Porno-copyright trolls named in RICO class action suit

A group of notorious copyright trolls from the pornography industry are the defendants in a new class action suit that alleges that they have violated the RICO Act (the law regarding organized crime syndicates), as well as "fraud, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unjust enrichment."

The trolls are pornography companies that accuse people of having downloaded movies with titles like "Blumpkin Blowjobs, "Teen Anal Sluts," "Jeff cums in Colby’s mouth," etc, and threaten lawsuits that will forever join the victims' names with these films, unless the victims cough up a quick settlement payout. The victims are chosen on the basis of very sloppy Internet sleuthing that is meant to produce a list of IP addresses that correspond to illegal downloaders.

Historically, the trolls have faced no penalty for getting their detective work wrong -- if they finger an innocent bystander, either the bystander pays up anyway (just to avoid the hassle), or s/he pays her own lawyers enough money to mount a spirited defense, at which point the trolls withdraw their threat and walk away.

With this class action suit, it's possible that the trolls will finally see a real penalty for tossing around sloppy accusations -- and with any luck, it'll be a penalty that will wipe them off the face of the earth, to the whole planet's betterment.

Henry and Associates, PLLC, a lawfirm from Louisville, Kentucky, filed a class action lawsuit against five porno purveyors — well-known copyright trolls. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of Jennifer Baker, one of the victims who did not want to forgive an unprovoked assault by a copyright troll M. Keith Lipscomb. Lipscomb is one of the most cynical and productive trolls, whose "portfolio" comprises hundreds, if not thousands of trolling lawsuits. He is also one of the few trolls who abuse the Florida’s Pure Bill of Discovery to unjustly enrich himself and his crime partners.

This event was bound to happen. Two things never come together: greed and the art of quitting when it is not too late. All it takes to damage an extortionist’s "business" severely is to mess with a wrong person, and with every day, the likelihood of such an event increases. Fortunately, all the "wrong persons" to date have responded civilly, within the law. Nonetheless, the risk to mess with a wrong type of a "wrong person" is still there.

Copyright trolls attempt to extort a wrong person, invite a class action lawsuit

• [Michael Busuttil]

  “if they finger an innocent bystander”
  Perhaps an awkward choice of words, given the subject matter?

  • [koanhead]

     Well, they certainly aren’t so innocent afterwards.

  • [chris jimson]

    I swear, I’ve never seen the movie “Tossing Around Sloppy Accusations.”

  • [SJD]

    You remind me how I characterized a troll lawyer Paul Lesko: he runs 3 lawsuits in Louisiana, defending the following “works of art”  : “Teen Anal Sluts,”  “Super Anal Black Cougars ”  and ““Monster Wet Anal Asses.”

    I once noted that this attorney has not only “narrow” specialization in the IP law, but rather a “tight” one.

• [Rowan Parker]

  With this class action suit, it’s possible that the TROLLS will finally see a real penalty for TOSSING around SLOPPY accusations — and with any luck, it’ll be a penalty that will wipe them OFF the face of the earth, to the whole planet’s betterment.
  Too easy.

• [That_Anonymous_Coward]

  SJD will be so happy to have the extra coverage of these trolls.
  This will however be the 2nd time someone has invoked RICO in a class action, the other was against USCG who were doing the shakedown for “The Hurt Locker” and “Fry Cry” and other Uwe Bolle films.  In that case I think the court ruled against the RICO charges but the case still moves forward.

  People need to understand how flimsy these cases are and courts need to understand people are being told “Everyone will see your name connected to this porn if we go to trial.”  This is nothing more than extortion, and there is so much shady dealing happening, falsified copyrights, filings, etc.

  People need to know the truth and they find that from people like SJD from fightcopyrightrolls.com and DTD of DieTrollDie.com.  People who have faced these allegations, didn’t pay up, and came out the other side.

  Preemptive Ohai SJD.

  • [SJD]

    Ohai TAC. Was going to bed but noticed substantial traffic from here. Got a shout out from the Wired’s post earlier today. Given the Randazza’s sunken tugboat in the Tabora case, this is one of the best antitroll days.

    Thanks, Cory. 

    There is a typo: plaintiff’s name is Barker, not Baker: it’s my fault — I had this wrong spelling initially, later fixed.

    Also, to be clear, the embarrassing names are not from these particular pornographers, but from other trolls: Celestial, 4:Twenty Media  and Liberty Media.  The trolls in this suit use similar tactics / embarrassing  titles too anyway.

• [Daemonworks]

  It would have been more interesting had one of them accidentally attempted to extort an actual member of the maffia or similar organization, but this will do.

  • [koanhead]

     That could be a fun conversation:
    Troll: “If you don’t pay us, then your name will be associated with [porn stuff] at trial.”
    Maf: “Sure, but on the other hand, you will never be heard from again.”

• [Ian Wood]

  Ha! That only works if you give a shit. As the author of What I’ll Think About While Pat Robertson Swallows My Load, I am reasonably sure that I am immune to this tactic.

  • [cfuse]

     No, the problem is if other people give a shit (given this is all about reputation). Plenty of employers or vocations will gladly exclude you in a heartbeat at the first sign of scandal.

• [Guest]

  This reminds me of an old short story (I think it was Roald Dahl) about an antique bookstore proprietor who made his real money with a scam like this. 

  He’d read the obituaries looking for respectable old lords who had kicked off. Then he’d send an invoice to the estate of the deceased for “Venus In Furs” or 18th century BDSM woodcuts or whatever. The wife would just figure the old fart was a secret perv (or knew that he was) and would pay to avoid scandal.

• [TheMudshark]

  Sometimes there is something to be said for not immediately googling any new term you come across on the internet … like “Blumpkin Blowjobs”.

  • [pKp]

     Well…what exactly did you expect ?

    • [TheMudshark]

      As a non-native speaker of English, the word blumpkin was unfamiliar to me.