Maria-Elena James vs Ira Siegel is a Judge vs. Copyright Troll saga that is unfolding in California.
As many of you have no doubt read on other blogs, some of the smaller cases have gone bust, others have been given permission to move forward. At the risk of sounding repetitive, when you see a blog entry on this site, that means that something certainly relevant and of note happened in the bittorrent litigation world.
As far as I am concerned, the former Steele | Hansmeier, PLLC (now Prenda Law Inc.) firm has started to copy the Patrick Collins, Inc. / K-Beech, Inc. business model (the Lipscomb & Eisenberg / Miami Dade / Florida State lawsuit model) of suing defendants in Florida under that state’s Bill of Discovery statutes, getting the judge there to rubber stamp their request to obtain defendants’ contact information from the ISPs (often without notice to the defendants), and then cold calling defendants and threatening to sue in that defendant’s home state unless they settle. Ira Siegel’s firm has done the same thing with their Mike Meier attorney pretending to defend accused defendants and then switching sides only to start suing in federal courts of various states. Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, PLLC has been quiet, naming some defendants and then subsequently dismissing them (presumptively when they settle or the court severs and dismisses their case for improperly suing defendants together in one lawsuit), and their big monster cases of last year have been widdling down into non-existence (bye bye Voltage Pictures, Inc. v. Does 1-5,000, etc.). That means nothing, because now they are playing the same game as everyone else — sending thousands of “scare” letters telling defendants that if they do not settle, they will not only increase the settlement cost, but that they will “name” that defendant in a federal court in their home state. While this is obviously not the topic of this blog entry, 1) please do not be gullible and give into their demands just because they have made up some arbitrary date and settlement amount, and 2) please do not be cocky as to think that you can outsmart them and take care of this matter on your own. Both of these approaches have caused much angst for Doe defendants who later realized what they paid for was a second settlement.
The topic of this blog entry is not Ira Siegel or his Copyright Enforcement Group, but it is Judge Maria-Elena James of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to John Steele abandoning his cases in Illinois, the judges there started to shut them down as fast as he filed them. I would posit that the failing of Steele’s business model of suing hundreds of out-of-state defendants in one lawsuit should have been a lesson to Ira Siegel who has not been paying attention, and now his cases are in trouble. California’s Judge Maria Elena James — once a friend to Ira and his methods, has started to turn a fierce eye of judgement towards his cases. It is for this reason that I suspect a bunch of his cases are about to go bust.
Until 12/1/2011, all seemed to be good for Ira Siegel. Sure he suffered a few setbacks, dismissed a few cases, but these — New Sensations, Inc. v. Does 1-1,474 (3:11-cv-02770) and Patrick Collins, Inc. v. Does 1-2590 (Case No. 3:11-cv-02766) — his milk and honey — were moving forward flawlessly… until Judge James figured out that Ira Siegel was filing suits against thousands of defendants, extorting settlement agreements, and all this without naming even one defendant in any of his cases. This angered her, and she ordered Siegel in both cases (identical orders) to disclose to the court all the details he could about all the Doe defendants, along with why she should not dismiss the case because he has failed to name and serve defendants within the 120 day limit given to him in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 4(m) (the reason a number of Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, PLLC’s (“DGW”) cases went bust in DC). Essentially, this should have served as a warning sign that his case is about to be dismissed, but instead of fighting back or dismissing a smaller group of defendants (a tactic which DGW did in the West Coast Productions, Inc. v. Does case which kept their case alive for many months), Ira kept silent.
One week later, by 12/7/2011, Judge James utilized simple and free programs known as “geolocation tools” to isolate the location of where a random sample of the putative defendants lived. When she saw that none of them lived in California, she filed an orders in both cases questioning Ira’s “good faith” in filing this case in the first place. She also indicated that had she known then what she knows now, she would have never given the order to allow Ira to subpoena the ISPs to determine who the John Doe Defendants were. As a result, she ordered Ira to run the geolocation tools himself and dismiss everybody who did not live in California (coming soon). She also ORDERED that Ira Siegel MAY NO LONGER SEND ANY SETTLEMENT DEMAND LETTERS. Even better, to any Doe Defendants to whom he sent letters, he must send them a second letter telling them that they do not need to comply with his demand letter. Lastly, she nullified any settlement reached on or after the date of her order. Ira asked her to change her order, and on 12/8, she denied his request. Thus, to those of you who received settlement letters, expect to get a second letter explaining everything that I have written here.
While the scope of this article is to discuss the recent acts by Judge James, I wanted to point out that on Friday, the Digital Rights Foundation filed an amicus brief with the court urging them that Ira Siegel not only knew about these issues (e.g., filing against Doe defendants knowing the court had no personal jurisdiction over them), but essentially that what he has done amounts to fraud upon the court.
You could end reading the article here, but if you would like to know Ira’s most recent set of acts (and this might actually make you upset) — for some time, he has been hiring local attorneys and has only now started suing John Doe defendants in states OUTSIDE of California — something in the past he never did. In short, he is copying what Patrick Collins, Inc. has done for months now, and what John Steele (now, Prenda Law, Inc.) are now doing — that is, he is suing smaller groups of defendants in their home states, most recently with his Digital Sin v. Does cases that he is having Mike Meier file on his behalf. I hate to make the comparison to something sinister, but you stamp him down in one court, and he spreads his tentacles out to other courts. Obviously there is more to come. I expect more news starting on Wednesday, 12/14 (or perhaps on the day(s) following this should the judge learn that he has not complied with her orders).
Another one of Ira Seigel’s local whipping boys is Tarik Hashmi who is filing cases on his behalf in Florida ND. Hashmi is a business associate of Meier.
I wonder if he will sue those does in their home district, after the cases are dismissed my Judge James.
I think the answer as to whether he’ll sue people locally is based on whether he can get attorneys to represent his clients as local counsel. It’s not the easiest thing to do, although now that Patrick Collins, Inc. has paved the way in many states, no doubt those same attorneys will agree to represent the other copyright trolls (unless they have signed exclusivity agreements — we’ll see). And if they have not thought of this alternative, now that we’ve posted this comment, now they know. 😉
I am sure they have thought about it, as is evidenced by his suits in DC and Florida.
A comment on Fight Copyright Trolls pointed out that Jon Nicolini’s (CEG) declaration in support of Ira’s application for leave to take discovery actually admits that they are able to determine the approximate locations of Does (he does stress that in order to be sure they need the subscriber information).
He also claims that the IP address uniquely identifies each computer connected to the Internet and therefore uniquely identifies the subscriber’s computer, which is false. In the case of residential broadband networks it identifies the modem and/or router, generally network resolution. Any Vice President of Technology should know that.
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.241533/gov.uscourts.cand.241533.5.1.pdf
In light of Digital Rights Foundations analysis showing that only 30% of the Does are in CA (presumably only a portion of those are in her district), and since the Northern District has made it pretty clear they don’t want defendants from other districts, much less states, it seems like it will be hard for Ira to claim ignorance or incompetence if the judge wants an explanation.
What do you think of the judge suspending settlements? If she was going to let him dismiss Does and keep harassing them, that order would have no teeth, and indeed when Ira tried to clarify his ability to dismiss and still settle she said No. Seems like this would be pointless if she were planning to sever or let him dismiss and run, so do you think we could see something like Ira forbidden to use any of the information he has obtained through discovery in this case and having to start all the way over if he wants another go?
Good post. I’m actually really happy that the judge suspended the settlements. I saw one of the retraction letters today — they pretty much say that they plan to move forward against defendants as soon as the jurisdictional and venue issues are resolved. Crafty. As far as Judge James holding reigns over Ira after she dismisses the case — that’s actually a GREAT idea. I wish she read this blog and your comments. Perhaps a “concerned individual’s” fax into her chambers (you can find the number online) can inspire her to take such an action. -Rob
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to file a motion with a redacted “retraction letter” attached?
I’m actually thinking about filing some kind of document in one of Prenda cases and attach their extortion letter for everyone to see. What is your opinion?
Yes, that is certainly another way to approach the matter. Obviously not legal advice, since you’d be filing a document in a case in which you are not a putative defendant. That being said, how would they even know as nobody is named, right?
Wonderful news! Another block from the trollawyer’s Jenga tower is popped out of place!
It’s also reassuring to see that when the judges proactively look into these things, rather than just signing names and pushing paper, they recognize the harm that these cases do to both the legal system and the population at large. In the end, NO judge is going to want to allow these faulty, en-masse, settlement-factory suits that NEVER actually get argued.
So Dec 14th has come an gone and Mr. Seigel has once again given a Judge the proverbial finger. What is the next step? Does Judge James just dismiss the case without prejudice? Can she dismiss it with prejudice since the plaintiff fits the normal (ie. non-Californian) definition of a vexatious litigant?
We will see, won’t we? 😉 -Rob
Rob, it seems like many of these positive rulings are coming out of California. Grewel, Spero, Ryu were already ruling against the trolls and now James! She was one of the last ones giving them room to operate. At what points do the trolls move out of California in fear of their whole operation coming apart. It seems there is enough money to make in the other 49 states.
The same thing happened to Steele in N.D. Illinois before he started suing defendants across the US in smaller cases. No doubt Siegel has figured this out and is trying to find and hire local attorneys in each state so that he can copy Steele’s methods.
Looks like the 1-1474 case was just dismissed and I assume the same for the other case as well. I’ve read that the information he gave to the court was not accurate as well since individuals have said that they have received settlement letters despite him listing that their info was not received from the ISPS in his reply to the judge. Seems questionable just how much info he did receive and it will be interesting to see what his next step will be, namely if it contradicts info he supplied from this case.
What is the next step for people involved in this case? If we are contacted by him with settlement demands does he have a leg to stand on? If he claimed he did not receive our info but suddenly starts contacting us can we argue that fact in court? Also if he did not receive our info from the ISP as of yet, will he have to open a new case and get a new subpoena if he comes after someone in the future?
Where did you find this info out. Been looking whole day but nothing yet. Let me know.
Thanks
Just posted this story
this is only for patrick collins inc. vs 1-2590
Nope. Both. Both are in Pacer, but 1-1,474 is not in Recap yet.
Thank you. Much appreciated.