Massachusetts is becoming too hot for copyright trolls. Lawyers, such as a veteran attorney Samuel Perkins, armed with Judge Sorokin’s ruling, continue hammering hapless young troll Marvin Cable. In addition, judges’ strong discontent with lawsuit abuse is growing. Judges Stearns, Boal, Saylor — to name a few, issued orders to show cause why mass cases shouldn’t be reduced to a single-defendant ones. I’m not aware of any case when an MA judge has been lenient to Cable and the trolling “business model” in general. True, the majority of judges initially allowed fishing expeditions, feeding Marvin’s arrogance, but note that all the known mass scams in human history initially succeeded, there is nothing surprising here. There is also nothing surprising and wrong when a judge changes his opinion after he understands the situation¹. As I noted many times, this is not a sign of weakness but wisdom.

These days another scammer, Daniel Ruggiero, who represents John Steele’s Prenda Law, files dozens of frivolous cases against individuals on the East Coast, including Massachusetts². I think that MA is his biggest mistake.

This week District Judge William Young added an especially excellent page to the Troll Exterminator’s Guide. This is one of the rulings that will be quoted widely, not less than the famous rulings by judges Brown, McMahon, Write, Baer, as well as other classical examples of responsible case law building.

The Court acknowledges without reservation Third Degree’s right to assert copyright protection of the Film and to sue individuals who infringe on its intellectual property. But after a careful weighing of the balance of potential injustices in this case and like cases, the Court determines that any efficiency gains and cost benefits to Third Degree from joining the Doe defendants in a single action are substantially outweighed by the fairness concerns and inefficiencies at trial, the potential prejudice from what seems to be a developing pattern of extortionate settlement demands, and the evasion of thousands of dollars of filing fees.

As a result of rulings like this being quoted extensively, corrupt pro-troll DC judges will be in a greater and greater isolation, and a judge who deals with trolls for the first time won’t think twice before doing the right thing.

Enjoy the entire Memorandum and Order:

 

Thanks to Nicholas Guerrera and Jason Sweet for keeping me updated and bringing good news. 

Update

10/16/2012

Today Judge Young severed Does from three of Marvin Cable’s cases, leaving a single Doe per each case:

• 1:12-cv-10535-WGY Third Degree Films v. Does 1-80 filed 03/23/12
• 1:12-cv-10762-WGY Third Degree Films v. Does 1-47 filed 04/28/12
• 1:12-cv-10763-WGY Third Degree Films v. Does 1-39 filed 04/28/12

 

---

¹ Thanks to MA Doe defendants. Unlike in other states (except maybe for Florida), per capita rate of talented IP attorneys in Massachusetts is astounding. I plan to redesign my Resources page and list defense attorneys on the state pages: visit the Massachusetts page in a while to see the list.

² I plan to write about Ruggiero’s sanctionable activities soon.