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'Copyright Troll' Lawyer Wants to Restart Pirate Honeypot From PrisonErnesto Van der Sar, 22 Jul 09:33 PM Last summer, a U.S. District Court in Minn

'Copyright Troll' Lawyer Wants to Restart Pirate Honeypot From Prison Ernesto Van der Sar, 22 Jul 09:33 PM Last summer, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release. Hansmeier was a key player in the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent. While suing alleged pirates is not illegal, Prenda Law went much further. Over the years the firm faced negative court rulings over identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception. The Original Prenda Honeypot Most controversial were the shocking revelations that Prenda itself produced adult videos and uploaded their own torrents to The Pirate Bay. In doing so, they created a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirate downloads. The allegations were serious enough to land on the radar of US law enforcement agencies which launched a criminal investigation, culminating in prison sentences for the two key players. Today, Paul Hansmeier and his former colleague John Steele are both in prison. While the latter received a reduced sentence for his cooperative stance, Hansmeier continues to appeal his sentence to this day. From prison, he also continues to wage legal battles. Earlier this year Hansmeier requested a temporary release from prison, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, and he has been active on other fronts as well. Hansmeier's New Adult Movie Copyright This week, another handwritten letter from Hansmeier arrived at the court. This time it doesn't contain any legal requests. Instead, it's a straightforward declaration about a change in economic circumstances. This could be just a formality as part of bankruptcy proceedings but in this case, it points to something bigger. "Defendant Paul Hansmeier, acting out of an abundance of caution, respectfully notifies the relevant parties that he now owns the right to a short adult movie," the letter reads. There are no further details available in the letter but a search through court records possibly provides more insight. In a separate case, Hansmeier reveals that he would like to sue alleged pirates again, from prison. This scheme is detailed in a complaint Hansmeier filed at a federal court in Columbia late May, targeting U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Hansmeier Wants to Sue Pirates, Again The convicted attorney explains that he would like to "enforce copyrights" via the Olan Mills method. In doing so, he plans to "retain an investigator to make his copyrighted works available to suspected infringers via notorious digital piracy sites." Alleged pirates who fall for this scheme will then be sued and can expect a settlement offer to resolve the case. This is more or less the same model as the original Prenda honeypot scheme but this time it would be out in the open. Hansmeier asks the federal court for a declaration that U.S. Attorney General William Barr will not go after him for fraud or extortion. According to the convicted attorney, the US Constitution prohibits the Attorney General from doing so. If there are any objections, the US should intervene in the yet-to-be-filed piracy cases instead. US District Judge James Boasberg reviewed the request but decided to dismiss the complaint last week, noting that "the Attorney General has absolute discretion in deciding whether to investigate claims for possible criminal or civil prosecution." As mentioned earlier, soon after, Hansmeier informed another court about the rights he now has to a short adult movie, so it may very well be that he will go ahead nonetheless. An 'Open' Honeypot There will be one key difference between the older honeypot scheme and the new one. In the past, Hansmeier and his colleagues concealed their involvement in the cases, using alter egos such as "Ingenuity 13." According to the news plans, everything will be in the open. TorrentFreak obtained a copy of a draft complaint Hansmeier plans to send to alleged pirates. This will clearly state his name, his current circumstances, as well as a detailed description of the honeypot scheme. "Plaintiff Paul Hansmeier is a natural person and is an inmate at Sandstone Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota," the draft complaint targeting a hypothetical pirate reads. "Plaintiff's investigator posted a torrent file to a notorious digital piracy website. Defendant downloaded the torrent file and opened it in specialized software, which resulted in Defendant accessing Plaintiff's computer systems, which Plaintiff leases from a third-party, and copying the video," it adds. The proposed openness and transparency will come after people are caught, of course. We doubt that any of the future honeypot torrents will carry this information. It's quite bizarre to learn that a convicted attorney wants to restart his copyright-trolling venture from prison. While this may lead some to believe that Hansmeier has lost it, there might also be some method to the madness. We are no experts on criminal law, but Hansmeier has proven to be rather determined in the battle against his criminal conviction. Keeping this in mind, the plan to restart his business in the open may in some way be a ploy to aid his defense. If that is the case, and whether that will have any effect has yet to be seen. However, we'll certainly keep a close eye on any new "Hansmeier-related" torrents and lawsuits that pop up. — A copy of Hansmeier's complaint targeting U.S. Attorney General William Barr, detailing his plans, is available here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Warning for Twitter Users in Japan Following Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Andy Maxwell, 22 Jul 01:29 PM With more than 330 million active users, Twitter is a true internet giant that gives anyone with an internet connection and an account to have their say on whatever they like. Whether insightful, provocative, or even thoughtless, the overwhelming majority of tweets cause no legal issues. Every now and again, however, cases can attract the attention of lawyers who believe their clients' rights have been breached. Of course, copyright infringement is one of the most common issues and a case in Japan has put Twitter users on notice, not only concerning what they post to the platform but also what they can safely retweet to others. The controversy began in 2014 when a photographer found that one of his images featuring a lily had been copied from his website and posted to Twitter without his permission. Additionally, he found that other users had retweeted the image from their own accounts. A Twitter feature meant that the retweeted images were cropped, removing the photographer's name. The photographer wanted to discover not only the identity of the original poster but also the retweeters so took the matter to court. The Tokyo District Court found that the original posting of the image infringed the photographer's copyright but dismissed the claims against the retweeters. Dissatisfied with the decision, the photographer took his case to the High Court handling intellectual property matters. That court agreed with the lower court that the original image posting had breached the photographer's copyright. In respect of the retweeters, however, the High Court found they had violated the photographer's moral rights, due to the Twitter cropping feature that removed his name, identifying him as the creator of the photograph. As a result, the High Court ordered Twitter to hand over the email addresses not only of the original poster but also those of three other Twitter users who retweeted the image. Twitter appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and essentially took responsibility for the cropping of the images, a feature that wasn't under the control of its users. The company argued that any decision against them could have a chilling effect on its platform. The arguments fell on deaf ears. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Supreme Court ordered Twitter to hand over the email addresses of the three retweeters after finding that the photographer's rights were indeed infringed when Twitter's cropping tool removed his identifying information. Four out of five judges on the bench sided with the photographer, with Justice Hayashi dissenting. He argued that ruling in favor of the plaintiff would put Twitter users in the position of having to verify every piece of content was non-infringing before retweeting. The other judges said that despite these problems, the law must be upheld as it is for content published on other platforms. "Twitter has 45 million users in Japan. It is hoped that the company will take action," Presiding Justice Saburo Tokura said, as reported by Japan Times. What the photographer will do with the emails addresses of the Twitter users is unclear but given the legal action undertaken thus far, it seems somewhat likely that similar could follow against the infringers. Perhaps more importantly, around 45 million Twitter users in the country, most of whom won't have heard about the case, will now be exposed to action, if they don't take precautions over what they retweet. There is a possiblity that Twitter itself will find a solution but the company is yet to make an announcement. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2020 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company