The Great MPAA Scheme to Defraud Copyright Law.

Analyzing the relationship between MPAA/RIAA and the adult film industry lawsuits (via Guardaley).

Is it possible that the MPAA & RIAA created a scheme with the porn-based companies to break copyright law?

On 3/3, I wrote the article entitled, “THE EVOLUTION OF PIRACY AND THE ‘COINCIDENCE’ THAT EARLY COPYRIGHT CASES WERE ROOTED IN PORNOGRAPHY-BASED CONTENT.

In that article, I suggested in a joking, conspiratorial way that “it was probably the plan of the MPAA / RIAA movie industry to sit back and let the porn industry file lawsuits across the US.”

Why? Because what individual “John Doe” defendant accused of downloading pornography would destroy their reputation by fighting back against those lawsuits?  What individual would allow his reputation to be destroyed where by doing so, he would allow the porn companies to expose that not only did he downloaded porn, but they would expose his personal sexual addictions and sexual preferences (and sometimes based on the title of the infringed video, his secret fetishes) to the public record for all to see?? Thus, the porn cases were a perfect test subject to blaze the courts to create new case law on copyright infringement cases using bittorrent, because accused defendants as a general rule would not fight back.

At first, I gave the movie industry the benefit of the doubt that they were separate and apart from the porn lawsuits, namely, that they were merely sitting back and watching the lawsuits while the porn companies made case law for them. I even referred to them as “the Sleeping Dog.”  When there was a good ruling, they would say nothing, and when there was a bad ruling, they would write articles and scream, “the evil porn companies are ruining the copyright laws for all of us!”

MPAA/RIAA “HYPOCRITES”

A while ago, I started noticing that the same Guardaley entity that was filing the porn lawsuits were also filing the movie lawsuits. Specifically, I heard about this when representing clients accused of downloading the Dallas Buyers Club movie, but I could not believe that legitimate movie companies were the same corporate entities behind the scenes as those who were filing porn lawsuits — it just didn’t make sense to me.

But now I’m learning that the same Guardaley / IPP / Anti-Piracy Management Company (APMC) entity that is behind the Malibu Media, LLC lawsuits across the US appears to be the same entity who is also filing lawsuits for legitimate movies. For example, I am told that Paul Nicoletti filed cases for both Voltage Pictures, Inc. and for Malibu Media, LLC.  Same attorney, same clients… but this is not my evidence.

(NOTE: In a previous version of this article in the above paragraph, I used the example of Keith Vogt filing for both Dallas Buyers Club and Malibu Media, LLC.  This was in error.  However, I used his lawsuits to show how the same attorney was filing for both movie companies who have been known to license the rights to enforce copyrights and for the adult-film Malibu Media, LLC client, both Guardaley-linked.  Remember, there was a point that I believed that Voltage Pictures was that Guardaley-linked movie company, however, I’m told they were sold so they are not likely the ones behind the movie lawsuits.)  

We also recently learned that Carl Crowell is now having ISPs send out DMCA notices demanding $300 settlements for each instance of infringement; he is sending the accused subscribers to his RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT website (RIGHTSENFORCEMENT.com) in order to facilitate the payment of these settlement demands under a threat that if they do not pay him, he will file a lawsuit to uncover their real identity so that he can sue them for copyright infringement (statutory damages of $150,000) under the copyright laws.

I can now confirm based on the search engine searches that are coming to my website that the nature of the DMCA notices are for pornographic films allegedly downloaded by bittorrent. Further, I compared some of those names of the porn companies, and it not only seems as if RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is a knock-off of CEG-TEK’s DMCA notice system, but that Crowell has also ‘stolen’ the clients of CEG-TEK. I know this because the titles of the alleged infringing adult films correlate almost exactly to CEG-TEK’s client list, as I exposed them in 2014.

But if you dig further into the RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT website, you’ll find that their client list includes MAINSTREAM MOVIES. Thus, the connection between the movie industry and the adult film industry is strengthened.

Then, to make the connection even stronger, I recently learned that Carl Crowell (the apparent puppet master behind all of the Guardaley-based ‘John Doe’ movie lawsuits across the US) is also in contract with RightsCorp, who has been sending notices to Internet Subscribers the same was CEG-TEK used to, but their methods of tracking and harassing defendants is different from CEG-TEK’s. At one time, I was even so certain of the differences between them [based on how they operated and knowing the fight that CEG-TEK used to have with the Guardaley entity in their bittorrent tracking methods] that I wrote an article claiming that “CEG-TEK and RightsCorp are different animals.”  Point being, at the time, I did not understand the nature of RightsCorp (they were always the bastard child of the copyright infringement issues), but all I knew at the time were that those at Rightscorp were spending millions of dollars on a failing business model, and because they were so loudly representing the MPAA/RIAA in this failing venture, I never thought to look whether the porn industry lawsuits and the traditional movie lawsuits were somehow related.

Well, zoom to 2017, and now we learn that the entity behind RightsCorp is also working with Carl Crowell to enforce their copyrights claiming infringement for the download of network TV shows, and most frequently, music downloaded via bittorrent.

In my “Evolution of Piracy” article, I wrote:

“It would be a huge scandal if one set of masters [MPAA/RIAA] planned the pornography-based bittorrent ‘copyright troll’ lawsuits for the purpose of later giving credibility to real-movie lawsuits when they stepped in place of the porn lawsuits and made the same filings… I don’t want to connect the dots because I do not want to notice that perhaps the same entities behind the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC movies were the same entities behind the Patrick Collins… Malibu Media, LLC cases. THAT WOULD BE JUST TOO HORRIBLE.” (emphasis added)

Well, as the veil of secrecy is unraveling between the porn industry and the movie / radio industry, we are seeing that these apparently separate entities are not only in cahoots with one another, but that they are all using ONE AND THE SAME ENTITY (Guardaley) to commit fraud upon the US copyright law system.

“NO, HE DID NOT JUST SCREAM FRAUD.” Yes, I did.  Here is why.

In my understanding, having the movie industry (MPAA/RIAA) collude with the porn industry and PLAN to have the porn cases blaze through the courts (where those defendants as a general rule do not fight back) and create what we now call “bittorrent law,” only to NOW have the mainstream media step back in and file those same lawsuits using the porn cases as “case law” to legally support their movie-based bittorrent lawsuits, well, that’s a scam. Why? BECAUSE THE MPAA/RIAA BROKE COPYRIGHT LAW BY USING PORNOGRAPHY CASES TO CREATE THE LAW TO SUPPORT THE CASES THEY ARE NOW FILING.

“But haven’t the porn cases also created ‘bad law’ for the movie companies?” You might think so, and in some courts, the answer is absolutely, yes.  But let’s look at the developments of what is now considered “normal” in a bittorrent-based copyright infringement lawsuit BECAUSE OF the porn-based copyright infringement lawsuits.

WHAT IS NOW CONSIDERED ‘NORMAL’ IN A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT

1) Judges now regularly rubber-stamp “expedited discovery” requests allowing copyright holders to send subpoenas to internet providers, forcing the ISPs to unclothe the identities of the account holders who are accused of copyright infringement.  These identities are provided directly to the plaintiffs (not to the court) to allow the plaintiff attorney to use and misuse that sensitive and private information.

2) Judges allow the copyright holders to solicit settlements, sometimes in the amounts of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, with ABSOLUTELY NO OVERSIGHT of the plaintiff attorney’s activities, or how many settlements that attorney has brought in for his client.

3) Judges regularly pretend that bittorrent-based cases are ‘regular’ copyright infringement lawsuits, but they ignore the fact that bittorrent-based copyright holders have CONSISTENTLY FAILED TO STATE A CLAIM with any certainty that the account holder is the accused “John Doe” Defendant, when at best, this is at most a circumstantial connection which is not researched by the judge or the plaintiff attorney before the judge allows the lawsuit to proceed.  According to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “failure to state a claim” SHOULD prevent the case from proceeding.  The plaintiff copyright holders do not have the evidence to proceed with a lawsuit, yet judges close their eyes to this fact and allow them to proceed anyway.

In sum, the pornography cases have caused judges to fudge (think, “run their finger through melted chocolate”) what used to be firm principles of copyright infringement law, and because of the porn cases, the result is that judges now regularly allow copyright holders to get away with things that in the past, would have barred them from filing the lawsuit or getting access to the identities of John Doe Defendants in the first place.

And if this was their plan all along, well, that’s just too horrible…

Honestly, judges should reverse and overrule practices and case law established by the porn-based lawsuits, and they should revert to holding movie companies (AND porn companies) to the standard of law they used to adhere to before the mass onslaught of cases began to burden the courts from 2010 and on. In my opinion, bittorrent cases are nothing but sloppy copyright cases, and judges use sloppy law to allow copyright holders to abuse the copyright system and extort millions of hard-earned dollars from the public.  Years from now, people will look back and wonder how judges allowed these lawsuits to proceed.

MY FINAL POINT

I started the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC in 2010, just as the MPAA/RIAA lawsuits became quiet. I always wondered where they went, and why they stopped suing defendants. Now I am starting to understand that they never did stop their activities; rather, they just devised a clever scheme to get the porn industry to file lawsuits and blaze the trail to create case law across the US (because most pornography-based defendants do not fight back, and judges laugh when they see the titles sued upon, they undermine their legal sense and allow the ‘repressed, stigma-based industry to proceed with protecting their rights to sue “just like everyone else.”).  As a result of having the porn companies file the lawsuits across the US, what is unfolding to be the MPAA/RIAA plan broke copyright infringement law so that they can come back seven years later and start filing lawsuits, but now, with a “lower bar” and relaxed legal standards.


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.

    Ambiguous Cobbler Nevada, LLC Dismissal Order – Are all Texas Defendants Dismissed or Not?

    An ambiguity showed up in the Cobbler Nevada TX.

    For those of you involved in Keith Vogt’s Cobbler Nevada, LLC cases, a huge ambiguity showed up yesterday on the court’s docket which I needed to clarify. I actually needed to call the clerk because at first glance, it looked as if all of the Cobbler Nevada, LLC cases in the Southern District of Texas were dismissed.

    To back up just a bit, Cobbler Nevada, LLC suffered a large setback when on August 10th, 2015, Judge Alfred H. Bennett CONSOLIDATED all of their Texas cases into one case (TXSD, Case No. 4:15-cv-01308). As soon as we heard this, [especially after writing the “Dallas Buyers Club, LLC is a modern-day Icarus Story” article relating to this same plaintiff attorney], champagne glasses were clinked, and cheers rose up from the homes of many Texans who were caught up in what was often the streaming and/or download of the “The Cobbler” movie using Popcorn Time.

    As a general rule, consolidations are ALWAYS* a good thing for bittorrent cases because:

    1) they take each of the cases and place them under the direction and control of one judge (meaning that there will be no conflicting orders where one judge allows something whereas another judge forbids it, or more specifically, where one judge gives a copyright holder free reign to do whatever he wants [granting extension after extension, ignoring procedural violations, etc.], and another judge clamps down on the copyright holder forcing him to observe the rules, eventually dismissing his defendants because he missed a deadline or violated a federal procedure or local rule, etc.), and

    2) having so many defendants bunched together in one lawsuit changes the dynamic of the lawsuit from having an aggressive “copyright troll” attorney to having a more passive plaintiff attorney who tiptoes around the court, who avoids filing documents in fear that one misstep (such as the one that happened to his Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases with Judge Hughes) might cost him his entire batch of defendants.

    For a plaintiff attorney, losing 20 John Doe defendants in one case is a tolerable defeat. Losing 400 defendants who have been consolidated into one case creates a “china shop” mindset for the plaintiff attorney, where the “don’t touch it or else it might break” rule suddenly becomes relevant when handling this newly large and fragile set of defendants.

    Well, as of yesterday, “Document 70” showed up on Vogt’s Cobbler Nevada, LLC consolidated case, and the document was entitled “ORDER DISMISSING DEFENDANTS.” When I reviewed the document, it purported to dismiss John Doe defendants from a number of Keith’s older cases (e.g., 4:15-cv-01322 through 4:15-cv-01333), but it also appeared to dismiss EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE JOHN DOE DEFENDANTS FROM EVERY COBBLER NEVADA CASE FILED IN TEXAS [AND WHICH ARE CONSOLIDATED INTO THIS ONE CASE].  Essentially, ALL of the defendants from the consolidated case itself, 4:15-cv-01308, appeared to have been dismissed.

    010516 CobblerNV Doc70

    At first, I shouted “woo-hoo!” because the case was dead. But then, I took a second look, and the order was originally written by Keith Vogt himself in November (Document 58), and there is no way he would dismiss his entire golden goose of defendants.  Plus, the case itself wasn’t marked “closed” by the clerk [as it would be if there was a mass dismissal], so there was an ambiguity. Reading the document, I asked, “if the defendants from this consolidated case were dismissed, did this dismissal also include the many, many defendants from ALL THE OTHER TX COBBLER NEVADA, LLC CASES which were all consolidated into THIS case!?”

    After calling the clerk and eventually calling Keith himself, I confirmed that the case itself is still alive, and sadly, the John Doe Defendants are still John Doe Defendants. In short, nothing has changed, move along, there is nothing to see here. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if the wording of the order in such an important case tripped me up, it probably confused a few other attorneys, and for this reason, I have written this article.

    So yes, for now the Texas Cobbler Nevada, LLC cases still lives, and the next court date for this case (which affects every TX Cobbler Nevada, LLC John Doe Defendant) will be on 2/10/2016 at 10am in Courtroom 704 in Houston, TX.  If anything relevant happens at the hearing or in the meantime, I’ll be sure to let you know.

    Known Cobbler Nevada, LLC cases in the TXSD:
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-22 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02060)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-23 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02061)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-27 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02046)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-11 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02053)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-27 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02047)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-26 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02045)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-24 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02062)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-21 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02059)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-28 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02048)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-29 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02050)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02043)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-20 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02058)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-24 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02041)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-10 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02051)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-14 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02055)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02044)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-14 (Case No. 4:15-cv-02057)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01332)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-15 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01322)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-26 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01333)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-15 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01323)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-17 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01327)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-16 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01324)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-16 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01325)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-20 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01328)
    Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Does 1-12 (Case No. 4:15-cv-01308)

    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases in the TXSD (also affected):
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-19 (Case No. 4:15-cv-00050)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-13 (Case No. 4:15-cv-00049)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-12 (Case No. 4:15-cv-00047)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-7   (Case No. 4:15-cv-00044)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-11 (Case No. 4:15-cv-00046)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-18 (Case No. 4:14-cv-03389)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-10 (Case No. 4:14-cv-03387)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-14 (Case No. 4:14-cv-03388)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-19 (Case No. 4:14-cv-03393)
    Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-03394)

    *NOTE: I mentioned above that case consolidations are ALWAYS a good thing for mass bittorrent copyright infringement lawsuits having multiple John Doe Defendants.  Nothing is always the case, and one can usually find strong exceptions to the rule.

    For example, the judge which consolidated all of the cases in a district under his or her control might mishandle the case (as we saw with the Malibu Media, LLC bellwether cases from 2013 where the judge forced cases into what ended up being a “show trial,” because the defendants selected for trial already came to an arrangement with the plaintiff), or, as we saw a few years ago in DC, the judge can be biased towards one side or another, or she could even be a former lobbyist for the MPAA as we saw with the Judge Beryl Howell rulings from 2011-2012.  Similar-minded judges from other districts more recently have been causing problems as well.  So, no, case consolidations are NOT ALWAYS a good thing.


    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.

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      Dallas Buyers Club rivals adult film bittorrent lawsuits in quantity of lawsuits.

      Dallas Buyers Club filings have reached a quantity of lawsuits — so much so that they rival the hundreds of adult film lawsuits that flood the federal courts.

      As a quick recap, the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC piracy lawsuits started in Texas and Ohio, and like a cancer, over the past year they have metastasized into the federal courts of Illinois, Florida, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and even Hawaii.  Copyright lawyers employed by Dallas Buyers Club have even moved their copyright enforcement activities offshore into Canada, Australia, Finland, Denmark, and Japan.

      Regardless of where they go, their business model is the same — Voltage Pictures, LLC or Dallas Buyers Club, LLC files a peer-to-peer lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against multiple John Doe Defendants (generally referred to by plaintiffs as “pirates”), they convince a federal judge to rubber-stamp a subpoena demanding that the ISP turn over the contact information of the accused account holders unless the accused account holders file what is known as a “motion to quash.”  The target of the subpoena is almost always the account holder, implying that the account holder is the actual downloader or infringer who downloaded the Dallas Buyers Club (2013) movie.  The plaintiff attorney then sends one or multiple settlement demand letters to the accused downloaders in each case threatening that each will be “named and served” as a defendant in the lawsuit unless they pay a settlement of thousands of dollars (settlement requests average $3,500 to $6,500 [and in one case, $14,000, really?] depending on the state in which the lawsuit is filed).

      Where the settlement demand letters blur the line of ethics is that many plaintiff attorneys employ scare tactics, making the John Doe Defendant believe that the lawsuit has already been filed against them personally.  Various attorneys have sent accused downloaders “waiver of service” forms and questionnaires along with their settlement demand letters suggesting that the not-yet-named-defendants answer these questions voluntarily, or that they waive service effectively negating the need for the plaintiff attorney to name and serve them as a defendant.

      What bothers me is that because Dallas Buyers Club is not an “adult film” copyright infringement lawsuit (but rather, a “real” movie with a valid copyright and without the stigma of being an adult film), the federal judges are giving them leeway to move in and out of the federal courts to “enforce” their copyrights.  In U.S. copyright law, there is a legal presumption of validity, which means that a judge will initially lean towards favoring the copyright owner until that copyright owner has been shown to be abusing the legal process through a pattern of abuse.  Attorneys for copyright holders who represent the plaintiff generally (in our blog and in the eyes of the courts) get increased scrutiny because they have represented other copyright holders in similar lawsuits employing the same strategy of “sue and settle, but try not to name and serve [and if you do, bluff to the judge that you are prepared to go to trial on the merits of the case].”

      These lawyers who file Dallas Buyers Club lawsuits (these are those who sue defendants, NOT those who defend defendants) include a growing list of attorneys, such as: Keith Vogt (Texas), Michael Hierl (Illinois), David Stephenson Jr. (Colorado), Eric Osterberg (Connecticut), Richard Fee (Florida), Paul Nicoletti (Michigan), Carl Crowell (Oregon), Leon Bass (Ohio), and Gregory Ferren (Hawaii).

      Many of these names are familiar to those who have followed our “copyright troll” / bittorrent lawsuit blogs over the years, and we often see these names representing one copyright holder after another in the same fashion.  Regardless of who the lawyer is, be aware of the motivation of the Dallas Buyers Club lawsuits — to create a ‘windfall’ profit for the company by pursuing those who download the movie without authorization, and to scare and intimidate the accused downloaders into paying large settlement amounts to avoid defending the claims against them in court.

      Related: Dallas Buyers Club launches post-Oscar copyright salvo, sues 615 Does (ArsTechnica)


      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.

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        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC attorney tiptoes dangerously near Judge Hughes’ order.

        After my “Dallas Buyers Club, LLC is a modern-day Icarus Story (TXSD)” article on August 13th, I called Keith Vogt, the plaintiff attorney for Dallas Buyers Club. In our call, I ascertained his motivations regarding how he plans to approach Judge Hughes here in Texas, and what he plans to do with the other cases (duck and run, or push forward).

        As I suspected, he expressed no “duck and run” mentality (not even privately), as we have seen in similar past cases with other past “copyright troll” plaintiff attorneys. In fact, Vogt appeared to be undeterred considering the outcome of the case, mentioning that he has NINE (9) other cases alive and well in the Southern District of Texas, seven of which were in their INFANT STAGES and all current cases are assigned to judges other than Judge Hughes.

        Below is a list of those new cases:

        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02119)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02120)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02121)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02124)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02217)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02219)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02220)

        and of course, the two older cases:

        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-31 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00248)
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-45 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00815)

        Each of the newer cases were filed on either 7/24 or 8/2 (before Vogt’s problems with Judge Hughes surfaced). I have been watching these cases, and the judges in most of them have granted permission for Dallas Buyers Club, LLC to send subpoenas to the ISPs to ascertain the identities of the John Doe Defendants. These people will be receiving letters from their Comcast Xfinity Subpoena departments in the coming days and weeks.

        Two interesting items to note: Plaintiff attorney Vogt has roughly 175 potential defendants, each of whom will likely be asked for a settlement of thousands of dollars. He has also not filed any new cases since the August 13th debacle with Judge Hughes, likely understanding that they will be assigned over to him, and this may or may not be a fight he wants to instigate just yet. 

        On a more concerning note, on Thursday, Vogt named and served eight (8) John Doe Defendants in his 4:14-cv-00815 case. This is one of his older cases, and I understand that he needed to do so because Judge Gray Miller was pressuring him to do so before the upcoming hearing. Instead of posting the names of the named and served defendants, I have pasted a screenshot of the docket which lists the named defendants — you can see the named defendants referenced below in Documents 21 & 22.

        Named and Served Dallas Buyers Club, LLC defendants
        Dallas Buyers Club, LLC attorney Keith Vogt names and serves defendants in the 14-cv-00815 lawsuit.

        In sum, on August 13th, I commented to a friend that I did not think the judges in Texas spoke to each other. I am still of the opinion that federal court judges appear to lord over their court as if their court is their own sovereign territory. It would be nice if one judge poked his head into another courtroom once in a while.  If he or she did, they would notice that the proper answer to cases such as these is CONSOLIDATION.

        In a perfect world, Judge Hughes would consolidate all of the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases into one case, since all of the cases relate to the same common questions of fact.   Doing this would prevent contrary rulings from neighboring judges, and it would create a common rule of how to handle, facilitate, and ideally to dispense with all forms of “copyright trolling” cases in the federal courts.


        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.

          Dallas Buyers Club, LLC is a modern-day Icarus Story (TXSD)

          Rights Enforcement | RIGHTSENFORCEMENT.com screenshot.

          Dallas Buyers Club, LLC Texas-based lawsuits in my opinion tell a modern story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun with wings of feathers and wax and got burned. The reason for this is because these cases have caused one Texas federal judge to rule against their fictitious name “John Doe” lawsuits.

          There was news today that affects the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases filed here in the Southern District of Texas (TXSD). The news is not only a black eye for the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC attorney, but as a result of today’s news, Dallas Buyers Club, LLC might never again file here in Texas.

          Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases have been rather docile here in Texas. Until ten days ago, they only filed two cases:

          Dallas Buyers Club LLC v. Does 1-31 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00248), and
          Dallas Buyers Club LLC v. Does 1-45 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00815).

          Strategically, until now, the plaintiff attorney did not have local counsel, and it was almost certain that he would not fly down to Texas to appear for the hearings, so there was really nothing to talk about with these cases. Yes, of course he could have appeared by telephone, but I’ve been at those hearings, and they almost never end well for the absent attorney.

          However, here the plaintiff attorney did hire local counsel and ten days ago, they filed Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02218); the case was assigned to Judge Lynn Hughes.

          Now I’ve seen Judge Hughes rule in a number of cases. While many Texas judges typically allow bittorent cases to sit on their dockets for months at a time, I don’t think Judge Hughes had any interest in allowing this case to sit for any length of time. My understanding is that Judge Hughes was very aware of the copyright trolling problem from the previous copyright troll adult film cases we were fighting back in 2011-2013, and the new filings by Dallas Buyers Club, LLC across the U.S. was a problem that threatened to turn into a Malibu Media, LLC problem.

          My guess is that Judge Hughes immediately identified the “John Does” copyright infringement case [filed by an out-of-state attorney] on his docket as a cookie-cutter copyright troll lawsuit. The complaint even read almost identical to the pornography cases we tried against Prenda Law Inc. and their local counsel Doug McIntyre just two years before this.  Within four days, Judge Hughes ordered the plaintiff to identify the defendants, I assume because he was not about to tolerate yet another “John Doe” lawsuit against fictional characters and putative defendants on his docket for months while the attorney shook down each putative defendant for thousands of dollars a piece.

          The problem is that the plaintiff did not yet have the names of the putative defendants from the ISPs, and so when ordered to remove the fictional “John Doe” character names, he could only identify them as “Internet User (IU) subscribers having a particular IP address” thinking that would satisfy the judge. It didn’t.

          For the rest of the story details, I invite you to read Sophisticated Jane Doe’s article on the case. What I can contribute, however, is that as a result of this case, any Dallas Buyers Club, LLC case filed in this district is ordered to be assigned to Judge Hughes, which suggests that it will die upon arrival. Similarly, moving forward, I suspect that the plaintiff attorney will likely be dismissing all cases which are assigned to Judge Hughes, which will no doubt raise suspicions of not “forum shopping,” but rather, “judge shopping,” a tactic that Prenda Law Inc. got in trouble for exploiting years back.

          In sum, starting in 2010 with the Larry Flynt Production (LFP Internet Group, LLP) cases in the Northern District of Texas, and now ending with the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases in the Southern District of Texas, it is becoming apparent that Texas judges no longer tolerate copyright troll bittorrent-related cases.

          On a personal note, I understand that this most recent Dallas Buyers Club, LLC filing was supposed to be one of many more cases to be filed here in Texas. And, just as Icarus flew too close to the sun, it was inevitable that this copyright holder would stumble upon a judge who dealt with the predatory bittorrent pornography cases we dealt with a few years ago. It was just a matter of time.


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