Choose authentic content. Avoid settlement factory websites.

Picture suggesting settlement factory websites are faked.

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.

Photo of man fleeing the scene.
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.

Picture suggesting the ghostwriting of blogged content.
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.

Malibu Media Anonymous Settlement is a misnomer.

malibu-media-case-consolidations

MALIBU MEDIA ANONYMOUS SETTLEMENTS, BUYER BEWARE.

The purpose of this article is to specifically discuss the prospect of a Malibu Media Anonymous Settlement. A Malibu Media lawsuit targets users based on bittorrent activities tracked over a long period of time. Malibu Media copyright infringement lawsuits are filed with a federal court, Malibu Media subpoenas are sent to ISP subscribers, and after realizing that filing a motion to quash may or may not be the best option, deciding whether to negotiate a settlement or to fight becomes the main consideration.

Malibu Media settlements themselves (not even considering a Malibu Media anonymous settlement, as we will discuss below) are very expensive — not because they ask for a lot of money for the bittorrent download of one X-art adult film, but because they ask for the settlement of EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE MALIBU MEDIA MOVIES YOU MAY HAVE DOWNLOADED OVER THE COURSE OF YEARS.  Thus, instead of asking for a settlement of, say, $3,500 for the download of one copyrighted video (as other copyright holders do), they’ll ask for a settlement of ALL 50 MOVIES they claim you downloaded over the last three (3) years.  This article will go into the various pitfalls a defendant may face when being lured into a Malibu Media anonymous settlement.

NOTE: BEFORE READING THIS ARTICLE: If you have not already done so, and you are implicated as a John Doe in a Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, read these first:
1) “Everything You Need To Know in One Page About Your Malibu Media, LLC (X-Art) Lawsuit [FAQ]

2) “In-Depth Malibu Media.  Their Lawsuits, Their Strategies, and Their Settlements

FOR IMMEDIATE CONTACT AN ATTORNEY: To set up a free consultation to speak to an attorney about your Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, click here.  Lastly, please feel free to e-mail me at info [at] cashmanlawfirm.com, or call 713-364-3476 to speak to me now about your case (I do prefer you read the articles first), or to get your questions answered.

Malibu Media’s list of “movies infringed” is often INCOMPLETE (and for a reason).

If you choose to fight and defend the claims against you, Malibu Media subpoena lawsuits have ‘slick tricks’ built into their lawsuits.  They file each lawsuit alleging copyright infringement of only one (1) video, and they list (for example,) the fifty (50) videos they claim you downloaded over the years.  However, they hold back information from the court and they do not list the newest X-Art videos you have downloaded in the recent months.  Thus, if the lawsuit was filed in July, 2017 they’ll only list downloads you participated in until February, 2017.  This leaves all of the Malibu Media downloads you participated in between February 2017 – July 2017 off of the lawsuit.

Why would they do this?  Because they know that when you start fighting your case, you might dispute a number of their claims.  You might even go line-by-line and claim that they did not follow the copyright laws in protecting their rights (e.g., Malibu Media has consistently fudged the ‘publication’ requirement, as I have fought with them on this topic in the past).  Even if you tried to negotiate a Malibu Media anonymous settlement, they still anticipated a way to trick you (more on this “John Doe, subscriber having IP address XYZ” issue below).  However, whether you are right or wrong, they always keep “extra ammunition” of other Malibu Media, LLC (X-Art) titles you downloaded as a threat against you fighting them on the merits.  For example, they might say “If you argue that this list is not accurate, we actually have many more titles we believe you have downloaded — we can list these too if you would like.”

Obviously it is more complicated than this, but point being, I have seen that Malibu Media LLC lawsuits always keeps some set of information ‘off of the table,’ and they reserve this information to gain additional leverage when an inexperienced attorney tries to fight them on the line-by-line details of their case (which, by the way, is often flawed or contains copy-and-paste mistakes from other lawsuits).  This creates a dangerous situation for the accused defendant who gets lured by his attorney into a Malibu Media anonymous settlement.

Have you read enough? Book Now to get help. > > >

Malibu Media anticipated anonymous settlements and built in a way to re-sue defendants who settled (or, re-approach them and ask for more money).

Now as far as negotiating a Malibu Media anonymous settlement, Malibu Media has been ‘slick’ here too.  Their lawsuits do not implicate you, a “John Doe” defendant, who has had many IP addresses over the past few years.  Rather, they implicate only “John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address 172.2.51.244,” a John Doe defendant who has been assigned a specific IP address on one day.

SPOILER: The Malibu Media anonymous settlement settling a John Doe case (no IP address specified) is different from a Malibu Media anonymous settlement settling a John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address XYZ case.

IP addresses are assigned to internet users when their router connects their computer to the internet.  That IP address does not belong to that internet user; rather, it is “leased” to that internet user for a limited time, usually 24 hours, 48 hours, or until they reboot their modem or otherwise obtain a new IP address.  Thus, the IP address you have today might not be the same IP address you had yesterday, and so on.  Now IP addresses are pulled from a limited pool of addresses, so a particular internet service provider (“ISP”) might assign the same IP address to a customer for a few days in a row, but that IP address does not belong to that internet user.  If it did, it would be called a “static IP address” which is significantly more expensive than the residential “dynamic IP addresses” leased to residential ISP customers.

Why is this relevant to you, the person behind the John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address 172.2.51.244 title?  Because IF you settled anonymously, you would be settling as John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address 172.2.51.244, and not as the John Doe Defendant having had many IP addresses leased to him.  Thus, Malibu Media, LLC could easily take your $12,000 settlement payment, say thank you, and then sue you again under a different “John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address [SOMETHING ELSE]” for this same set of movies allegedly downloaded.  If you settled anonymously, your attorney would have ‘unwittingly’ opened you up to this problem, because John Doe subscriber assigned IP address X is a different fictitious legal entity than John Doe subscriber assigned IP address Y.  This sounds like semantics, but buyer beware.  Doing this wrong can open you up to being solicited for another settlement for downloads that were done by “another John Doe subscriber.”

In sum, beware of the settlement factory attorney who tries to convince you to settle the claims against you “anonymously.”  In a Malibu Media, LLC case, doing so is simply reckless.

Malibu Media anonymous settlement “price gouging.”

Further, negotiating a Malibu Media anonymous settlement gives the Malibu Media copyright troll attorneys an opportunity to price gouge their settlement prices.  Why?  Because an attorney who comes to them asking them to settle anonymously (without disclosing to Malibu Media the identity of the defendant) prompts the Malibu Media attorney to inquire why that defendant wants to settle anonymously.  “What does he have to hide?,” they ask.

Immediately upon learning that the accused defendant wants to settle anonymously, they recognize that the defense attorney has lost all leverage in negotiating the settlement price, and they’ll “spike” the cost of the settlement.  “Anonymous settlements come at a price,” they may say.

Malibu Media anonymous settlement
geralt / Pixabay

Attorneys Advocating “Anonymous Settlements” are Deceiving You.

Thus, it is important to understand the mechanics of a settlement before jumping to ask for an anonymous settlement.  What most accused Malibu Media defendants do not realize is that the settlements ARE ALREADY ANONYMOUS [with minimal tweaking] without the defendant having to ask for it.  A diligent attorney will negotiate a confidentiality clause into the settlement agreement (or strengthen one that is already in their boilerplate settlement agreement) to prevent their attorneys from disclosing the identity of the defendant with anyone.

This means that your attorney can (and should) put your name in the settlement agreement itself.  This avoids the entire John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address [SOMETHING] issue, because it is actually the real person (not the fictitious John Doe legal entity having a particular IP address) who is settling.

Rather than taking the effort to actually negotiate the terms of the agreement, your settlement factory attorney will try to convince you that you won’t suffer if you try to settle anonymously.

 [This not only alleviates them of the need to negotiate the terms of the agreement, but it also allows them to use their “turn key” boilerplate e-mails, which the plaintiff attorneys (who have already agreed to a pre-arranged inflated settlement price) already know and recognize, so that they can ‘spike’ the settlement amount, gouge the settling defendant, and charge higher prices.  I won’t go into the dishonest attorney issue, kickbacks, etc., as I have written about these issues before.]

Once an accused Malibu Media defendant realizes that it is okay to allow his attorney to put his name in the settlement agreement, at that point, the Malibu Media settlement agreement itself covers 1) ALL PAST ACTS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT regarding 2) ALL OF MALIBU MEDIA’S TITLES, and based on the wording of the CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSE in the agreement the settlement truly becomes a “Malibu Media anonymous settlement.”

Have you read enough? Book Now to get help. > > >

Let’s look into this one level deeper, just to be sure that we have also solved the other ‘slick tricks’ Malibu Media lawsuits have built into their cases.

1) “ALL PAST ACTS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT”

Because the settlement agreement containing the name of the accused defendant (and not the so-called ‘anonymous’ fictitious John Doe entity), the settlement will cover “ALL PAST ACTS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.”  This means that the settlement will cover even those downloads that Malibu Media, LLC purposefully “left out” from the list of infringements filed with the lawsuit.  Further, the Malibu Media settlement agreement WILL EVEN THOSE DOWNLOADS MADE BY A “John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address” HAVING AN IP ADDRESS WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THE “John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address” IMPLICATED AS THE DEFENDANT IN THIS CASE.

In other words, by negotiating the terms of a Malibu Media settlement, but having the confidentiality clause protect the client’s identity, the settlement agreement having the client’s real name on it will not only be a true Malibu Media anonymous settlement, but it will also cover any other fictitious “John Doe” entity that could have downloaded any of Malibu Media movies, ever.

2) “ALL OF MALIBU MEDIA’S TITLES”

Malibu Media settlement agreements used to be very specific as to which specific Malibu Media titles were being settled, and the settlement used to cover ONLY THOSE TITLES and no other titles allegedly downloaded.  This was back when the Patrick Collins, Inc. v. John Does 1-1000 cases were still being filed.

Immediately we recognized that this limitation of the scope of the agreement to ONLY THOSE KNOWN TITLES DOWNLOADED exposed the client to multiple lawsuits for 1) Malibu Media movie titles that Malibu Media ‘slickly’ left out of their list, or 2) Malibu Media titles which their Guardaley investigators missed.  Thus today, when we negotiate a Malibu Media settlement, the settlement necessarily includes ALL PAST ACTS of copyright infringement FOR ALL OF MALIBU MEDIA’s MOVIES.

In sum, when dealing with a copyright troll such as Malibu Media, LLC, and you see that they do something innocuous such as changing the lawsuit names from “Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe” to “Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe, subscriber assigned IP address 214.42.955.8,” realize that THEY HAVE DONE THIS FOR A REASON.

What else can you tell me about the Malibu Media cases?

[2017 UPDATE] The best way to learn about Malibu Media, LLC is to read what happened to them as it happened.  The list of stories below (in the order I listed them) tell the Malibu Media story in a way that you will understand them.


FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MALIBU MEDIA, LLC:Again, if you have been implicated as a John Doe defendant in a Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, there are TWO (2) main articles you should read immediately:

1) “Everything You Need To Know in One Page About Your Malibu Media, LLC (X-Art) Lawsuit [FAQ],” and then

2) “In-Depth Malibu Media.  Their Lawsuits, Their Strategies, and Their Settlements.”

FOR IMMEDIATE CONTACT WITH AN ATTORNEY: To set up a free consultation to speak to an attorney about your Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, click here.  Lastly, please feel free to e-mail me at info[at] cashmanlawfirm.com, or call 713-364-3476 to speak to me now about your case (I do prefer you read the articles first), or to get your questions answered.

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.

    shalta book now cta

    REVISITED: Beware of the defense attorney “settlement factory.”

    This post was originally written as a “rant” against volume-based “settlement factory” attorneys.  At the time, the kind of damage they caused to accused defendants in bittorrent cases was unknown, as was their existence.  Even today, settlement factory defense attorneys continue to feed inquiring ‘John Doe’ subpoena recipients false information.  

    As a result, settlement prices paid to copyright trolls often end up being artificially inflated.  As of 4/17/2017, I have revisited the topic, and it is still as valid today as it was one year ago.

    After writing this article, Ernesto from Torrentfreak wrote an article entitled, “BEWARE: PIRACY DEFENSE LAWYERS CAN BE “TROLLS” TOO.“.  -Rob Cashman

    Beware of Attorney Settlement Factories

    I started writing this article because there is too much conflicting information floating around the web about whether to settle a bittorrent-based copyright infringement lawsuit.  The attorneys who are causing this confusion are trying to profit from the current broken state of the copyright laws.  These attorneys use fear tactics and manipulation to scare a John Doe Defendant into settling with their law firm.  

    Credible Websites Teach That Settlement is NOT a Requirement

    There are credible websites that blog almost daily on copyright troll issues.  

    see “Fight Copyright Trolls,”

    see “Die Troll Die.”

    Copyright Trolls Do Not Take Cases To Trial

    Because copyright infringement lawsuits are often based on scare tactics, and because copyright troll attorneys name only a small sliver of defendants sued, ignoring a copyright troll and his threats can be a good strategy.

    IGNORING A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CLAIM AGAINST YOU CAN OFTEN BE A VIABLE OPTION TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM (WITHOUT SPENDING $$$$ ON A LAWYER). 

    Thus, beware of the so-called “defense” attorneys who tell you that you will lose your home and your life savings if you do not settle.

    What are “SETTLEMENT FACTORY” defense attorneys?

    NOTE: In this section, I give you the red flags to look for to spot these attorneys, and I hope this helps clarify some of the conflicting information you get from speaking to different attorneys.

    “SETTLEMENT FACTORIES” are what I call law firms who focus on providing apparent “low cost settlements” to clients (as you will see, the settlements end up not being low cost).

    These settlement factory law firms hire multiple attorneys to solicit and lure accused ‘John Doe’ defendants into hiring them “for a cheap and anonymous settlement.”

    From a business perspective, more attorneys for the business owner means the ability to make more phone calls to solicit more accused defendants [to process more settlements], and the ability to “capture” more clients for their law firm means more profits.

    SETTLEMENT FACTORY law firms PRE-ARRANGE settlement amounts.

    Rather than actually negotiate a good settlement for their client, settlement factories run what I refer to as a “volume business.” They PRE-ARRANGE an often inflated settlement price with the copyright holder, so the copyright troll will agree to the arrangement.

    In return, the copyright troll allows that so-called attorney to not have to negotiate the settlement for each client, since they have a prearranged agreed-upon “settlement amount.”

    Why settlement factory attorneys are PART OF THE PROBLEM of copyright trolling.

    This arrangement creates a “cottage industry,” where the defense attorney and the plaintiff attorney (who are supposed to be opponents) are allies for profit.  Settlement factory attorneys are part of the problem of copyright trolling; they are not part of the solution, and the only one that gets hurt is the accused defendant.  Why?  Because with settlement factories, the accused defendant almost NEVER gets the lowest possible settlement amount.

    SETTLEMENT FACTORY law firms DO NOT NEGOTIATE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENTS either.

    What compounds the problem is that negotiating the settlement is only HALF of the solution. The SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT itself must also be negotiated.  However, settlement factory attorneys do not negotiate settlements either (even though they tell you they do).

    Why settlement agreements need to be negotiated.

    Settlement agreements need to be negotiated because “boilerplate” settlement agreements contain ADMISSIONS OF GUILT and UNFRIENDLY LANGUAGE.

    These boilerplate settlement agreements do not protect the client because they often:

    1. do not properly identify the accused defendant by name,
    2. they do not contain proper confidentiality clauses (to stop the plaintiff attorney from suing again or asking for more money later on), and
    3. they do not release the accused defendant from liability.
    Settlement factory defense attorneys.

    As a result of this article, settlement factory attorneys will take steps to hide their scheme.

    For me, where writing this article will become infuriating is that suddenly these attorneys and their “beefed up” staff of hired attorneys will now start advertising 1) that they spend the time to actively negotiate the best settlement for their client, and 2) that they take the careful time to negotiate the terms of the settlement agreement so that the accused John Doe Defendant will be released from liability and the negotiated terms will properly protect the client’s rights.  Sure they will.

    ‘RED FLAGS’ TO SPOT A SETTLEMENT FACTORY

    I know settlement factory attorneys follow this blog, and thus all I could say is “caveat emptor.”

    At the time of writing this blog, here are the items to look for:

    1) How long that attorney has been in practice [REMEMBER: “Copyright Troll” mass bittorrent lawsuits targeting multiple “John Doe” defendants have only been in existence only since 2010, so any attorney who claims he has been fighting copyright trolls for 20 years is obviously lying.],

    2) Check the attorney’s blog to see the HISTORY of his articles — was he one of the first attorneys who fought these cases, or is he a new “me too” copycat attorney who is standing on the shoulders of giants? (after reading this, no doubt these attorney will now add “older” articles to make their website look older),

    3) Check the blog article itself for “SEO OPTIMIZED” content, or “KEYWORDS” placed into the article.  Ask yourself, “was the purpose of this article to provide me valuable information? or was the purpose of the article to bulk it up with keywords so that search engine spiders will reward the author with first page rankings on the search engines?

    2017 UPDATE: When I mentioned SEO OPTIMIZED content, I am referring to the fact that settlement factory blog articles lack content.  In our blog, we have over 200+ information-packed articles that we wrote TO EDUCATE.  Obviously many clients came to our firm as a result of our articles, and this is fine.  However, settlement factories have ONE MOTIVE ONLY: TO PROFIT.  Look for sites that advertise to you rather than inform you and educate you.

    4) Last, but not least, check the EARLY ARTICLES of the blog to see whether the attorney actually tried to fight these cases and hash out the legal arguments, or whether they were merely reporting on the lawsuits already in existence to attract new business.  I call these attorneys “me too” attorneys, and you can usually spot them because all they do is report the cases.

    AUTHENTICITY AND ORIGINALITY

    In 2010, I and a small handful of attorneys were contacted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (better known as EFF) to help understand and resolve the developing copyright troll problem.  This was back when ISPs began sending letters out to their subscribers informing them that their ISP would be handing out their contact information and their identity to the plaintiff attorney / copyright holders unless they filed objections (or, “motions to quash”) with the courts. Thus, I credit the EFF for even noticing the copyright troll problem and contacting us to figure out what to do about it.

    COPYCATS / FOR PROFIT ATTORNEYS

    Unfortunately (or, fortunately, however you see it), that initial list of 20 attorneys has grown to over 100+ names, and some attorneys have negotiated with EFF to list them as representing clients in multiple states, hence increasing their visibility in an ever-growing list of lawyers. Watch for these attorneys — they are usually the “settlement factories” I referenced above, and again, caveat emptor.

    REPUTABLE ATTORNEYS DO EXIST

    Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you did not like me or my use of pretrial strategies (often making use of federal procedure) to defend a client. Or, let’s pretend for a moment that I could not take you as a client (e.g., because my case load was full, or because I did not have time to speak to you about your matter).

    Because there were only a handful of us attorneys on the original EFF list who knew anything about these copyright infringement lawsuits, over the years, we have become friends and have helped each other out on many of the lawsuits in which we represented both John Doe Defendants and “named and served” defendants. Some of these attorneys are still around today, and some have moved on to other areas of law.  Some of them have stopped taking clients because fighting mass bittorrent cases has become more burdensome than the effort was worth (especially when some copyright holders do not play fairly in discovery [think, Malibu Media, LLC]).

    PIPEDREAMS AND REFERRALS

    Finding “that special client who will pay my fees to fight this case to trial” for many attorneys has become an unrealized pipe dream, and is something us attorneys often discuss.  If you truly want to fight your case, I have nothing wrong with either me, or anyone else I trust representing you in your lawsuit (I will happily tout another attorney’s merits and advanced skillsets when speaking to clients). AND, I will happily refer you to someone if I find that one of my peers would better assist you.

    NO REFERRAL FEES

    I *DO NOT* believe in referral fees, nor do I “share the workload” with other attorneys (this is code word for “I referred you this client, so pay me a piece of the legal fees you receive and call it paying me for my “proportional efforts.”).  This is something that is often done in my field which, in my opinion, needs to stop.

    Over the years, I have upset many non-copyright attorneys who know nothing about these cases.  In the typical fashion, they call me with a client they would like to refer to me (coincidentally, asking to share in the fees, but not in the work).  I have rejected each request.

    So in hindsight, while I thought I’d be reintroducing “copyright troll” subpoenas and basic copyright infringement concepts to clear up some conflicting information found on the web, instead I am providing a clear warning to those who are being actively solicited by law firms. A law firm simply should not be calling you or contacting you to solicit your business.

    BACK TO IGNORING A CLAIM OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

    Copyright trolls sue many John Doe Defendants in one case, but only a small number of them are named and served.  When you are evaluating your options, STOP AND CONSIDER THE OPTION OF *NOT SETTLING*, BECAUSE *NOT SETTLING* A CLAIM OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CAN OFTEN BE A GOOD IDEA.

    Similarly, in a lawsuit, DOING NOTHING MAY OFTEN BE YOUR BEST STRATEGIC MOVE, as counterintuitive as that might sound.  Again, this is because much of the ‘copyright trolling’ problem is based on a bluff — namely, that the copyright holders have evidence against you, and they will take you to trial if you do not pay them money to settle.

    A Settlement Factory attorney makes NO MONEY if you ignore.

    When you are bombarded with attorneys and law firms who actively market their fear-based services by using “Google AdWords” (ethically or unethically “buying” more well known attorney’s names as keywords so that THEY show up at the top of a search).  Then, those attorneys have their “assistant” attorneys calling you and pushing you to anonymously settle the claims against you, think twice. Is this person trying to get you to be yet one more client in their “volume” business??

    WHY WE DISCUSS THE “IGNORE” OPTION WITH EVERY POTENTIAL CLIENT

    In every one of my calls, I discuss what I call the “ignore” option which in many people’s scenario is a viable option. In many cases, I even push a client towards the “ignore” side of things.

    [NOTE: There are many political reasons I have for this, such as “not feeding the troll,” or “not funding their extortion-based scheme,” or simply because I have been trying to change the copyright laws to limit or hinder a copyright holder’s ability to accuse or sue an internet user for the violation of that copyright holder’s copyrights, but NONE OF THOSE REASONS ARE REASON WHY I SUGGEST SOMEONE I SPEAK TO IGNORES THE CLAIMS AGAINST THEM.]

    WHEN TO CONSIDER THE “IGNORE” OPTION.

    Sometimes an individual’s circumstances allow them to ignore the lawsuit filed against them (or the copyright violation claimed against them in the DMCA notice).  Such factors include:

    1) the individual’s financial situation,

    2) whether they live in an apartment or a home,

    3) the location of that apartment or home,

    3) the state in which the plaintiff attorney has his law firm,

    4) whether that copyright holder authorizes his attorneys [and pays their fee] to “name and serve” defendants and move forward with trial,

    5) for strategy purposes, e.g., the psychological impact of having one or more John Doe Defendants ignore the claims against them (while other defendants rush to settle in fear of being named and served), or

    6) simply because ignoring is the only option in that person’s situation.

    IN SUMMARY

    In summary, this has been a stream of thought article, but if you have made it to this point, you now understand the difference between a defense attorney who does settlements (among other forms of representation), and the settlement factory.

    If the attorney you are speaking to is running your case as a volume business, or he is pushing you towards a “quick anonymous settlement” without showing you the merits of either 1) IGNORING, or 2) DEFENDING the claims against you, beware.

    And if you need help and want my honest opinion about your case, or whether a particular attorney is engaging in a certain practice, just ask me.  I do not need to have all of you as clients, and I will answer you honestly.  And if you need, I will provide you a referral.


    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.

       

      Turnkey Settlement Factory Defense Attorneys and Malibu Media LLC

      malibu-media-case-consolidations

      MALIBU MEDIA DEFENDANTS HAVE IT TOUGH ENOUGH

      Malibu Media, LLC v. Doe lawsuits have plagued the US federal courts so far with over 6,000 lawsuits filed nationwide.  The burden to the courts to manage each of these cases is large.  The emotional and financial burden to families faced with subpoenas sent to their ISPs forcing them to decide whether to file a motion to quash the subpoena or pay a large settlement is staggering.

      There is no public defender to represent John Doe Defendants against Malibu Media, LLC in motions to quash, and so-called defense attorneys are using the $150,000 statutory damages these cases come with to manipulate those they speak to into settling the Malibu Media lawsuit.  

      MAKING IT WORSE: SETTLEMENT FACTORY DEFENSE ATTORNEY PRESSURE CLIENTS INTO PAYING OVERPRICED SETTLEMENTS.

      What many John Doe defendants have told me in response to the articles that have been written on “Turnkey” / Settlement Factory defense attorneys is that they have been overpaying to the tune of thousands of dollars per settlement because their attorney agreed to settle for a “per case” amount significantly higher than I know Malibu Media, LLC would have come down to in a settlement negotiation.

      For this reason, I am posting again on the topic of defense attorneys who run what I call “turnkey settlement factory defense attorneys”.  

      In this article, I am not blowing the whistle on the defense-attorney-working-for-plaintiff “weretroll” issue (those who know what I am speaking about have been informed about it), but I am revisiting the caution an accused defendant should have when hiring an attorney who promises a ‘quick settlement.’

       [NOTE: BEFORE READING THIS ARTICLE: If you have not already done so, and you are implicated as a John Doe in a Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, read these first:
      1) “Everything You Need To Know in One Page About Your Malibu Media, LLC (X-Art) Lawsuit [FAQ]
      2) “In-Depth Malibu Media.  Their Lawsuits, Their Strategies, and Their Settlements

      shalta book now cta

      FOR IMMEDIATE CONTACT AN ATTORNEY: To set up a free consultation to speak to an attorney about your Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, click here.  Lastly, please feel free to e-mail me at info [at] cashmanlawfirm.com, or call 713-364-3476 to speak to me now about your case (I do prefer you read the articles first), or to get your questions answered.]

      settlement-factory-defense-attorneys Screenshot from Malibu Media, LLC's X-Art.com website.
      Screenshot from Malibu Media, LLC’s X-Art.com website.

      “TURNKEY” / SETTLEMENT FACTORY DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

      There are attorneys who have turned the copyright infringement lawsuits into ‘turnkey’ settlement operations, ‘riding the gravy train of a broken system’, as one prominent blogger correctly put it.

      These attorneys scale up and hire attorneys to answer phone calls, but instead of honestly evaluating the meritorious defenses of a would-be client, they scare, threaten, and apply high-pressure tactics to accused defendants manipulating them to settle the claims against them.

      Knowing that Malibu Media, LLC runs their settlement operations from a location above-the-head of the local attorney who is filing the lawsuit, their settlement prices have become well known.  

      But Settlement Factory defense attorneys have been known to offer their clients higher than normal settlement amounts in return for foregoing the need to actually participate in settlement negotiations.  

      RUNNING THE NUMBERS OF “LOW COST” SETTLEMENT FACTORY DEFENSE ATTORNEYS vs. “ORDINARY” ATTORNEYS.

      Thus, where a Malibu Media, LLC settlement would go down to $300 per title, the ‘turnkey’ or settlement factory defense attorneys will be more than happy to agree to a $600 per title settlement in return for a quick settlement.  

      The problem is that Malibu Media asks for settlements for 20+ titles in a lawsuit, so a $600/title x 20 title settlement = a $12,000 settlement.

      That same so-called defense attorney will charge $800 for the negotiations ($400 x 2 hours, although 2 hours were not spent on the client’s matter), and the client will pay $12,800 total.  

      However, if he hired an attorney who charged $2,400 ($300 x 8 hours), and the settlement ended up being $6,000 ($300/title x 20 titles = a $6,000 settlement), the extra few bucks paid to the attorney to actually negotiate the settlement would save the client a little under $6,000 than if they paid a settlement factory defense attorney.

      In sum, the sign that you are dealing with a ‘turnkey’ operation or ‘settlement factory defense attorneys’ is unusually low costs to represent a defendant in a settlement.

      NOTE: Don’t get me wrong, I am all for low-cost representation, but in a law firm, you pay for the time that attorney expects to spend on your case. If he is billing $400/hour (this surprised me too), and he charges a flat fee of $800, expect that only two (2) hours will be spent on your case IN TOTAL (including the so-called ‘free’ conversation. I have had too many run-ins with these attorneys and their methods, and all I can say is that they are part of the problem, not the solution.

      YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

      There is not much more to this topic than this.  You get what you pay for.  If an attorney charges a certain amount of money, assume he will be doing work on your behalf for that amount of time.  

      Now obviously as a response to this article, the attorneys I am writing about will lower the per hour rate they charge and will claim that they are working more hours (as exposing a fraud usually causes the ones committing the fraud to shift to mask their scheme), but it is what it is.

      WHY SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS TAKE TIME

      Representing a Malibu Media, LLC “John Doe” client in a settlement can take a number of hours.  

      The simple steps of preparing the case, sending the letter of representation, opening up communications with the plaintiff attorney, discussing the claims against the client, negotiating a settlement price, writing up the settlement agreement, facilitating the settlement payment (or settlement payments), and seeing to it that the plaintiff attorney timely dismisses the client before the deadline to file an answer with the court passes (and all this time communicating with the client at each step), well, this obviously is not a two-hour representation.

      As a hint to what is coming for the Malibu Media, LLC client and our Cashman Law Firm, PLLC, we have been working on shifting our strategy in view of Matthew Sag’s “Defense Against the Dark Arts of Copyright Trolling” article, which we believe will change the way defense attorneys handle Malibu Media, LLC cases.

      What else can you tell me about the Malibu Media cases?

      [2017 UPDATE] The best way to learn about Malibu Media, LLC is to read what happened to them as it happened.  The list of stories below (in the order I listed them) tell the Malibu Media story in a way that you will understand them.


      FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MALIBU MEDIA, LLC:Again, if you have been implicated as a John Doe defendant in a Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, there are TWO (2) main articles you should read immediately:

      1) “Everything You Need To Know in One Page About Your Malibu Media, LLC (X-Art) Lawsuit [FAQ],” and then
      2) “In-Depth Malibu Media.  Their Lawsuits, Their Strategies, and Their Settlements.”

      FOR IMMEDIATE CONTACT WITH AN ATTORNEY: To set up a free consultation to speak to an attorney about your Malibu Media, LLC lawsuit, click here.  Lastly, please feel free to e-mail me at info[at] cashmanlawfirm.com, or call 713-364-3476 to speak to me now about your case (I do prefer you read the articles first), or to get your questions answered.

      CONTACT FORM: Alternatively, sometimes people just like to contact me using one of these forms.  If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

        NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

        Book a Phone Consultation with a Cashman Law Firm Attorney

        Weretrolls, Turnkey Settlement Factories, and Bad ‘Defense’ Attorneys

        TorrentLawyer University | Named and Served Defendant

        Here I describe settlement factories, weretrolls (defense attorneys who turn and sue downloaders), and bad defense attorneys.

        settlement-factories-weretrolls-bad-defense-attorneys

        BAD DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

        The topic of BAD ‘DEFENSE’ ATTORNEYS keeps making its way into every single article I post, but I keep editing the topic out because it is so DISTRACTING from any topic I am trying to write about.  

        However, this topic is so important to the message and essence of this blog — exposing scams and schemes surrounding copyright trolls — that bad attorneys deserve their own section.

        However, unlike COPYRIGHT TROLL ATTORNEYS who do not really care that I write about them or their lawsuits, BAD ‘DEFENSE’ ATTORNEYS have very thin skins, and they take action immediately, often changing their website to adjust around what I have warned against.

        Then they’ll go on Twitter and the social networking sites, re-tweet what I have written about them, and loudly proclaim that they hate these people too (when it was them I was writing about in the first place).

        In sum, I have found that the more I expose a BAD ‘DEFENSE’ ATTORNEY, the better I make them at succeeding in their scheme.  And because it helps no one to teach an unethical attorney where he is exposed (remember, my focus is on educating “John Doe Defendants” on how to handle the copyright infringement lawsuits they find themselves in), sometimes I just stay quiet and I leave these exposing factors as they are for other people to pick up on.

        [NOTE: If you are reading this blog, you are part of an inner-circle of readers, likely Twitter buddies of mine.  Short of explicitly blocking these attorneys from seeing my Twitter feed (and I have done this at times), I am keeping this article off of my TorrentLawyer blog feed.]

        SETTLEMENT FACTORIES / “SETTLEMENT FACTORY” DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

        There are attorneys who have turned the copyright infringement lawsuits into ‘turnkey’ settlement operations (“settlement factories”), ‘riding the gravy train of a broken system’, as one prominent blogger correctly put it (if you want me to reference you here, let me know).  

        These attorneys scale up and hire attorneys to answer phone calls, but instead of honestly evaluating the meritorious defenses of a would-be client, they scare, threaten, and apply high-pressure tactics to accused defendants manipulating them to settle the claims against them.

        Typically, the sign that you are dealing with a ‘turnkey’ operation is unusually low costs to represent a defendant in a settlement.  (Don’t get me wrong, I am all for low-cost representation, but in a law firm, you pay for the time that attorney expects to spend on your case.  If he is billing $400/hour (this surprised me too), and he charges a flat fee of $800, expect that only two (2) hours will be spent on your case IN TOTAL (including the so-called ‘free’ conversation).  

        I have had too many run-ins with these attorneys and their methods, and all I can say is that they are part of the problem, not the solution.

        (FULL DISCLOSURE: My law firm also does settlements as a step in the progression of steps to defend a client.  

        Sometimes settlements are a good solution, and sometimes they are merely a useful step in helping a client plan for what to expect in the form of opposition from a plaintiff attorney (a ‘copyright troll’ who is clearly running his cases to elicit settlements is often woefully unprepared to defend the claims against my client in the courtroom).

        I also do not fault the many attorneys who do negotiate settlements as part of their overall defense arsenal in representing clients; I fault the law firms who use manipulative tactics to scare their own clients into settling when another strategy would have gotten them dismissed from the case without paying a settlement.)

        “WERETROLL” ATTORNEYS (THOSE WHO PRETEND TO DEFEND, BUT ARE LOYAL TO THE ‘COPYRIGHT TROLL’ ATTORNEYS).

        This is a horrible reality, but there is no quick money in the defense side of the lawsuits.  The alluring rush of settlement commissions (I call these ‘kickbacks’), notoriety, and a sense of empowerment no doubt come from those who team up with the copyright holders.

        However, a ‘weretroll’ profits from both sides of the lawsuit (from the defense side AND from the plaintiff side) and they continue the loud facade that they are representing defendants when they simply are not.  

        These attorneys might as well call their law firms ‘slaughterhouses’, because all they do is take scared clientele, and serve them to the copyright trolls to be slaughtered.

        These attorneys are sometimes masterful in their marketing, but their clients do not know that they end up paying a premium for the settlements they pay to the copyright trolls.  

        This premium the ‘weretroll’ attorney would receive might be the difference between a ‘fair’ settlement and the inflated settlement they ultimately force upon their clients.  (Being real, no settlement is ‘fair’, but here is not the right place to go into it.)

        I have seen this kind of ‘weretroll’ attorney a number of times since we have represented clients since 2010, and usually, EVENTUALLY they will ‘switch sides’ and stop pretending to be on the defense side of things, and they will outright start suing the very kind of defendants they once promised to defend.  

        My best guess is that psychologically, it messes with an attorney’s head when they say one thing and do another (and this ‘need to come clean’ is why John Steele, mastermind of the Prenda Law Inc. scheme, just pleaded guilty and admitted every single one of his wrongs).  However, there are still a few holdovers, and I usually don’t even need to mention them because other bloggers such as FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollDie have done a good job calling them out.

        Even so, people have often called me after speaking to one of these attorneys, and they regularly tell me they ‘felt’ that something was wrong in their gut.  

        I usually tell these people to trust their instincts, and if I cannot take them as a client, I’ll refer them to an attorney who not only has a good reputation, but who I would personally call for help if I ever was put in similar circumstances as those I speak to are in.

        (Funny enough, this happens in a firm such as mine when I take multiple clients for a particular set of cases. Then I stop taking clients until current clients get dismissed from the cases, or I cause the case itself to implode by speaking to a judge or a clerk or showing up to hearings [I’m very satisfied when this happens])

        BAD LEGAL SYSTEM – NO PUBLIC DEFENDER FOR ‘CIVIL’ CASES FILED IN FEDERAL COURTS (WHERE ABUSIVE SCHEMES, TROLLS, AND UNETHICAL ACTS HAPPEN).

        (Not exactly relevant to this topic, but it too deserves space.)  

        Here I have spent 6+ paragraphs detailing the pitfalls a client could fall into when hiring a defense attorney, and I did not address the faulty legal system itself.  

        What is missing from the federal courts on the civil side of the lawsuit is some ‘public defender’ or attorney paid for by the court to represent defendants who cannot afford to represent themselves.  I would happily volunteer for this position here in the Texas federal courts because it is very needed.

        Further, with the copyright laws and DMCA statutes as they are, there is no mechanism or method to force a copyright holder to consider the circumstances of a defendant, where even if that defendant is guilty, the copyright holder would agree to release that defendant from liability just because they cannot afford to mount a minimal defense.

        What I just wrote sounds hokey, but the $150,000 statutory damages coupled with the high cost of representing a client in a copyright infringement case creates an ‘uneven playing field’ where the copyright holders (the ‘copyright trolls’ can run rampant suing hundreds of downloaders with the same set of boilerplate filings, but ONE DEFENDANT needs to spend thousands or more to pay for a minimal defense.

        In short, the public defender system for civil cases is broken, and because of this, you will often hear the stories of “old ladies,” “the elderly,” and “war vets” who are thrown through copyright infringement lawsuits, even though they don’t have the funds to defend themselves (and too often, they don’t even have an attorney to defend themselves).  

        To implement a defense, our firm does take cases at reduced rates and we even provide pro bono (free) representation for those who need our help as well, but comparing the number of calls I get with the number of clients I can take on, it is a daunting task.

        THEN THERE IS MY KIND OF LAW FIRM

        Then there are law firms such as mine (Cashman Law Firm, PLLC) and others like mine who will take the accused defendant through the steps of:

        1) analyzing the case,

        2) reviewing the potential damages given the circumstances,

        3) faithfully reviewing each option with the accused defendant given their particular circumstances,

        …and we do this for free as “free legal assistance,” often spending an hour or more with accused defendants without the intention that they ever become clients.  I have literally thousands of people who our firm has helped this way.  

        We are not “Wal*mart” low as far as our prices go, and we cannot compete with a Legal Zoom.  However, we do minimize our expenses as much as possible, and we do not bill multiple clients for the work done once on a case.  This sounds unimpressive, but it is a big benefit to our paying clients because many of our clients are “John Doe” Defendants in the same lawsuit.  

        Similarly, once a settlement contract and terms is negotiated with a particular attorney for one client, there is no need to bill future clients for settlement negotiations (unless there are specific goals or needs specific to a particular client, and then we would bill for the time it would take to accomplish those goals or needs.)  

        Lastly, we have set up methods of allowing clients to spread out the cost of their attorney fees, sometimes over the course of six months.  We also do not charge clients for credit card fees or other miscellaneous expenses, because this is part of the cost of doing business.

        IN CONCLUSION, A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MY OWN BELIEFS

        So I am ending this article not with a bang, but with a whimper.  One of the biggest contributions I have made to the copyright troll cases is that I have shared who the plaintiff attorneys are, what their proclivities are, and when possible, I have shared when there is a link or connection between apparently unrelated attorneys to help people identify a hidden agenda or uncover a strategy.  This has been useful to literally more clients than I ever thought I would work with when I started this blog.

        Part of being a defense attorney, I too have been solicited to ‘switch sides’ or engage in nefarious actions by a number of copyright holders and trolls.  

        I simply believe too strongly in what I do, and I am not greedy, and I have enough to support my family and meaningfully contribute to my community doing what I do.  

        I personally hold very staunch beliefs about copyright, infringement, and the privacy and technology concerns surrounding these cases, so I have a personal stake in directing the outcome of these cases.  

        I simply do not believe in the plaintiff ‘copyright troll’s’ viewpoints, or what they have to offer, and my law firm will be fine if these copyright troll cases dropped off the map forever, never to return.

        While I can never know for sure which defense attorney is doing what, I have been made privy to a number of schemes, and which copyright trolls are doing what.  Thus, I have been able to accurately spot a defense attorney who has been compromised or corrupted, and I am sad to say that some of these defense attorneys, I once called friends and peers.  However, although most of them have flamed out and have long since switched sides after becoming corrupted, there are still a few bad ‘defense’ attorneys who fit the two descriptions I have written about above.

        5/2/2017 UPDATE: DieTrollDie has written an article on the topic of settlement factories, entitled “Greed And The BT Copyright Troll Settlement Factories.”  It is good to see that the topic of corrupted defense attorneys and settlement factories is gaining traction.


        CONTACT FORM:
         Most of you reading this article already speak to me daily on Twitter and WhatsApp. However, if you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, or if you have evidence, proof, or you have reason to believe that a certain attorney has engaged in a certain practice, please feel free to share this with me using the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will happily keep your identity as my source confidential.