this reason, (and now understanding that you will not be filing a motion to quash before 10/5), please be patient and take my appointments on https://www.torrentlawyer.com/calendar/ as they become available. There is no rush to have me represent everybody by October 5th, nor is this even possible.
A quick note about limited time slots and limited availability to speak to you, at least initially.
Lastly, I assume if you have reached this article, you understand that I do not take every client that I speak to, and that there are limited time slots available (here is why). I simply run my practice in a methodical way, taking clients as I can, and one at a time. I also spend most of my time HANDLING CLIENT CASES rather than marketing for new clients. I am simply not interested in gobbling as many clients as I can, and if you need to hire an attorney today, I will not be your attorney.
I have done the Siemens PLM cases from start-to-finish FOUR TIMES NOW. Watch my calendar for availabilities (as new ones open up), and grab them when they become available. Assuming you have read the articles on my site and are “on board” with my collaborative approach (meaning, cooperating with Siemens PLM and helping them sort through each of the 107 defendants, not blindly fighting them tooth-and-nail like any other copyright infringement or “copyright troll” lawsuit), I will happily take you as a client. This is true even if we end up speaking after your Charter ISP hands over your information to the Siemens attorneys.
I understand this lawsuit has generated much concern for you. Please understand that I have done this before. Read what I have written about the different “categories” of defendants (based on their usage) that I have hashed out over the years. Stay calm, and understand that this will be a long but drama-free process. I look forward to speaking to you and serving you as your attorney.
— CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.
NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together. That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.
Unless this case will stop forcing the ISPs to reveal account holders’ identities, this ruling is useless.
Everybody is cheering about the news in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (this is a higher court) “Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Thomas Gonzales,” a lawsuit filed against Gonzalez (originally a Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Doe-24.21.136.125 (Case No. 3:15-cv-00866) case filed in the Oregon District Court) for the download of the Adam Sandler movie, “The Cobbler.” In this appeal, the Court of Appeals just ruled that an IP address is not enough to identify the subscriber as being the downloader.
However, my opinion is that unless federal judges will apply this ruling to prevent a copyright holder from forcing the ISP to release the identity of the account holder (which I believe they will NOT), this ruling will be useless.
For YEARS, I saw literally hundreds of cases fly past the judges who rubber stamped expedited discovery motions forcing the Internet Service Providers (ISPs, e.g., AT&T, Comcast, Verizon) to hand over the names and addresses of the subscriber — why? Because the assumption was that the account holder was most likely the downloader.
Cobbler Nevada, LLC was only one of MANY copyright holders employing this tactic — sue a “John Doe” downloader having an accused IP address, convince the judge to allow the plaintiff attorney to send a subpoena to the ISP to unmask the identity of the account holder.
Copyright troll attorneys do not state in the complaint that the ACCOUNT HOLDER is the DOWNLOADER.
I remember rummaging through one case after another asking, “Did ANY copyright holder PLEAD that the subscriber was the infringer?” The fact that the answer was NO made my face contort into a Picasso-styled painting.
Copyright holders like Cobbler Nevada, LLC filed copyright infringement lawsuits which spoke all about the ‘theft’ that occurred when someone connected to a bittorrent network and downloaded a pirated copy of their movie. They spoke about the harm, and how terrible piracy was for their business. However, they never wrote that the account holder (the subscriber) was the downloader. So kudos to the judge for finally making this part of the permanent case law which we will certainly use when defending a client accused of copyright infringement… But wait.
WILL this ruling stop judges from approving expedited discovery? Will this ruling stop judges from issuing that MOST DESTRUCTIVE ORDER which permits the copyright troll to send a subpoena to force the ISP to hand out the name and address of the account holder? I suggest the answer is NO.
Have you read enough? Contact me with your questions. > > >
Cobbler Nevada ruling misses the fact that by the time we file a motion to dismiss, it is already TOO LATE.
Looking at Cobbler Nevada‘s pleadings for a moment, failing to identify the account holder as being the infringer (the “pirate” / bittorrent downloader) suggests that a defense attorney such as myself could file a motion to dismiss the complaint for failing to state a claim.
Our argument based on this ruling is that the plaintiff attorney never said in his pleading that the account holder is the one who downloaded the copyrighted film.
By that time, however, the ISP already handed over the name and address of my client, and the plaintiff attorney has already amended the complaint against my client forever memorializing the fact that my client was accused of copyright infringement.
The damage has already been done.
[Further, realistically, if my client downloaded the copyrighted video, we would never have gotten the chance to plead that the plaintiff attorney did not properly state anywhere in the complaint that my client was the downloader. Why? Because by the time the ISP handed over my client’s information to a copyright troll like Cobbler Nevada, my client hired me, told me that he did the download, and we settled the claims against him (before his name was forever memorialized on the court’s docket as being the accused defendant).]
Innocent account holders are victims in copyright infringement lawsuits.
But what happens if my client did NOT do the download? The ISP would have handed over my client’s information to Cobbler Nevada LLC’s plaintiff attorney, I would have sent over a letter of representation to the plaintiff attorney informing him that my client did not do the download and thus we are not settling (I refer to this as the “ignore” route representation, [not because we are ignoring anything, but because we are not paying a settlement if my client did not do the download, and thus there is nothing to do except to explain to the plaintiff attorney that my client — the account holder — was not the downloader]).
The plaintiff attorney will still try to shake down my client and solicit a settlement, regardless of whether he did the download or not.
With some copyright holders (e.g., Malibu Media, LLC and Strike 3 Holdings, LLC), the plaintiff attorney is not even the attorney of the copyright holder (the “copyright troll”), but rather, a local counsel hired to file the documents in a particular federal court. The local counsel for these specific copyright holders might not even have autonomy to release an innocent account holder without a settlement. Regardless of guilt, the local counsel might even be under instructions to “name and serve an account holder who is not settling, regardless of whether or not they did the download.”
Have you read enough? Contact me with your questions. > > >
The plaintiff attorney will NAME AND SERVE the innocent account holder (starting the pattern of abuse).
The plaintiff attorney’s logic for naming and serving the subscriber, even if the subscriber is not the downloader is twofold.
Thus, the plaintiff attorney will “score” a multi-thousand-dollar settlement from an innocent account holder defendant (sometimes $2,500, sometimes $10,000+).
An innocent account holder is a victim of the legal system even if he is dismissed.
However, even if the innocent account holder defendant hires an attorney such as myself (or someone like me) and we do NOT settle the claims against my client [because my client — the account holder — did NOT do the download], that plaintiff attorney still reasons that the case will never go to trial. They figure that they could drag the innocent defendant through the legal system, force him to hire an attorney, force the attorney to file an answer in the case denying the claims, showing up to one or more case management hearings, and force the defense attorney and his innocent client to cooperate while he abuses the legal system (forcing them to submit to searches and temporary seizures of their computers and electronic devices, and forcing the defendant to answer questions under oath. IF THEN (after discovery) the plaintiff attorney determines that the account holder is not the downloader, he can dismiss the lawsuit against the defendant.
Have you read enough? Contact me with your questions. > > >
Even a dismissal leaves an the account holder violated.
Receiving such a dismissal might sound good as you read this, but remember, the account holder was not the downloader. His information was shared with a set of attorneys who are doing nothing other than drooling for a settlement.
There is an involuntary set of threats thrown against the defendant that he must settle or his name will be exposed to the world as being an accused downloader (guilty or not). That innocent account holder then has to decide whether to settle the claims against him (pay even though he did not do the download) or defend the claims against him in litigation.
He then has to pay a defense attorney to represent him.
Then he has to endure the legal process (which is all new to him, even though the plaintiff attorney has done this hundreds of times to other innocent account holders).
Then he has to show up at the plaintiff attorney’s office, enter a room with a court reporter, and be put under oath (risking being found guilty of perjury if he makes a misstatement). The innocent account holder’s testimony is then FORCED FROM HIM (he cannot “plead the fifth amendment” not to testify, because this is a CIVIL case, and the fifth amendment applies only in CRIMINAL cases).
His computer and cell phones are then searched by someone who is looking to find something “illegal” on his computer.
Then even after a deposition where the innocent account holder answers truthfully, the plaintiff attorney STILL threatens him that if he does not settle, he will still need to defend himself all the way to trial.
Then the plaintiff attorney dismisses the innocent account holder (“without prejudice,” meaning that he can be subject to this lawsuit AGAIN). Yet, with the dismissal, the identity of the innocent account holder is forever linked with the lawsuit, which is forever searchable on Google when a prospective employer (or even his children or grandchildren) search for his name.
I don’t know about you, but I would still feel violated even if I was found “not guilty” or if I was dismissed by the plaintiff attorney after a deposition.
Have you read enough? Contact me with your questions. > > >
The innocent account holder paid his defense attorney $17,222!
Putting all of this emotion trauma aside, in the Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Thomas Gonzales case, the innocent account holder (Gonzales) PAID HIS ATTORNEY LEGAL FEES OF $17,222 (whereas Cobbler Nevada, LLC likely asked for a settlement of $4,500, and an attorney could have settled the claims against himat the time for $1,750-$2,000). Gonzales chose to “fight,” and as a result, he paid his attorney $17,000+ …and he was INNOCENT all along.
The only solution is to prevent copyright holders from obtaining the account holder’s identity.
So the only way to truly apply this US Court of Appeals ruling is to have judges begin to DENY EXPEDITED DISCOVERY unless the plaintiff attorney explicitly states in the complaint that the account holder is the infringer. However, in truth, a plaintiff attorney can state this, and plead (in the alternative) that he is not the infringer, or he could lie in his pleadings. There is no practical consequence in law for falsely accusing a defendant of a civil claim and then later dismissing the claim when he realizes that the innocent account holder did not do the “crime” for which he was accused. Thus, the only way to properly use this ruling is to DENY EXPEDITED DISCOVERIES. DO NOT LET THE PLAINTIFF ATTORNEYS SEND SUBPOENAS TO THE ISPs TO FORCE THEM TO HAND OVER THE IDENTITY OF THE ACCOUNT HOLDER. Because once this happens, even if that account holder could later hire an attorney to file a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, the whole “settlement extortion scheme” has already taken place and that innocent account holder’s name is already memorialized on the docket as being the accused defendant (guilty or not).
Rightscorp‘s business model just took an unexpected positive turn, as the BMG v. Cox lawsuit just had a surprising outcome — Cox just settled with BMG, paving the way for the DMCA settlement demand notices to gain some teeth.
Years ago, I wrote articles about companies like Rightscorp (Digital Rights Corp), CEG-TEK, and Rights Enforcement who were changing the “playing field” (in a bad way) by allowing copyright owners to track and sue downloaders who downloaded their copyrighted videos, films, movies, adult films, or music using bittorrent.
The account holders (often the parents of the downloaders themselves) would receive a notice either in the mail or in their ISP’s e-mail inbox informing them:
that they have been implicated as having downloaded one or more copyrighted materials,
that using bittorrent to download copyrighted materials was a violation of that ISP’s terms of service, and
that the account holder could forego a potential copyright infringement lawsuit in a federal court by vising the website of the Rightscorp (Digital Rights Corp) copyright enforcement entity, paying a small fee (from $20-$30/title [or with other copyright enforcement entities, from $300-$750/title]), thus settling the claims before a copyright infringement lawsuit was filed.
However, for years, these entities have been quiet, and I know why. BMG v. Cox Communications.
I was told years ago that the success of the “copyright trolling” settlement demand notice business model would be based on whether a copyright holder could force an ISP to 1) forward their DMCA copyright infringement notice (a.k.a. “settlement demand letter”) to their subscribers, and 2) whether a copyright holder could force an ISP to shut down a repeat infringer’s account (something Rightscorp was accused of doing in 2014). At the time, there was the “Six Strikes” system in place (now, I understand it to be defunct), and under it, Comcast stopped forwarding the “settlement demand letter” portion of the infringement notices; rather, they forwarded just a snippet of the infringement notice telling the account holder to stop downloading illegal content.
However, there were also ISPs who stopped forwarding the notices altogether. To the dismay of various copyright enforcement entities, I understand that Cox Communications was one such ISP, although the BMG lawsuit appeared to stem from Cox refusing to shut down the internet accounts of repeat infringers.
The funny thing about COX Communications was that Cox was supposed to be the “golden goose” to the copyright holders, simply because of the large subscriber base it could reach. “If only 1% of infringing users pay a settlement fee… imagine the money that could be made…”
Further, COX Communications provided their subscribers ONE STATIC IP ADDRESS, which meant that whatever the downloaded did in the past (whether the downloader was caught, tracked, or not), could be later attributed to the accused account holder to multiply the list of infringements. This love-hate relationship between the copyright holders, the ISP, and their customers was only temporary, and as a result, COX Communications found itself at the center of a lawsuit for protecting its customers against copyright enforcement entities such as the RIAA and Rightscorp.
Fast forward a few years to today. The “new” news is that the BMG v. Cox Communications lawsuit has been going on and on, but it appears that in the past few days, it has come to an end. Apparently Cox settled with BMG, awarding a “win” for the copyright holders. The question is… was the settlement only a MONEY settlement? Or did Cox agree to shut down the accounts of repeat infringers?
What this means moving forward (and I am still hashing this out with the limited time that I have to devote to this topic) is that copyright enforcement / copyright “monetization” copyright holders such as Rightscorp (and perhaps now CEG-TEK again, Rights Enforcement, the RIAA, and other new companies join the “copyright monetization” bandwagon) will now start sending DMCA notices once again to accused downloaders. The difference is that their requests to the ISPs to forward their settlement demand letters will now have some “teeth,” as I understand that ISPs might start shutting down internet accounts of those subscribers who are “repeat infringers.”
Obviously this topic is still evolving. However, whereas we at the Cashman Law Firm PLLC thought that the days of the “DMCA settlement demand letter” notices were numbered, I suspect what happened from 2010-2016 was just a first wave of what is to be an even larger wave of infringement notices to be sent to account holders for the unlawful downloading of copyrighted content. Couple this with the resistance I have received in the past from companies such as Rightscorp, this is likely going to cause some trouble.
CONTACT FORM: Alternatively, sometimes people just like to contact me using one of these forms. If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.
NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together. That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.
Motions to Quash ISP Subpoena Letters, Malibu Media Lawsuits, Rightscorp DMCA Settlement Notices, and Helping John Does.
