Introducing TorrentLawyer™, a blog Exposing Copyright Trolls, DMCA settlement notice tactics, and John Doe Lawsuits.
TorrentLawyer™ is our opportunity to educate internet subscribers accused of copyright infringement. Every month, hundreds of ISP subpoenas and DMCA abuse / settlement demand notices are sent to internet users accusing them of downloading copyrighted videos. Many find themselves sued in a federal court for statutory damages of $150,000 or more.
Copyright holders use bittorrent to find and sue individual downloaders, who are often selected based on the demographics of where they live, and how deep their pockets are. Their attorneys file hundreds of lawsuits using the same set of copyright infringement filing (minimizing their expenses). Yet each accused downloader is unwillingly tossed into an expensive bittorrent-based “John Doe” copyright infringement lawsuit, and without much information, they are forced to decide between paying a ransom or learning to defend against infringement claims in federal court.
TorrentLawyer™, the intellectual property litigation branch of the Cashman Law Firm™ provides nationwide legal representation for those accused of copyright infringement. We expose the hidden tactics and schemes of the copyright holders, and we use that information to ‘even the playing field’ for our clients.
TorrentLawyer™ was founded upon the premise that copyright in its original form was never meant to apply to internet users, and any application today to the internet user is an altering of the meaning of copyright. Accused “John Doe” defendants should be at most innocent infringers, and for that they should be held only to the standard of ACTUAL DAMAGES suffered by the copyright holder. In the case of pirated software as we have seen in the Siemens PLM v. Does 1-100 case, that would amount to roughly $29,000 (the cost of one software license), or in the case of a movie, the cost of a lost movie ticket, a DVD purchase, or roughly $30.
Because copyright cases are difficult to pursue, copyright laws correctly provide the injured party with the attorney fees and costs they will incur in order to enforce their copyright rights, and this is acceptable. However, NEVER was copyright law meant to force an internet downloader to defend against STATUTORY DAMAGES of $150,000 for willful copyright infringement, and nowhere was it meant to create an uneven playing field where the copyright holder minimizes his expenses by filing hundreds of serial lawsuits, and one defendant is left with burden of incurring the full legal burden to represent himself against a troll.
To schedule a FREE, NO OBLIGATION appointment with a TorrentLawyer™ copyright infringement attorney or to get started right away and have us begin working on your defense, please feel free to contact us at 713-364-3476, or to book an appointment to speak to us about your invention, click the button below:
WHY BITTORRENT-BASED COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUITS ARE BASED ON CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Copyright infringement lawsuits based on bittorrent activity accuses a defendant of a crime without that defendant being there ‘at the scene of the crime.’ The infringement happens at a computer, and the ‘crime’ occurs in cyberspace (over the internet). Any evidence linking the defendant is circumstantial, meaning that plaintiff attorneys need to use technology to prove that the defendant’s computer or phone connected to a particular server or some virtual ‘room’ where multiple computers got together to share a copyrighted file. Even proving this does not mean that it was the accused defendant who was at the keyboard when the ‘crime’ was committed.
Because there is only a murky and circumstantial connection between the ‘scene of the crime’ and the accused defendant, it is easy for an unscrupulous attorney to accuse someone of copyright infringement without having done research to prove that it was the defendant who actually did the download.
HOW CAN A DEFENDANT BE ACCUSED OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WHEN HE DID NOT DO THE INFRINGING ACTIVITY (E.G., HE DID NOT DO THE DOWNLOAD)?
Technology can be misused by savvy internet users to mask their identity, or to make their activity look as if it was being done by another person or another computer connection (e.g., changing the MAC address of a computer, or spoofing the IP address to look as if your computer has someone else’s IP address). These individuals have more of a proclivity to commit crimes, and often it is the individual having that actual IP address assigned to him that gets accused of the crime committed by the individual who spoofed his IP address.
WHEN ARE SETTLEMENTS ETHICAL, AND WHEN ARE THEY CONSIDERED EXTORTION-BASED COPYRIGHT TROLL ACTIVITIES?
Going back to the plaintiff attorneys, the copyright infringement attorneys know that it will cost them many tens of thousands of dollars (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars) to take the lawsuit all the way to a trial. For this reason, they ask the defendant to settle the claims against them for multiple-thousands of dollars claiming it will also save the defendant multiples of that amount to fight the case. There is nothing wrong with this, and this sort of settlement activity happens all the time. A REASONABLE SETTLEMENT is the amount the copyright holder should expect to get if they proceeded with the lawsuit balanced with the time saved by settling without the need or expense of costly litigation.
An attorney becomes called a “copyright troll” when they unethically start eliciting settlements not knowing or caring whether the individual they accused of copyright infringement actually did the ‘crime’ or not. That attorney will often threaten that he will run up litigation fees and destroy the financial life of the defendant (“I will take your house or force you into bankruptcy”) if they do not pay the exorbitant amount the plaintiff attorney is asking for.
It is also the belief of the author that filing “John Doe” copyright infringement lawsuits against individual bittorrent users is unethical in itself. The attorney filing the lawsuit is not doing so in order to protect the rights of the copyright holder, nor does that attorney have an intent to bring the lawsuit to trial. Rather, they file the lawsuits to ‘monetize’ the copyrights (meaning, they take money from the bittorrent users as a model of rewarding the copyright holders).
This would be fair if the accused downloader were asked for the ACTUAL DAMAGES they caused the copyright holder (ACTUAL DAMAGES is the measurement of the actual loss to the copyright holder based on the defendant’s unlawful activities, for example, the loss of a sale of a movie ticket or DVD, plus the costs of the copyright holder in recovering the lost sale, e.g., the $400 filing fee for the lawsuit plus the attorney fees involved in recouping the losses), but this is not what copyright holders ask for. Instead, they ask for exorbitant settlement amounts — sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of dollars — under the threat of pursuing the downloader for the full $150,000 statutory damages it is entitled to ask for in a lawsuit. (STATUTORY DAMAGES are damages determined by law which are awarded to copyright owner who proves copyright infringement, regardless whether actual damages occurred).
This activity is commonly called “copyright trolling,” and consequently, attorneys who file serial copyright infringement lawsuits and their copyright holder movie companies are called “copyright trolls.”
WHY YOU SHOULD FEEL SECURE WITH CASHMAN IP™
About Us: Cashman Law Firm, PLLC is a solo attorney practice with a peer-to-peer approach to serving you, our client. We are growing a network of intellectual property attorneys budding from Cashman IP™ into other firms who work together under the Cashman IP™ name, giving you unparalleled service. The owner of our law firm was trained as a patent litigator to work in the federal courts rather than working as a ‘bread-and-butter’ state law attorney.
We begin protecting your interests before you even become our client. As soon as a case is filed, we begin tracking that case and communicating about that case on the TorrentLawyer™ blog. We analyze who each ‘copyright troll’ attorney is, what he has filed before for other copyright holders, what his proclivities are, and who is paying his bills. We do this to ascertain what strategy he will likely be implementing in prosecuting the bittorrent case. We also search for connections to determine whether there is a link between his client (the copyright holder) and other copyright holders or entities to determine if there is a divergence between what he is sharing with the court and what we have already learned about the other copyright holders. We do this so that we can identify weaknesses in the plaintiff’s case, and to determine whether the plaintiff attorney is lying to a judge for a particular reason (e.g., perhaps the judge is hostile to ‘copyright troll’ infringement cases brought by serial filers).
Then when we speak to an accused defendant on a free consultation that we provide through the Genbook provider, we take that defendant through the steps of 1) analyzing the case, 2) reviewing the potential damages given the circumstances, 3) faithfully reviewing each option with the accused defendant given their particular circumstances, and we do this for free as “free legal assistance,” often spending an hour or more with accused defendants without the intention that they ever become clients.
I have literally thousands of people who our firm has helped this way. For this reason, you should feel secure that when you hire a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC attorney, you are hiring an attorney who is not only plugged into the law (something any attorney can do), but the specific environmental factors which can affect your case, your strategy, your options, and your outcome.
Next Step: Schedule a Consultation
Follow the three steps below to begin working with a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC patent attorney:
1. Schedule a phone appointment to speak to a patent attorney about your matter.
2. Get, sign, and return retainer agreement.
3. Sit back, relax, and let us work on your behalf to get you the results you need.
After scheduling your appointment online, you will be contacted by phone at the specified date and time by a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC attorney.
THE CASHMAN IP PEER-TO-PEER™ AND ARSENAL ON DEMAND™ COPYRIGHT LITIGATION STRATEGY
And, with our next generation Peer-To-Peer litigation™ model and our Arsenal On Demand™, you can feel secure that with Cashman IP™, when companies step forward and decide to accuse you of copyright infringement (and if you are a bittorrent user, eventually they usually will, often without checking to see whether you downloaded the complete copyrighted file, or whether you merely clicked on a bittorrent link), our growing arsenal of IP litigation attorneys and law firms in our network will be ready, able, and willing to step up and meet the company’s lawyers face-to-face to handle every motion, every discovery request, and to respond to every litigation trick and maneuver which are commonly thrown at a small litigation firm with the intent of flooding the attorneys with so much work that they are crippled and unable to properly defend you and your interests. The Cashman Law Firm™ respects and honors the fiduciary duty we owe to our clients and thus we are teaming up with attorneys from other IP Groups and law firms to provide for you an Arsenal On Demand™ to protect your patent from those who infringe it.
WHY WE ARE DIFFERENT FROM THE TRADITIONAL LAW FIRM
“We begin working for you before you even become our client.” – Rob Cashman, Owner of the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC and author of the TorrentLawyer Blog
We research the background and abilities of each ‘copyright troll’ attorney based on cases he has filed in the past. From this, we determine his likely strategy, and we learn what he is looking to accomplish on behalf of his client.
We mine for connections to determine whether there is an undisclosed link between the copyright suing you and other copyright holders which we can use to gain leverage in a negotiation, or even to cause a dismissal of the lawsuit.
Then, once you have taken the steps to educate yourselves by reading the relevant articles on the TorrentLawyer.com blog, we provide a free consultation that we provide through the Genbook provider.
In that consultation, not only do we share what we know about your copyright holder, but with a friendly, polite, and conversational tone, we will help you understand your case, where you are in that case, and we will walk down various pathways on how you can approach it. Some ways include you hiring us as your attorney, other pathways will teach you how to do it on your own.
We will never threaten you, scare you, nor will we ever exaggerate the likelihood of one outcome over another. Our Cashman Law Firm has been in operation since 2010, and we have practiced in this area we opened our doors. In the past seven years, we have written 200+ in depth and thoughtful articles on the TorrentLawyer site, and we have had over 1 Million visitors to our educational side. Lastly, we have spent literally thousands of hours speaking to accused defendants such as yourself, often spending an hour or more without the need that they ever become clients.
We hope our services will give you the lasting confidence that we will look to protect your interests from the moment you receive a subpoena notice from your ISP, throughout the copyright infringement actions, all the way until you are dismissed from the case or the case otherwise terminates. Click the “booknow” button below to schedule an appointment with a Cashman Law Firm attorney in order to book our free services online.
HOW TO HIRE ROB CASHMAN AS YOUR ATTORNEY
Next Step: Schedule a Consultation
Follow the three steps below to begin working with a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC patent attorney:
1. Schedule a phone appointment to speak to a patent attorney about your matter.
2. Get, sign, and return retainer agreement.
3. Sit back, relax, and let us work on your behalf to get you the results you need.
After scheduling your appointment online, you will be contacted by phone at the specified date and time by a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC attorney.
CONTACT US
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NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.
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