UPDATE: Our entire TORRENTLAWYER.COM domain is now banned from Bing Search Engines (including all DuckDuckGo searches, and other search engines which pull their content from Bing). We suspect this is because Bing has a new definition of malware — “website content (words) that can harm the reader.”
To confirm this, here is the link that you can use to check whether our TorrentLawyer.com website is on Bing:
Since I noticed the traffic drop to zero from Bing a few weeks ago, I have been in touch with Bing trying to “fix” the problem. At first, I thought it was a WordPress plugin (providing features to our website) which might have been causing a problem.
The Bing Webmaster Platform has provided me hints on why my website was banned.
It was the Bing Webmaster Platform which provided me hints as to what I am horrified to think might be happening.
WE HAVE CHECKED: THERE IS NO MALWARE ON OUR TORRENTLAWYER.COM SITE.
TO BE CLEAR: Our TorrentLawyer.com website has always been very strict with security. We run firewalls, we have security plug-ins, and we pay for the services we use. We regularly run malware scans with multiple companies, and our website has always been free of malware.
I could not understand why the Bing Webmaster Website classified our content as “malware.”
What was confusing to me is that on the Bing Webmaster Website, I could not understand why some of our articles were classified as “malware.” These web pages did NOT have malware.
The way they banned our TORRENTLAWYER.COM domain was that they marked the “/” page as having malware. It does NOT have malware, we have checked, re-checked, and have had other companies recheck.
THERE IS NO MALWARE.
To confirm this yourself, these links have been provided to me by a friend (I’m not sure he wanted me to share his info, so I’m posting the links).
Bing elevated my ticket, and then explained that my TorrentLawyer.com website certainly violates Bing’s guidelines.
As a quick update, after communicating with Bing trying to resolve the problem, they elevated my ticket, and then responded that “our TorrentLawyer.com website certainly violates Bing’s guidelines.”
Now Bing has added most of my articles and pages to be classified as “malware” on their Bing Webmaster platform.
Here is the strange thing. After confronting them on the malware question (again, our website has no malware), the following day, I observed a change of how many more of my pages were classified on their Bing Webmaster Site. Bing classified mostly all of my articles and pages on my Torrentlawyer.com website as “malware”.
Again, I know this wasn’t there before because I was watching this category literally the day before trying to find out why my website was banned from Bing Search Engines.
A snapshot of Bing’s Site Explorer for our Torrentlawyer.com site. As you can see, they have now excluded 2.1K of our website’s links. AND, even though it appears as 1.5K pages are still indexed, they are still banned from being shown on Bing Search Engine Results.
Bing has now restricted my account to prevent me from adding or updating URLs on their search engine.
In the past few days, Bing has restricted our ability to add URLs to their search engine. The default is that users can add 1000 new URLs per day.
Bing initially lowered my ability to submit new URLs from 1000/day (originally), to 10/day, and as of yesterday, it was lowered to 0/day. They have not even given me a chance to contest or correct their new classification.
So what in the world is happening at Bing?
I suspect Bing has a new definition of malware. Does “malware” now include harmful content (instead of harmful code)?
I am grief-stricken to even consider this possibility. I am concerned that Bing might have a new definition of malware.
Definition: Malware is code that can infect the machine that accesses that code.
New Definition: Malware is website content [code] that can infect the reader [machine] that accesses that website content [code]?
Is it possible that the term “code” now means “website content” [meaning, harmful words on a webpage which could now be classified as harmful “code”]?
Is it possible that the term “machine” now includes not only the computer, but the reader who accesses the content (code) of the website?
Because if so, then yes, my website articles can all be considered malware — each article provides useful content which can affect the thoughts of my readers.
What I told Bing to explain the content on my TorrentLawyer.com website.
This is a snippet from my most recent e-mail to the Bing Search Engine (I added the bullet points):
“TorrentLawyer.com” is a blog of the Cashman Law Firm PLLC.
We do not encourage piracy, nor do we link to any content which infringes the copyright rights of any copyright holder.
All content on that website discussed copyright infringement lawsuits filed in federal courts, as we represent clients in those lawsuits.
All of these lawsuits surround the defendants’ alleged use of the BitTorrent networks, hence the name “TorrentLawyer.”
As for our beliefs, we believe in the enforcement of U.S. copyright laws and statutes.
Our law firm’s mission is to fight against entities known as “copyright trolls,” who misuse the U.S. copyright laws to monetize their copyrights rather than to take steps provided to them by the DMCA to stop the infringement of their copyrighted content.
Lastly, there is NO ADULT CONTENT on our website. The lawsuits in which we represent clients are adult film companies, e.g., Strike 3 Holdings, LLC and formerly, Malibu Media LLC.
However, we do not endorse or encourage the viewing of adult content, nor do we link to adult content on our website.
Is anything here so offensive that they should classify my articles as “malware” and block my entire TORRENTLAWYER.COM domain from posting useful content on their Bing Search Engines?
Even Bing’s own Site Explorer shows I have NO URLs with Guideline Issues.
Lastly, IF our TORRENTLAWYER.COM website violated Bing’s guidelines, wouldn’t it show up in their Site Explorer under the “Filter by: URLs with guidelines issues” category?
As you can see from the attached screenshot, there are “No URLs Applicable” to this category.
So I guess the question that needs to be asked is…
“If there are no Bing Guidelines Issues, why does my TorrentLawyer.com website have Bing Guidelines Issues?”
I am frustrated to share this news, but our entire TorrentLawyer.com website has been banned from the Bing Search Engine. Being banned from Bing Search Engines means that our 10+ years of content have also disappeared from DuckDuckGo, and all other search engines which obtain their results from Bing.
Hundreds of articles have disappeared overnight from being banned from Bing Search Engines… by the push of a button.
Our TorrentLawyer blog has hundreds of articles that we have written since 2010 on the copyright troll problem, and now all of that work and all of that information has DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT because someone at Bing did not like our content.
We contacted Bing multiple times about the issue, and they merely said that our content “violated their guidelines” and thus we are banned from their search engine. When we asked them for further details, they refused to give us anything other than, “Refer to our guidelines. We have looked at your website and have determined that it violated our guidelines.“
I have looked at the guidelines, as have other attorneys. Our only conclusion is that our TorrentLawyer website violated their guidelines because “we say so.”
Our website has been attacked hundreds of times over the years by those that do not want our content shared.
Behind the scenes, over the years, our website has been constantly attacked, hack attempts have been blocked, and we have spent a considerable amount of time simply keeping the TorrentLawyer Blog website up.
We have signed up to Cloudflare so that our content still shows up when our website goes down (because of a successful intrusion into our website).
We have our website hardened to make it difficult for hackers to change the content of our website articles (this has happened).
We have implemented strict https only (encrypted SSL traffic) on our websites, and we have changed our http headers, sometimes breaking the functionality of the website itself… just to keep the website up and running.
We cannot control those who have a different opinion than us.
What we cannot control, however, is someone who has a viewpoint which differs from ours. Our law firm is a DEFENSE LAW PRACTICE. We defend people ACCUSED of committing crimes and violations of laws and rules. Such accused defendants deserve an attorney to represent them, even if public policy declares them as “bad” or “evil.”
With so much crime and things going on in our news, it is honestly shocking that our content should get so much concern. It is even more shocking that we would ever be banned from Bing’s Search Engine (or any search engine, for that matter — these are supposed to share useful content, not to moderate it).
Yes, we defend internet users accused of piracy. Yes, we defend clients in cases involving adult content. Yes, our website article titles sometimes contain NSFW terms. Yes, the copyright lobby hates that we exist, but we do.
Suspicion of “settlement factory attorneys” Uch. I really don’t want to go here.
What bothers me more than thinking that the pro-copyright lobby wants us to disappear is the thought that some of our so-called competition also wants us to disappear.
SETTLEMENT FACTORY SO-CALLED “BITTORRENT DEFENSE” LAW FIRMS
For years, we have called out practices by other law firms which we refer to as “settlement factories.” We have exposed their tactics, we have openly shared their scams.
Simply put, we have made enemies, and we have been attacked as a result.
Unauthorized Attempted Logins on our WordPress websites.
I have looked at the logs on our website’s firewalls. I have watched the attacks as they relentlessly happened over the years, as they happened. I have personally blocked hundreds of IP addresses who tried to log into the back end of our WordPress websites with usernames of only someone who would know us would try to use.
Why would a hacker try to log in as “Rob Cashman” or “houstonlawy3r”?
I frequently see logins with variations of “Rob Cashman” or “Cashman Law Firm” as the username, or more frequently, “houstonlawy3r,” which is a username someone would only to know to use if they knew that I post my Twitter comments as “houstonlawy3r.” This is too much of a coincidence; it is not a random hacker (we have those too that regularly try to get into our websites).
So as a sidenote, I cannot give up the suspicion that another law firm I have called out as a “settlement factory” [never by name — I don’t destroy reputations — but by their activities] have hired hackers who use bots and DoS attacks to take down our website.
Thus far, that strategy of breaking into my site didn’t work… but convincing someone at Bing to remove my entire website and the TORRENTLAWYER.COM domain — because our content allegedly “violated their guidelines” — that did work.
On January 6, 2022, our TorrentLawyer.com traffic from Bing Search Engines went to zero.
Accused defendants in copyright infringement lawsuits were hurt by this ban.
Whoever it is that caused our website to be banned from Bing has hurt our readers.
Yes, our business will be hurt by this — for over a month now, we have had ZERO WEBSITE VISITS FROM BING SEARCH ENGINES, and we are fine. It is simply unfortunate that someone would go so far as to try to make our ENTIRE WEBSITE disappear. This is simply wrong.
What Free Speech? What Free Press? What Rights of Appeal do we have when it is the Bing Search Engine itself which banned us?
There should be free speech and free press, but every day, that seems to be dwindling into the twilight. With so much pro-copyright legal power, damages for copyright infringement have done nothing but increase. It is simply surprising that the copyright lobbyists, the lawmakers, and the politicians have joined up with pornography companies and adult film companies to enforce their rights over the rights of the individual.
Why I believe as an attorney that adult films should not be copyrightable.
Specifically, see this article of mine from 2012, reason #3, “Scènes à faire” (or, Scenes a faire in plain text). Not only should adult films be classified as obscene, and thus ineligible for copyright infringement, but rather, every adult film has the same scenes, the same acts, the same genres, the same nurse, police outfit, or story line. Only the actors are different, but the scenes are all the same (mixtures of various acts in one order or another).
Copyright Trolls misuse the US Copyright Laws, and THIS is what we fight against.
However, copyright protection should allow a copyright holder to go to a court and get an INJUNCTION to force a website to take down a web page illegally hosting copyrighted content. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders to send DMCA copyright violation notices to internet users directly telling them to “cut it out, or else.”
Copyright holders have many ways to enforce their copyright rights, which their intended outcome should be TO STOP THE INFRINGEMENT OF THEIR COPYRIGHTED CONTENT.
Copyright Trolls use the federal courts to monetize their copyrights, not to stop the infringement of their copyrights.
Instead, copyright holders have resorted to using the federal courts “as a sword, rather than a shield.” They wield a federal court lawsuit like a weapon to hold that sword over the heads of individual downloaders who are sued as “John Doe Subscribers” in copyright infringement lawsuits.
And, instead of trying to take down the copyrighted content which was put on a particular website without their permission, they use the federal court lawsuits to solicit (dare I say extort) thousands of dollars from each accused defendant in return for their promise not to name and serve that defendant in the federal court lawsuit.
The TorrentLawyer Blog is simply trying to expose the misuse of the US Copyright Laws by copyright trolls.
STOPPING THIS (misuse of the US Copyright Laws) has been the focus of our Cashman Law Firm PLLC law firm since 2010. It is not that we are piracy friendly (as some search engines might think), and it is not that we are promoting piracy or copyright infringement in any way, shape, or form. WE ARE NOT.
We are simply trying to stop the copyright trolling problem. For now, that means 1) teaching internet users about the schemes and methods of the copyright holders to avoid being sued in a copyright infringement lawsuit, and 2) defending accused downloaders who have found themselves entangled in a lawsuit.
Until now, we relied on Search Engines to share our content.
Until now, we relied on the search engines to share our content with would-be readers. The logic is that if we provided good quality content, and if we complied with the rules and guidelines of each of the search engines (e.g., having content in a specific format, properly marking up our websites so that search engine bots and crawlers will be able to understand our articles, etc.) we will be listed on the search engines where readers could find our content. This is not “SEO.” This is simply providing good and valuable content.
We never anticipated that our entire website would be taken down by the Bing Search Engine.
However, what we at the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC could not anticipate that there would be forces beyond our control who could make our content DISAPPEAR without warning, without us being able to contest any opposition to our content, and unilaterally without any oversight.
This happened when we were banned from the Bing Search Engine in January, 2022. Overnight, our website went from being listed on the top of the search engine results to being banned by Bing and delisted COMPLETELY from their search engine, as if our content never existed.
Banning TorrentLawyer.com from Bing causes us to be delisted also from DuckDuckGo, Brave, other privacy-based search engines.
Again, being banned from Bing’s search engine isn’t the issue. The fact is that so many other search engines use Bing’s search engine results when pulling content which will show up on THEIR search engine’s results. This includes search engines such as DuckDuckGo, the new Brave search engine, and pretty much every other “anti-Google,” “anti-tracking,” “pro-privacy” search engine. These search engines are right in line with our views and beliefs, yet our TorrentLawyer website is now banned from those websites too.
If you search “site:https://www.torrentlawyer.com” on any Bing Search Engine (or on any of the DuckDuckGo or related search engines), you will find that now ZERO articles show up. At the bottom of the search engine page, you will now see a notation that all content from this website has been removed.
Search engine results: TorrentLawyer.com banned from Bing Search Engine.
Now we know we cannot rely on the search engines to deliver our content.
In sum, we cannot control the search engines — we know that now. “Fairness” and “Free Speech” are no longer concept that protect our content from being erased from history.
We are asking for YOUR help to share your thoughts on how we can deliver content to you. Solution #1: GitHub Page.
We do have enough of a following over the years to still provide content to our readers, even if we are no longer on the search engines. The challenge now is how to present our content in this new pro-censorship environment on the website itself.
For this reason, I have started a GitHub page at https://github.com/TorrentLawyer. Assuming they are willing to allow us on their website, we will be seeking your assistance on how to properly present content on our website and handle issues that pop up.
If you see anything wrong with our TorrentLawyer Blog website or our Cashman Law Firm PLLC website, please log into GitHub and open up a new issue on our GitHub page, and let me know that a particular issue exists.
If you can suggest a change to our website, or a suggestion on how I can properly present the hundreds of articles and posts in a way that would be useful and accessible to you as the reader, please open up an issue on our GitHub page and let me know.
What we are doing now with the Bing Search Engine to fix the problem.
As far as being banned from Bing’s Search Engine, we are currently working to eliminate any content which they might find as misinformation, harmful, or offensive. I will be removing any category which references adult films, and I will be removing brand names of companies like Strike 3 Holdings, LLC, including references to their “Tushy, Vixen, Blacked, and Deeper” brands.
However, honestly, I am concerned that this will not fix the problem. I suspect their problem with our website is its so-called “harmful” content.
We cannot remove the fact that we defend accused downloaders accused of piracy. This, and the implications that follow will continue to have those who are against our content continue to attack our site, and they will continue with their efforts to de-list us from the search engines.
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.
If you are here looking for VIXEN GROUP videos, you came to the wrong place. BUT *PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING TO YOUR VIXEN ADULT FILM VIDEO*. Vixen, along with Tushy, Blacked, and “Deeper.” are all website porn brands belonging to Strike 3 Holdings, LLC.
On the topic of VIXEN PORN VIDEOS, there is a woman named Micheline Pitt who started a clothing line (more on this in a second). Pornography videos often scenes of abuse, sexual assault, or even rape, and I am happy to see that she is taking a stand against these.
Micheline Pitt has started a campaign #VIXENNOTAVICTIM to bring awareness to survivors of sexual assault, rape, and abuse. For every piece of clothing that you purchase, Micheline Pitt will donate 30%-40% (or more) to RAINN to help survivors and prevent sexual violence.
If you came here looking for Vixen porn, I am not “guilting you” into buying her clothing or making a contribution to RAINN (the “Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network”), but yeah — if you are providing clicks and ad revenue to the porn industry, at least spend a few dollars balancing things out and donating to RAINN or buying Micheline Pitt’s clothing.
In short, if you are watching Vixen porn videos, put some balance into the world and donate money or buy products which benefit those who are hurt and who have their lives ruined by the porn industry.
WHERE TO FIND LEGAL AND LEGITIMATE VIXEN PORN VIDEOS
If you are actually looking for Vixen porn videos (e.g., VIXEN GROUP adult film videos related to the Vixen Blacked, Tushy, and Deeper. brand names), you do not need to go to illegal sources which can get you sued.
Vixen porn videos (along with the Tushy, Blacked, and “Deeper.” porn video brands) all belong to the Strike 3 Holdings, LLC copyright troll company. I am the owner of the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC and the TorrentLawyer.com website. I have been watching being getting sued almost daily for viewing these adult film videos since March, 2017.
So please, do not become a victim of Strike 3 Holdings by downloading their Vixen, Blacked, Tushy, or Deeper. branded films… NOT from illegal sources (where you can provide them ad revenue), and NOT from legal sources by paying for their content.
HOW DO THOSE WHO WATCH VIXEN PORN VIDEOS GET CAUGHT AND SUED?
Those who watch porn videos usually get caught by downloading the videos using bittorrent software. “Tushy,” “Blacked,” and now “Deeper.” are all video brands owned by Strike 3 Holdings, LLC, and can be found [think, were LEAKED AND ARE MONITORED BY COPYRIGHT TROLLS] on the bittorrent websites.
I don’t care which software you use: Bittorrent, uTorrent, Transmission, Vuze (Azurus), or any other software that uses BitTorrent.
You visit a website, whether it is 1137x.to (or 1337x.gd), The Pirate Bay, or any other website that allows you to browse adult film torrents and download Vixen mp4 xxx files, you click on a link, and open up your bittorrent software and download the Vixen mp4 xxx movies. THAT is how you get caught downloding their porn videos.
WHAT ABOUT THE TUBE WEBSITES WHERE I CAN STREAM VIXEN PORN VIDEOS?
Vixen porn videos (along with Tushy, Blacked, and “Deeper.” branded videos) are illegally shared on the internet using YouTube-like websites. I do not need to name them, because no doubt you can find them.
I believed that you could get caught watching porn videos [like Blacked, Tushy, Deeper., etc.] either through a plaintiff attorney sending a subpoena to Google Analytics, Cloudfront, or any other website plug-in company that tracks the IP address and activities of users who visit their site (be careful what trackers your Tube-like porn streaming sites use).
However, once the plaintiff attorney gets the list of IP addresses of the Blacked porn site viewers, the plaintiff attorneys then needed to take the extra inconvenient step of filing one or more copyright infringement lawsuit in federal courts against “John Doe” defendants (the Blacked porn video viewers) who were assigned that particular IP address at that date and time.
They would ask the court for “Expedited Discovery” (FRCP Rule 26), and then they would send subpoenas to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) forcing them to hand over the identities of their subscribers who viewed the Blacked or Tushy videos — their IP addresses would be the ones they were assigned on the dates and time they viewed or streamed the Blacked / Tushy / Vixen videos. Those porn video viewers would receive ISP Subpoena Notification Letters letting them know that they have been sued as a “John Doe” defendant in their copyright infringement lawsuit.
Once the plaintiff attorney received the Blacked / Tushy / Vixen website visitor’s identities (which really were merely the account holders’ identities) from their ISPs, only then can the adult film Copyright Trolls (Strike 3 Holdings, LLC) begin to engage in the extortion portion of what is an elaborate settlement extortion scheme (settle for thousands or dollars or else we will NAME AND SERVE you in the federal court lawsuit).
TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES AND LEGAL LOOPHOLES MADE MONITORING VIXEN PORN VIEWERS’ ACTIVITIES POSSIBLE.
Creative plaintiff attorneys have found loopholes in the legal system to shortcut the “Expedited Discovery” two-step method of obtaining the identities of Vixen porn video watchers who visited a website and exposed their IP address causing them to be caught and sued.
Instead of suing for copyright infringement in the federal courts, they sue in state courts (such as the Miami-Dade, Florida county court, the Maricopa, Arizona county court, or even St. Clair, Illinois county court). They sue using quasi-legal theories, such as equity or Bill of Discovery, and they ask the state or county court to reveal the identity of those accused of viewing, streaming, or downloading their client’s copyrighted videos.
With the Blacked / Tushy / Vixen adult videos, VIXEN GROUP’s own Florida attorneys — Rachel Walker & Tyler Mamone — engaged in this kind of state-based lawsuit with their Miami-Dade County, Florida Bill of Discovery Strike 3 Holdings, LLC lawsuits. This is an ongoing problem for those who viewed or streamed Vixen, Tushy, Blacked, or most recently, “Deeper.” videos without a license.
As soon as you start spending losing hours at your computer viewing adult film websites, you might have a problem. Once your adult film viewing habits start interfering with your work and your everyday life (e.g., effects from lack of sleep, or relationship problems and the like), you might have a problem.
Bottom line, pornography addiction is essentially a dopamine addiction where the affected person seeks a “dopamine high” which they get from pornography. It must be noted that other activities, e.g., running, sex, relationships, parenting, movies, etc. also provide dopamine highs as well.
If you suspect you might need help for such a pornography addiction, then by all means, reach out to one of these groups. For privacy purposes, I might just create a fake account on reddit.com so that I can get help without pasting my name everywhere on my posts, but the official groups are set up to preserve your privacy and your anonymity as well.
IN SUMMARY:
OK, so you came here looking for Blacked / Tushy / Vixen pornography videos. I hope I have given you a few things to think about along the way.
As an attorney and the owner of the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC, I support my family by representing clients who are sued by copyright trolls. This being said, if I could save you from being my client by NOT being sued in the first place, I would be just as happy with the result.
Lastly, no doubt YOU YOURSELF might not engage in these acts and your adult film viewing habits might be innocent, you cannot deny that there are others that watch pornography, and act out the abuse, sex acts, or rapes on those around them, willing or not.
Whether it is the adult films (the pornography) which is to blame or those who engage in violent acts against others, by watching pornography YOU MUST CONSIDER that you give financial benefit (in the form of power, ad revenue, and sometimes outright cash) to the pornography industry by watching porn videos, legal or not.
What you do with this information is up to you. Let’s hope you never need my services as an 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.
Behind the scenes story of our law firm’s first motion to quash experience.
I was reviewing some of my older articles when I (in 2010) referenced a terrible-but-funny behind the scenes story that happened to one of the defense attorneys when he tried to sell motion to quash online forms. When I initially wrote the article, I did not share the story in its entirety because I was trying not to bring attention to the motion to quash online forms fiasco (and I was obviously feeling pain for the attorney to whom this happened). But now ten years later, I edited the article and wrote the details of story in its entirety there, and now here (in more detail).
I hope I have this attorney’s forgiveness in sharing this story. I kept his name out of it, and his motion to quash online forms are no longer available for sale online.
What happened in 2010 to this defense attorney and his motion to quash online forms?
QUICK SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED: In 2010, a defense attorney sold motion to quash online forms for a few dollars a copy. Someone pirated the form, everyone used it, and the plaintiff attorney asked the court to sanction the defense attorney. [Click to Tweet!]
[We were trying to figure out what to do about the mass-bittorrent-defendant lawsuits…]
In 2010, at the request of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a group of us attorneys were trying to figure out how to deal with the mass-bittorrent-copyright-infringement lawsuits. Specifically, we were trying to figure out what to do about the ISP Subpoena Notification Letters that the accused “John Doe” defendants received.
[ISP letters suggested subscribers should file an “objection” with the court…]
In those ISP Subpoena Notification Letters, the accused defendants were led to believe that they should file a motion to quash (or, an “objection with the court”) in order to preserve the anonymity of their identity.
[The ISP letters said (and still say) that if they filed an objection with the court, the ISP would not hand over the accused defendant’s contact information to the plaintiff attorney.]
[My approach…]
The ISP letters neglected to say (and still neglect to say) that the objection they are referring to is called a Motion to Quash.
LOOKING AT WHAT NEEDED TO HAPPEN, I REALIZED THAT FILING AN OBJECTION ALONE WOULD BE INSUFFICIENT, AND THAT THE DEFENDANT WOULD NEED TO PREVAIL IN COURT BY HAVING A JUDGE QUASH THE ISP SUBPOENA as to that John Doe Defendant.
I analyzed the motion to quash question. “That was a bad outcome waiting to happen,” I thought.
Thus, my approach was to realize that the motion to quash was a bad idea.
[…A Defense Attorney Differed, and Decided to Sell Motion to Quash Online Forms]
Another attorney’s approach [bless his heart, even today he has my utmost respect] decided to make a few bucks per defendant [in 2010, the copyright infringement lawsuits had THOUSANDS of defendants per lawsuit filing]. This attorney decided to sell a “motion to quash” package containing motion to quash online forms that his customers — accused John Doe Defendants — could download and use (e.g., for $10 per document download).
His logic was that his motion to quash online forms would make it easy for each defendant to file a motion to quash without needing to hire him as an attorney directly (saving him time and paperwork). And, because there are thousands of defendants per lawsuit, he would make “a few bucks” along the way… or else that was his plan.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
[…His plan did not work. An accused defendant bought his online form and uploaded it to the bittorrent network.]
…I will never forget the uncontrollable laughter an attorney next to me experienced when he realized that this defense attorney’s “motion to quash” package was pirated and UPLOADED TO THE BITTORRENT NETWORK.
Still rolling on the floor, “he made just seven sales, and his clients are all accused of copyright infringement. What did you expect them to do?” he said while trying to sit up and regain his composure.
[The end result: The defense attorney was successful in getting accused defendants to use his motion to quash online forms, but it tragically backfired…]
As a result, many accused downloaders used this form to file motions to quash in this case (the case the article was written about). The plaintiff attorneys got mad at all of the extra paperwork this caused [because there were thousands of defendants], and they asked the court to sanction the defense attorney who sold the motion to quash online forms.
IN SUMMARY.
Again, that attorney (bless his heart) had such a rocky beginning in these copyright cases, and I understand that he is no longer representing clients in bittorrent-based copyright infringement cases. However, even years later, his name is still fresh in my mind, and with the recent Strike 3 Holdings, LLC Miami-Dade cases, I still tried to send him a few clients because he was licensed to practice in Florida.
As for his motion to quash online forms — these were later adopted and modified (or supplanted) by a blogger called “DieTrollDie” in what he called the “Richard Pryor Response (RPR).”
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.
It just occurred to me that some settlement factory websites are not written to educate you, but rather to lure you in to click on that law firm’s webpage or blog.
Obviously every business writes a website to grow their business — law firms (including mine) are no different. However, I have been well aware that some of us attorneys write useful content for the purpose of educating you — the accused defendant. Other attorneys just write contentless keyword-spammed articles which are written to show up at the top of search engines.
"68 John Doe Defendants Sued in Florida."
"23 John Doe Defendants Sued in California."
...and so on.
In this article, I explain why I think these content-less websites are settlement factory websites meant only to lure you in.
Source: Pixabay.com by Candid_Shots
We are changing the structure of our websites.
We have been doing “spring cleaning” of the TorrentLawyer blog these past few weeks; I am not sure you have noticed. Most of the changes are “under the hood” — I’ve been re-categorizing older content, and updating useful information with today’s lawsuits so that our content is more orderly… for myself and for you.
In the coming weeks, I will hopefully be updating the structure of the pages themselves so that they are more readable (my articles typically have been horribly content-laden – an older employee once told me that “reading my articles was like walking through mud”). I hope to fix that shortly.
I researched and wrote every one of my articles.
This blog has hundreds of articles that I (Rob Cashman, Owner of the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC) personally researched, wrote, and edited. I researched and wrote each article myself. I have never hired someone to write my articles for me, nor do I think doing so is authentic or honest.
We started this blog to bring clarity to a new area of law.
I am not a journalist, I am an attorney. However, in 2010 (now ten years ago), I decided that someone should write about the growing number of mass-bittorrent based copyright infringement lawsuits. Even the other attorneys did not understand at the time how intellectual property laws and copyright laws applied to someone accused of downloading music and movies (ugh, now adult films). So I created this blog to hash out those topics.
pedrofigueras / Pixabay
Copyright Trolls, a pimple sprouted from patent trolls.
We called these companies who file these lawsuits “copyright trolls” after patent trolls who purchase the rights to certain patents for the purpose of extorting others for hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars. You can read up on these topics on an older blog called “Cashman IP.”
Now defense attorneys betray their clients.
Now we are ten years later, and the number lawsuits have grown exponentially, but so too, the number of attorneys claiming to “defend John Doe Defendants against the copyright trolls” have grown exponentially as well.
Misinformation floods attorney blogs like blood.
These attorneys pump out “bad information” on their websites, often suggesting motions to quash, or suggesting that John Doe Defendants immediately settle when these two options mask better, more practical approaches.
But some attorneys appear to have read my articles (and other articles on the web, of course), but they forgot to look up the actual law, and so they grossly misinform accused defendants when they try to get them to sign on as clients. One such attorney [who to my horror is actually at the top of search engines now] knew nothing about copyright law or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and on many occasions referred to copyright infringement lawsuits as “criminal lawsuits” (you know, where if you are found guilty you go to jail…?!?)
Calling a copyright case a “criminal” case is criminal.
I am obviously nobody’s police man, but on a few occasions, I had to physically yell at this attorney to learn the law he is practicing and stop telling John Doe Defendants that copyright infringement cases ARE NOT CRIMINAL CASES. THEY ARE CIVIL CASES FOR MONEY DAMAGES.
…This guy too has a website and a blog, and he pays Google AdWords for you to visit his website. This (he, and attorneys like him) is why there is so much conflicting information on the internet about these cases.
BIG difference between copying and theft.
I always thought that some of these newer attorneys were simply “standing on the shoulders of others.” But the fighting between these attorneys is simply terrible.
When my research shows up on another attorney’s blog…
Some defense attorneys copy each other’s websites (try to copy-and-paste content from this blog; I have actually needed to disable the ability to copy content from my website).
Why? Because my research and experience shows up on their pages, as do case number lists of who was sued in which court, along with other content that I spend time researching.
I have tested this by making “errors” in the case numbers or title of who the “John Doe subscriber accused IP Address …” was, and I have seen them “lifted” and pasted into other attorneys’ lists and blogs.
I encourage healthy competition (and even encourage it), but when what I write ends up on another attorneys website, it is rant-worthy (FYI, it is copyright infringement too, as funny as that is considering what we do).
When what I tell potential clients in phone consultations is copied word-for-word…
In addition to copying each other’s written content, and some attorneys lack the originality to simply talk to a potential client about his/her circumstances. This is because the defense attorney hires inexperienced attorneys (or, non-attorneys they make you think are attorneys) to take their phone consultations for them. These extra bodies read the same “scripts” to potential clients, often pushing the client to settle or file a motion to quash, etc.
I too say the same thing (or cover similar topics) each time I speak to a client, e.g., I walk them through the options once they are sued, the probable outcomes of each option, etc. But my conversations are based on MY experience based on MY knowledge from the hundreds (maybe thousands) of cases I have represented accused defendants. Too often, newer attorneys just read scripts, and these “scripts” were copied from other attorneys in their phone consultations.
I sometimes chuckle when I ask potential clients (e.g., when there is a red flag) show me that they are an actual defendant in a lawsuit in order to take their phone consultation. This is silly, but too often, I have had my law firm’s methodologies and things I literally tell clients — statistics and facts only I would know based on my years of experience — copied by other attorneys (or their newly hired attorneys), word-for-word. I know this because I am often not the first attorney someone speaks to when they speak to me, and I often ask what they were told prior to speaking to me.
I still believe having defense attorneys in each state benefits defendants.
I always thought that it was a good idea that defense attorneys too should be located in every state in which the copyright trolls were suing defendants. The whole idea of “one attorney in one state representing every defendant from every state” smelled.
When one attorney represents all clients from every state (as we saw with hindsight in the settlement factory attorneys, below), too much power concentrated in too few attorneys.
This scenario invited collusion between the plaintiff attorney and the defense attorney. It suggested to me that if one attorney is handling each and every case in every settlement (or every lawsuit), the defense attorney will not fight hard for their client and will come to malpractice by not properly representing them.
Settlement Factory Attorneys born in a cottage industry.
I was right, and for years, I have called out settlement factories and their tactics because their attempts to “cut corners” deprives the accused defendant of proper attorney representation.
From these mass-bittorrent-based copyright infringement lawsuits was born the “settlement factory” attorney. This is a quantity-based law firm represents clients in a boilerplate fashion. Call it a “discount” law firm because they represent everyone the same way (although I many times objected to them charging a flat rate fee of $2,500 for what amounted to less than $2,500 worth of work).
Feel secure in the hard-earned money you are paying your attorney.
The logic was that if a “settlement factory” discount attorney is billing $300/hour, and his “streamlined” settlement negotiation takes him only five hours of time, then he should only bill you $1,500 (= 5 hours x $300/hour), not $2,500. So like so many other “scams” affiliated with settlement factories, even the amount they bill does not match the amount of work they do for a client.
Refocusing this article back to settlement factory websites not written by the attorneys who host them.
I have written many articles in the past about settlement factories, but to my surprise, now their settlement factory websites are yet one more scam. These same attorneys plaster the search engines and YouTube sites with ads and pay-per-click links to bring traffic (you) to their websites.
You click, they pay Google AdWords for you to visit their devoid-of-content site.
If you only knew how much these same attorneys pay per click (you can look them up on https://www.semrush.com), you would be absolutely floored! Type in “Strike 3 Holdings subpoena” [or the attorney websites who show up in the Google Paid Results to these searches] into SEMrush and you will be horrified if you learned that ONE PARTICULAR ATTORNEY regularly pays $60.00 PER CLICK in their Google AdWords campaigns.
If I told you that more than one attorney is also paying these crazy fees (rather than writing authentic, real content), you would be horrified and betrayed by these attorneys who fight for your click-juice. [For context, if they were paying $3/click, I wouldn’t balk. And, I have run Google AdWord campaigns in the past and would again in the future, but holy smokes!]
I would never pay $60 to have someone click on my site. They do, and this should concern you.
So, I am out of time once again, and I need to get back to work. With a chuckle, I wrote this quick article calling these guys out on their websites and their ghost-blogged content.
In sum: I always thought that a certain handful of bittorrent defense attorneys post repeating content that was so devoid of content (after all, how much can you write about the same thing?).
What I did not notice was that the articles these attorneys churn out might not have been written by those attorneys at all.
-Rob
P.S. – I wouldn’t be surprised if these same attorneys started panicking and writing “I’m authentic, I write my own content” articles over the coming days and weeks. It is usually the ones that jump who are actually guilty of the thing I have just pointed them out for.
