How a troubled West Virginia lawyer foisted a Teen Anal Nightmare on the nation

[DainBramaged]

In September 2010, West Coast Productions—maker of such films as Teen Anal Nightmare 2 and Juicy White Anal Booty 4—paired up with West Virginia lawyer Ken Ford to file a set of mass lawsuits against online file-sharers. Ford was the brains behind the Adult Copyright Company, which promised to help the porn industry cash in on the epidemic of piracy. His business model involved suing thousands of people at once in "Doe" copyright infringement lawsuits, even though the defendants lived all over the country, the film producer was in California, and the court was in West Virginia. After filing suit, Ford would try to turn lists of IP addresses collected from BitTorrent into real names and addresses, then attempted to settle each case for a few thousand dollars each.

It was a copycat business idea, already being worked on by other lawyers, but Ford hardly looked like a good candidate for executing on it well. He had recently been admonished by West Virginia's Office of Disciplinary Counsel for his dealings with clients, was the subject of 12 official complaints, and had his law license suspended five times by the state bar since 2006.

But none of that stopped Ford's West Coast Productions lawsuits. In the year that followed, the Teen Anal Nightmare 2 case spread outward from Ford's legal base, a dingy office in Charles Town, to three federal district courts. It engaged defense lawyers from states like Colorado, Texas, and Georgia. It targeted thousands of US residents from across the country in a scheme that reduced some to near-hysterics.

The lawyers bringing these sorts of cases across the country are a motley bunch. One in Illinois leaped from divorce cases (phone number: 1-800-DIVORCE) into federal porn copyright cases. Another in Texas has already been fined $10,000 for sending out subpoenas without judicial permission; the judge in that case blasted the "staggering chutzpah" involved. But Ford's strange story takes pride of place.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/how-a-troubled-west-virginia-lawyer-foisted-a-teen-anal-nightmare-on-the-nation.ars

[d_r]

1. one thing that I don't understand

the way I understand that bit torrent works is that a group of people download the file, and then those that downloaded the file are serving it to new people that download it. So someone doesn't download an entire file from one person. They might get some bits from one person, some other bites from another, a little data here and a little there and it puts it together to make the file. So any given person hasn't sent someone a file that would be complete on its own. What they sent as an individual was bits and pieces that do not make the whole file. So individually, it seems like they didn't upload the whole file that would be usable, just bits of information. As an individual, it seems to me that they couldn't have violated the copy right of the material because they didn't send the actual material - just some bits and chunks that were combined with other bits and chunks from other people. It seems like to prove a copy right violation, it would have to be proven that someone actually downloaded the material from that person, and if what was downloaded from that person was just bits and chunks that couldn't be used as that material then the person didn't send anything that could violate the copy right.

I'm not saying that intellectual property isn't important or that piracy isn't stealing or is OK, I'm saying I don't get how legally someone can violate a copyright if it isn't proven that they sent the copy righted material to someone. If they sent, say 100Megs of a 2 gigabyte file, then they didn't send anything meaningful. It isn't like they sent 45 seconds worth of the movie, they sent data that alone couldn't be used for anything.

[qb]

4. I think extortion is the intent. They don't plan on winning in court - they want to extort

money from people who will pay up in hopes of avoiding embarrassment.

[enlightenment]

5. I agree with your puzzlement, but I think

that legally, the process of participating in something like bit torrent might be considered as intent (to violate copyright). No one uploads a file to bit torrent without recognizing that the end result will be a complete file, which may or may not violate copyright law. That's my guess, anyway!

To me, it's kind of like being 'a little bit pregnant'. Technically impossible - you either are, or you are not. A person who participates in this process understands that they are doing something potentially wrong, whether their actions are 1/100th or 100% of the whole.

There are a lot of scofflaws out there, which surprises me because I strongly suspect many of those same people would screech like mad if it was their intellectual/creative effort that was being used so. I recall a number of years ago a person on an internet board and was one of the 'everything should be totally free!' types who jumped into every conversation. Ever-so Marxist . . .

Turns out this person had an internet site of their own - like a blog, but not so tidy - wherein they posted their thoughts on things. At the top of each posting was the admonition that the thoughts contained within were the property of the writer and no one could copy it without his permission.

He just didn't see the contradiction.

[d_r]

6. that's a funny example.

It's ok as long as it isn't me.

I guess it could sort of be like a rico thing - a conspiracy to act together to violate copyright. But I think there are a lot of things that can be passed on legitimately through bit torrent, like I downloaded a copy of unbantu linex and it downloaded through bit torrent. There is a lot of free, open source stuff like that out there, so just using bit torrent itself couldn't show an intent.

Also another thing I thought of - again not defending it - but it seems to me that someone could download a file on the internet and it not come with a copy right warning, and then they could pass it along and claim they never knew it had a copy right warning in the first place - "I was able to download it freely, so I figured it was open domain." If the file you download doesn't have a copy right warning, then how are you supposed to know it is copyrighted by someone. In this case the people are downloading a porno video, they may honestly think that someone made the video and put it out on the internet.

I agree with you about intent and people knowing if it is right or wrong.

But I also agree the whole point in this example is to extort them with shame - teen anal nightmare?? Naughty, naughty.

[Fumesucker]

2. Jeebus, before I clicked I thought this was about 60's pop groups.. n/t

[Arctic Dave]

3. Words.... I no have them. nt