Comment by mrmaddog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrmaddog | Hacker News Reader

This post was enthralling, but could have used some context. Here's a quick background I've picked up from a brief read-through of Ars Technica's extensive coverage [1]:

- Prenda Law is a law firm that filed many lawsuits against individuals related to porn copyright, asking for lots of $$$ to drop the suit. Prenda's lawyers include John Steele, Paul Hansmeier, and Paul Duffy

- On the other side of the suit is Morgan Pietz (a lawyer representing a John Doe), as well as Alan Cooper. Cooper filed a suit against Prenda for using his identity (signatures, address, etc), claiming that in reality he had nothing to do with the company. Cooper's lawyer is Paul Godfread (who is mentioned a couple times in the article)

- Brett Gibbs, whom this case has mostly been about, worked with Prenda Law, though it sounds like he may have been in over his head or had actions attributed to him which were actually the result of Steele/Hansmeier/Duffy's work.

Do let me know if I've misinterpreted anything/missed any base details.

http://arstechnica.com/series/whos-behind-prenda-law/

I think there may be one other relevant detail. This detail explains why this company could be in a fair bit more trouble that other similar enterprises (such as Righthaven):

It appears that Steele, Hansmeier and other principals at Prenda Law set up the entities that held the copyrights that Prenda Law filed suit on behalf of. Various federal and local rules have stipulated that (in certain cases like these) the Plaintiff must be represented by independent counsel. It appears to some that the entities that they have set up are actually under the control of Prenda Law, and thus violates the independent counsel rules. This may constitute a fraud that was perpetrated on the court, which would be very bad for Prenda Law.

Quick legal disclaimer: The above paragraphs are a statement of my opinion that I've drawn based on reading the Ars Technica series, the Popehat series, and the various court filings in the case (12-cv-08333). This disclaimer is probably not necessary but Prenda law has filed several defamation suits that include anonymous John Does commenting on the case(s): http://phillylawblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/prenda-law-joh...

First line of the OP: previous coverage of Prenda Law is at http://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/

That's just a flat tag page... the parent commenter's summary, in my opinion, is much better.

And there's definitely a lot of great reading material there. This earlier piece has a great exposition, though it is on the long side: http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/06/what-prenda-law-is-facing-.... I do recommend reading it—it is just as engrossing as the OP. What I couldn't find was a 2 minute summary that could let me understand who the main characters are in this case. Hopefully we'll have a Wikipedia page for this case up soon.

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