Legal resources

Attorneys who defend troll victims

• Attorneys who defend troll victims.

Publications

• Copyright Infringement in Cyberspace — Decoding Strict Liability: a paper by DC attorney Guity Deyhimy. This paper questions the notion that a dynamic IP address coupled with a timestamp reliably identifies an alleged infringer. Can be referenced in a motion to quash/dismiss.
• Comment: “Closing Pandora’s box:” Speculative invoicing and opportunism in file sharing: a paper by Dirk Lasater in the Wake Forest Journal of Business And intellectual Property Law (Volume 12, Fall 2011, Number 1).
• Shedding Light on Copyright Trolls: An Analysis of Mass Copyright Litigation in the Age of Statutory Damages: a paper by James DeBriyn, J.D. Candidate, University of Wisconsin Law School.
• The Uneasy Case Against Copyright Trolls: a paper by Shyamkrishna Balganesh, University of Pennsylvania Law School, August 15, 2012.
• The Bittorent P2P file-sharing system: Measurement and Analysis: J.A. Pouwelse, P. Garbacki, D.H.J. Epema, H.J. Sips Department of Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Great argument against permissive joinder:
  

  Only 9,219 out of 53,883 peers (17 %) have an uptime longer than one hour after they finished downloading. For 10 hours this number has decreased to only 1,649 peers (3.1 %), and for 100 hours to a mere 183 peers (0.34 %).

• Copyright Trolls and Presumptively Fair Uses by Brad A. Greenberg, University of Colorado Law Review.

Affidavits by professionals

• Affidavit of Canadian professor of Software Engineering, Timothy Lethbridge — talking about the flaws of copyright trolling foundations.

Miscellaneous

• Open WiFi and Liability for Copyright Infringement: Setting the Record Straight: EFF’s article by Corynne McSherry.
• Guide for defendants in mass copyright lawsuits: New Media Rights, a non-profit that offers free legal help & a community for those who create and share online. A good guide, although I don’t necessarily agree with all the advices (especially suggestions to settle), I believe that being exposed to alternative views actually helps to think critically and make good decisions.
• The Robing Room, “Where judges are judged”: a site by lawyers for lawyers — a forum for evaluating federal district court judges and magistrate judges.
• English translation of a Berlin’s court injunction finding that Guardaley’s IP collection methods are flawed, yet it knowingly used those methods. Guardaley changed names (created facades) since then (Logistep, Baseprotect, IPP International) and still uses the same erroneous methods. Many US copyright trolls (the most infamous is Lipscomb) use IPP Internationsl’s services to shake down US citizens.

Blogs and publications that discuss copyright trolls among other topics

• EFF Deeplinks.
• Wired — Threat Level.
• TechDirt
• Ars Technica — Law & Disorder.
• TorrentFreak and TorrentFreak News Bits.
• Internet Law — Allan Gregory’s blog.
• Recording Industry vs The People — a blog devoted to legal issues arising from the RIAA’s lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people, and other matters of internet law. Provided by Ray Beckerman, P.C.
• Popehat — eloquent attorney Ken White writes about various issues. While specializing in 1st Amendment, he has an excellent coverage of Prenda downfall.
• Random musings from a computer business owner — mostly technology articles, but there are some good posts covering of copyright trolling cases. This article analyses a demand letter sent by CEG.

Blogs and sites dedicated to fighting copyright trolls

• Anons of Liberty — our sister publication.
• DieTrollDie — another brother-in-arms.
  • An excellent summary that answers many questions and gives good advices.
• Bittorent Lawsuits forum on Extortion Letter Info website, a community dedicated to fighting a different breed of copyright trolls: stock image companies that use extortion-like methods as a part of their “business model”, yet this community also discusses different troll species.
• Internet Copyright Lawsuits — A blog about the copyright lawsuits.
• ACS:BORE — our British friends. Have a peek at your future, US troll.
• Copyright Clerk “… takes great interest in issues involving copyright, trademark and patents in the digital age. My specific interests in this area include copyright infringement, domain name disputes, and software patents.”
• anonymouseavenger : another blog dedicated to fighting The Judicial Plague.
• An Open Letter to Copyright Trolls : a Christian approach to combating copyright trolls. The author promises to write a series of articles: “These articles will be called Bible Study With The Troll and explain one Bible story through the immorality of Copyright Trolls each week.”
• Helping Push the Troll Back Under the Bridge: the name is self-explanatory.
• Troll Defense 2.0 — Tips and commentary for individuals accused of civil liability for internet activities: a blog run by Benjamin Justus, an attorney from Washington state.
• “Pay or else” — long and informative discussion thread on PhoenixLabs forums.
• Copyright troll John Steele uses “flawless” software he paid $250k to create in order to generate evidence to sue 1000s in Torrent lawsuits — excellent article and informative discussion on a Current forum.

Blogs by lawyers who defend copyright troll’s victims

Friends and allies who fight injustices on the digital frontier and other good people

• MAFIAA Fire — developers of excellent anti-censorship browser plug-ins. A living proof of the following Internet law: “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.”
• Extortion Letter Info Forums — site dedicated to fighting a different breed of copyright trolls: stock image companies that use extortion-like methods as a part of their “business model”.
• April Brown, a charity auctioneer who works with non-profits throughout the United States, spreads awareness about Righthaven-style campaign by an author Linda Ellis; her lawyers send nastigrams to alleged infringers of her somewhat famous poem. The recipients, mostly law-abiding bloggers, charities and churches, are being pressed to pay under the threat of costly litigation and inhumanely large statutory rates.
• Patent Trolls: the goal of this website is to raise awareness on Non – Practice Entities AKA Patent Trolls.
• Goddamn Movies, “An Unnecessarily Angry Look at The Entertainment Industry.”

Other resources (separate pages)

• Calendar of upcoming events.
• Attorneys who defend troll victims.
• Copyright trolls: attorneys, plaintiffs, “exprets.”
• Press (relevant articles in Techdirt, ArsTechnica and TorrentFreak): outdated.