Every few years it is important to rehash some older bittorrent concepts which are still relevant to today’s copyright infringement lawsuits.
Case consolidations (until now) happened when a federal judge lumped together different cases which all suffered from the same flaws, e.g., improper jurisdiction, improper joinder, etc. and they dismissed them all in one order. This was a good thing! However, when a troll-friendly judge consolidates a plaintiff attorneys case to keep the cases alive, but to manage the dockets, e.g., to avoid inconsistent rulings, while this in itself is a good thing for the court (and for justice), it is a bad thing for the defendants accused in those copyright infringement cases.
It is very easy to put up a banner claiming “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED — NO MORE BITTORRENT CASES IN SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK,” but reality is not that simple. A judge can give a ruling, and it can be a darned good ruling which is binding on all other judges in that federal district (similarly, … Read more
5/17/2012 NOTE: I want to make sure the blog continues to be a source of accurate information, and so while I have no doubt that the forum shopping I speak of in this blog happens (especially with copyright trolls filing lawsuits all over the place, sometimes implicating the same defendant in different cases (as is … Read more
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — Everyone knows by now that DC is not a friendly jurisdiction to be sued in. Like Washington D.C., the judges do not follow one another, and each judge does what he or she feels should be policy. Two examples — Judge Beryl Howell, a copyright lobbyist turned federal judge, and Judge … Read more