Michał Kasprzak / flickr One of the most damning accusations against copyright-trolling operation Prenda Law is that the attorneys who manage it engaged in identity theft. Corporate papers on Prenda shell companies were signed by Alan Cooper, the former housekeeper of John Steele. Cooper has said someone else signed his name; Prenda-linked lawyers have said Cooper is basically crazy. Crazy or not, Cooper lawyered up. He sued Prenda … [Read more...]

The Recording Industry Association of America gave up on its plan to sue piracy out of existence years ago. Instead of mass-copyright lawsuits, the group is embracing a mass-takedown strategy, sending notices to both infringing sites and the sites that link to them, such as Google. These notices are issued constantly and involve thousands of URLs that the RIAA wants taken down. It's become a giant-sized game of whack-a-mole and the record … [Read more...]

The Recording Industry Association of America gave up on its plan to sue piracy out of existence years ago. Instead of mass-copyright lawsuits, the group is embracing a mass-takedown strategy, sending notices to both infringing sites and the sites that link to them, such as Google. These notices are issued constantly and involve thousands of URLs that the RIAA wants taken down. It's become a giant-sized game of whack-a-mole and the record … [Read more...]

Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock Late last year, a vigorous and secretive patent troll began sending out thousands of letters to small businesses all around the country, insisting that they owed between $900 and $1,200 per worker just for using scanners. The brazen patent-trolling scheme, carried out by a company called MPHJ technologies and dozens of shell companies with six-letter names, has caught the attention of politicians. MPHJ and … [Read more...]

jsmjr / flickr Effingo Wireless, a San Antonio company without much more than a website and a patent, decided to sue Motorola [PDF] for patent infringement on Aug. 11, 2011. Four days later, Google announced it would be acquiring Motorola, lawsuits and all. That was probably bad news for Effingo, because even with patent lawsuits sprouting up right and left and the cost of defense in the millions, Google doesn't settle many cases. So … [Read more...]

The four lawyers linked to the Prenda Law copyright-trolling organization were slapped with an $81,000 sanctions order, which as of today, they have missed the deadline to pay. They did make time to file a last-minute motion to delay the sanctions, which only got referred back to the judge who's angry at them in the first place: US District Judge Otis Wright. Today Wright issued an order, predictably, denying the request by the Prenda crew for … [Read more...]