Copyright trolls
The end of Evan Stone’s career? The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court affirms sanctions
This is a quick post to break the news. I expect ArsTechnica to come up with a detailed article later today. For those who don’t know who Evan Stone is, read an earlier ArsTechnica’s article “Sanctioned: P2P lawyer fined $10,000 for ‘staggering chutzpah'” by Nate Anderson. “Staggering chutzpah” indeed: although Stone is not active on the porn scene, he did not abandon his greedy habit and currently shakes down anime fans. Not for long, not for long…
Update 07/13/2012: of course ArsTechnica came up with a good story.
Just one quick note. Looking at the following paragraph, I have a warm feeling that this event will reverberate beyond the bridge, under which Evan Stone dwells:
Stone committed those violations as an attempt to repeat his strategy of suing anonymous internet users for allegedly downloading pornography illegally, using the powers of the court to find their identity, then shaming or intimidating them into settling for thousands of dollars — a tactic that he has employed all across the state and that has been replicated by others across the country.
Why am I so excited? Because it is clear that the Fifth Circuit is aware of the copyright trolling plague and obviously not happy about it: just re-read the quote.
Enjoy the feast of common sense:
Thanks to Steve Glista for breaking the news.
Coverage
- ArsTechnica: Copyright troll: $10,000 sanctions upheld by appeals court are “bulls**t”; says ISPs are looking out for their highest-paying customers—pirates by Cyrus Farivar.
- EFF|Deeplinks: Fifth Circuit Upholds Sanctions Award Against Copyright Troll Attorney by Matt Zimmerman.
- TorrentFreak: Copyright Troll Lawyer Slammed By Court of Appeals by enigmax.
- Techdirt: Copyright Troll Evan Stone Loses Again; Sanctions Upheld For ‘Staggering Chutzpah’ In Abusing Subpoena Powers by Mike Masnick.
- Wall Street Journal|Law blog: Sanctions, Subpoenas and Porn: A Copyright Tale by Joe Palazzolo.
- Find Law: Evan Stone Gets ‘EFF’-ed Up in Porn Copyright Trolling Sanctions by Robyn Hagan Cain.
Update
7/1/2016
Recently I learned that Evan Stone is currently running for a Judge of the 393rd District Court in Denton County. Unreal.
Fight © Trolls 
SubsCribe!
Wow. What a kick in the stones. That’s gotta hurt. Dumbass had it coming though…
The public will not be even with this scumbag till the victims are allowed to rape this guy with a flaming chainsaw with Tabasco sauce lube.
Just the mental picture of “a flaming chainsaw with Tabasco sauce lube” is painful. I like it!
Please don’t get me going on this topic….
It has taken two years – But well worth the wait.
Hopefully the Buffy and Duffy comedy hour will be next.
Ordering champagne tonight! Whenever anything troll related gets before a Circuit Court and comes back bad for trolldom it is a cause to celebrate (umm SJD, please correct me if wrong, but this is the first troll related matter to get before a Circuit Court and, if so, more champagne!).
This is especially good news for Does in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas; the Fifth Circuit’s jurisdiction.
Why to go Stoney!!!!! I have a great idea!!! While dont i just starts sending out subpoenas on my own! Yeah!! Thats the ticket!!
#Brilliant! This guy had it coming.
To quote the Ars article: “Stone tells me by e-mail, “After three rewrites, I finally decided I’m just going to have to let Justin Bieber do my quoting for me: ‘Whenever you knock me down I will not stay on the ground.'””
I’ll let Justin Bieber do my quoting for me, too: Never say never, Stone! You’re not just staying on the ground – you’re going six feet under! Say hi to Andrew Crossley for us, won’t you?
<<<getting lots of popcorn ready! soon…very soon it'll be john buffy stole, i mean steele's turn; talk about dancing in the streets (with the popcorn) 😀
My first troll…. going down in flames…. *tears up*
it sorta gets me… right here…. ya know?
So for fun who wants to count the days from the 2nd court sanction of $500 a day to todays date and tell us how much more than $32,000ish he is on the hook for?
Math was never my strong suit but reading was, so I wonder whether this saga is going to have 7 or 13 Chapters.
I wonder if it will splash on Mick Haig Productions as well, they were the recipient of ill gotten cash and it was moved quickly to avoid the courts. I mean its not like Stone was ever caught lying on a copyright applications on their beha….. oh nevermind…
This is real nice! But there are more judgements in the pipeline that are going to make HUGE waves in the pond.
I predicted a few months ago that this summer would be the tipping point for these actions. I believe I underestimated how thorough the courts will be with this.
Take note of the new cases filed. Take note of the counter-suits and class-action suits that are now popping up. When people need to do now more than ever is write your Congressman and Senator and let them know about this web site. Let them know about the extortion scheme. Let them start to create laws that PREVENT extortionists from declaring bankruptcy. That’s what the trolls are doing now–they are all starting to create an exit strategy that involves bankruptcy and liquidation. They got their money, their LLCs and Corps limit their liability, so they’re going to skate away with millions.
Expect the bankruptcies around October-December. Act now and get legislation fast-tracked to freeze the assets of the lawyers, owners, and corporations.
At the very least, I agree that the Doe Retribution is on the rise or ought to be.
From the Ars article… This statement completely sums up why I waged all out war on him.
“I don’t go about it the way those other assholes do,” he said. “I handle this stuff so delicately. They’re calling people at work, they’re leaving voicemails messages! I’ve never done that shit. The few times I’ve handled cases for adult and in particular gay studios, I handle that extremely delicately. I’ve spoken to closeted gay men. They’re terrified. [I tell them]: ‘I’m not busting your balls because I’m trying to ruin your life, I’m trying to recoup some lost revenue for the studios.’”
“some lost revenue” =! Thousands of dollars.
Remember asshole your the one who managed to lose the contract shaking people down for Hustler. And when they fired you, you burned any chance of working for a US porn house by calling them names publicly. Because Larry Flynt listened to his customers/fans and decided their goodwill meant more than the few thousand dollars you’d bring in for them along with the burning hate for the brand.
“I’m not trying to ruin your life, but please pay these poor, dying studios 1.5 grand”? When did we land in a golden age that gave us the liberty to throw at least $1500 at some organisation that asked for it? “Hi, we’re not doing so well lately, so we pulled your IP address out of some unverified random number generator, and you’ve just won the privilege to give us some substantial amount of money! But we don’t want to get too greedy so something in the range of four digits should be alright!”
Well Stone is a failed videographer who knows what its like to be a poor put upon “creator”, the failure of his business had nothing to do with the quality of his work or the fact it was for tiny bands no one had ever heard of outside of his corner of the world. It was because people were “stealing” from him and that is the only reason…
Life is so much easier when you can blame it all on outside forces rather than the simple fact you suck.
Stone showed up on ars… I think he might be regretting it now…
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/copyright-troll-10000-sanctions-upheld-by-appeals-court-are-bullst/?comments=1&post=23058929#comment-23058929
I saw that. The days when Steele used to comment there were good entertainment as well.
When he first hit the scene, I was one of the few who stood up and dismantled his cases. I got people to stop being scared and start laughing at him. The fact he publicly admitted his method for gathering IP addresses was to join swarm and make the infringement worse should have sunk all of his cases because he had unclean hands… but the cases were always dismissed before anyone could get before a Judge.
What did His post say? I only see one from TAC
@blind old bat
Here is Stone’s post
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1178352&p=23054359#p23054359
Not linked to ars comments before… think i just linked to mine alone… oopsies