Feds indict two men for alleged $6 million porno-trolling collection extortion scheme
Source: Washington Post
December 19 at 5:58 AM
More than three years have passed since a federal judge in California sanctioned attorneys Paul R. Hansmeier and John L. Steele for using legal loopholes to extract settlements from people they accused of illegally downloading pornography.
Their tactics were complicated but effective. The attorneys, who ran a firm called Prenda Law, would use shell companies to buy up copyrights for pornographic movies, then upload those movies to file-sharing websites such as Pirate Bay, where they would monitor who downloaded them. In many cases, the attorneys would send threatening cease-and-desist letters to users who downloaded the films, accusing them of copyright infringement and offering to settle cases for about $4,000, according to court documents.
When the operation came to light in 2013, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright said the attorneys had “defrauded” the court and called Prenda a “porno-trolling collective.”
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According to the indictment, Hansmeier, 35, and Steele, 45, used a network of “sham” companies to buy the rights to pornographic films with titles that included “Sexual Obsession,” “Busty Beauty in Red Lingerie,” and other names too risque to publish here, then they had their firm’s employees upload the movies to BitTorrent sites. The attorneys would track down the IP addresses of people who downloaded the films by filing fraudulent copyright claims and securing subpoenas against Internet service providers, the indictment says.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/19/feds-indict-two-men-for-alleged-6-million-porno-trolling-collection-extortion-scheme/
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