Prenda Law and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Appellate Argument | Hacker News Reader

Prenda Law and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Appellate Argument

popehat.com

142 pointsbatguano25 comments

I found the video source fascinating - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZDipKRH0c

Specifically, the judges' exasperation at Voelker's request (at first) that they remand the case for criminal proceedings.

Also Judge Nguyen and Judge Tallman repeatedly attempted to steer Voelker into a course where he might have some merit, but he kept outrageously denying that the case had any legitimacy at all. I don't think he was winning them over much with those arguments.

I've really enjoyed watching this channel and I don't think it gets enough views - this is part of the court system's inner workings, laid bare.

Maybe he's setting the stage for a future claim of incompetent counsel.

I particularly enjoy the history lesson 30mins in: https://youtu.be/ObZDipKRH0c?t=2000

that might as well be a fraternity hazing

The "history lesson" was delivered by Judge Pregerson, who is 91 years old [1] and presided at the argument. Popehat's article notes that Judge Pregerson began the day by announcing that it was the 70th anniversary of the day that he, then a young Marine officer, was severely wounded in the Battle of Okinawa. If he had said he'd been wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, it would have been only a little more surprising. It's both amazing and wonderful that a WWII veteran is still actively serving on the bench.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Pregerson

And not being the image of an ancient, out-of-touch jurist:

"Pregerson: And you're a great lawyer.

"Voelker: I appreciate you saying that, Your Honor.

"Pregerson: I mean, it says so, right there on your web site."

As a fan of wry judicial humor, this excerpt is a MUST-SHARE:

Pregerson: And you're a great lawyer.

Voelker: I appreciate you saying that, Your Honor.

Pregerson: I mean, it says so, right there on your web site.

And right after that:

Pregerson: I wonder how many super lawyers there are in this country

Voelker: There are a lot of 'em.

Pregerson: And a lot of 'em is BS.

I believe this quote from the article sums it up:

You want us to send this back for criminal contempt proceedings?" asked Judge Tallman, with the air of a parent asking a toddler whether he really wants to hurl himself down the stairs. "Do you understand that the maximum penalty for contempt is life imprisonment?"

This Prenda stuff is funnier than the "SCO vs Linux, IBM, and Basic Rationality" nonsense from a while back. It's a Three Stooges bit slowed down to litigation speed: Slapstick with all of the slow deliberation and unswerving inevitability of a glacier bearing down on the supposedly-professional protagonists.

Can someone fill me in? It looks like there's a ton of backstory to this on popehat, but no good summary.

People who downloaded certain pornographic movies over bit torrent were getting legal letters from the copyrights owners asking for a payment or threatening to take the downloader to court.

But the company that "owned" the IP was a shell company set up by the lawyers sending the letters. They created the company and then represented that shell company. It's not certain whether the IP could be transfered in the way Pre da said it had been. In some situations Prenda law just lied about it and forged signatures.

One person stood up to the legal threats and it all started going downhill from then on. Multiple judges across the US have expressed disappointment with Prenda and surprise at the shennanigans.

Wikipedia has a rather jumbled timeline. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law

Additionally, there's good evidence that principals of Prenda Law were the ones that uploaded the movies in question to bittorrent in the first place. These movies were never released through more conventional channels.

Why the hell is this case still going? Put these guys in jail and take away all their money already!

The gears of the judiciary grind slowly, but grind they do. They're grinding these Prenda guys down to their component atoms. That can take a while.

And in the meantime, it slows up the system for everyone else. The grinding can go both ways you know.

the system is "slow" by design. The ability to appeal means that a potentially wrongly-accused person has a second chance for justice.

I'm not saying it's not frustrating; I am definitely frustrated with it at times as well. But this part of the system, at least, is attempting to maximize "justice" (at the very least, to counteract the parts of the system that do not attempt it)

This is why there are turtles at the base of the columns at the Supreme Court.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/morgonmae/2437913438

What's interesting about the civil litigation system is that it is used to dealing with sociopaths and narcissists. After all, they are the ones most likely to wind up in civil litigation. Most people can be deceived by a sociopath's slick manipulations and lies because they naively believe that all people are generally good. Judges in the civil litigation arena are under no such illusions.

If the case would just "stop", they wouldn't go to jail - all Judge Wright imposed were monetary sanctions(he only threatened incarceration). Furthermore, the monetary sanctions aren't even that big(compared to the claims of the money they made).

But specifically to answer your question, the reason is that there's an appellate system. And unless you want to argue that the appellate system shouldn't exist, "bad guys" get to use it to argue their case, just like "good guys".

Furthermore, as Pietz points out in his oral argument, Judge Wright was exasperated at how much the justice system constrains punishing bad actors abusing the system. This is a core issue, and it's not as easily solved as waving a wand around.

Do we have supreme court worthy case on our hands?

I highly doubt it. They could try to appeal when they lose this case, but I highly doubt any higher court is going to pick it up as it doesn't really deal with any new matters of law.

What I want to know is where are the state bar associations in all of this. I seem to recall several referrals from federal judges, which are generally treated with some dispatch.

The fact that they are still being allowed to operate (albeit now using the ADA to extort rather than the copyright law) is a travesty.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150104/12002529596/john-...

At some point, I'd like a book-length examination of everything that's going on in this case. Preferably by Ken White.

This is absolutely hilarious, really worth a read.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com