Sperlein
Case amended, ransoms paid
The troll started naming people. First amended complaint was filed.
He also voluntary dismissed 51 Does, which means that he collected ransom ) (~$90K) from about 20% of the crowd.
This guy is cunning, relentless and dangerous. If this situation slips under EFF’s radar (and I’m afraid it will — they don’t have time even to read emails), a dangerous precedent can be set.
He must be stopped. Please share ideas how.
Fight © Trolls 
I think we need to write to these judges informing them of this scam. Detail the patterns of these lawyers and rights holders. Point out the suspect nature of what they present as evidence for discovery. Point out how they are also trying to dodge the court fees associated with filing by coming up with this civil conspiracy argument. Tell the judges that in the people like this guy are not interested in actually proving their case, they are interested in turning the court into an ATM. They know full well that even if they won a case they would likely bankrupt the kind of people they pursue and end up not getting anywhere near what the statutory damages call for. They are looking for profit not relief.
One thing I would like to see is an open index of all of these complaints much as you have done with your own case. That is more up to date than some of the other sources available.
Another thing to do is file a complaint with the bar association associated with this person’s license. Detail the same points. Show the pattern of behavior.
PLEASE FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE CALIFORNIA BAR:
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Attorneys/LawyerRegulation/FilingaComplaint.aspx
Anon, do you have an idea how to get information to the Judge? I don’t think he has time to read informal letters. The whole point of my filings in this case was to inform the Judge about the trolling business model. I filed two dockets with this information, but since my first motion was vacated after the change of the Judge, and the second motion was struck, I don’t know whether the current Judge ever looked at my filings.
If anyone is in SF, note that the Court has a Legal Help Center (San Francisco) for pro se litigants. I hope that one can get a consultation as long as he has not yet formally listed an attorney as his rep.
Interesting: the Center is a project of the Bar Association of San Francisco, so maybe one of us could make an appointment with them and ask both
1) how we deliver information to the Judge (in fact, just making sure that the Judge reads my Dockets 25 and 38) will be enough, I think.
2) what each of us should and should not write in his complaint to the CA Bar to make these complaints effective. (My concern is that the complaint page talks about client-attorney issues, not about a rival’s attorney.)
Well the judge’s chambers can be contacted. It may be possible to inform them about these stunts that way. Contacting the chambers of the judge may also be useful if you are a party to one of these cases and you are getting harassing phone calls, letters, or emails etc. I’m definitely not a lawyer just a concerned citizen who has noticed these kinds of cases.
It is my suspicion that the judges hearing these cases simply do not realize what kind of stunt this whole thing really is. These cases are all relatively underneath the radar especially smaller cases such as your own. My idea with respect to writing the judges detailing the patterns of these lawyers indeed this entire cottage industry is to raise their profile.
Right now a similar troll John Steele is busy judge shopping and trying to avoid a specific judge, Milton Shadur. This particular judge is wise to Steele’s game and won’t let him play the game that he wants. Same goes for Evan Stone. As long as these people can pretend that they are serious about defending their clients’ copyrights judges will continue to give these people the benefit of the doubt and grant discovery which is the real goal here.
Recently there was a case where the FBI raided someone’s house on suspicion of downloading child porn. Turns out it was the next door neighbor. A month or two later some Canadian porn company VPR internationale (A client of John Steele if memory serves me.) tried to start ransoming people. They were denied discovery and one of the things that particular judge cited was this FBI incident along with other technical issues that people have brought up in the context of these cases. Hell at this rate it might not hurt to write a letter to the legal department of your ISP if you get a notice from one of these forked tongued demons. Though I’m sure the ISP’s do realize that a scam is being run here since they have to notice the avalanche of record requests they have been receiving lately.
Can you contact me asap, I need some info for a news article?