Many new porn download lawsuits hitting Arizona businesses: employers being sued

[Bladewire]

Interesting new cooyright lawsuit niche, during the guys who illegally download from work! Unfortunate that the article positions the downloaders as innocent and the copyright holder as extorting money from innocent people.

"Whiteman said employers need to specifically ban content and other downloads at their workplaces.

He said violating that at work needs to be fireable offense.

Without that, businesses could be sued if employees are downloading at work."


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https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...y-hitting.html

The lawsuits involve alleged copyright infringements around purported downloads of movies, pornography and other material online.

?Regular people, business leaders, moms are being sued for allegedly illegally downloading movies and pornography from file-sharing programs,? said Rose, managing partner of the Scottsdale law firm.

She has seen these cases nationally since 2010 but is noticing an uptick in such lawsuits in Arizona.

?We have seen several filed in Arizona in 2017 and believe this is just the start,? Rose said.

The civil lawsuits are filed for first identifying the IP address that allegedly downloaded copyright materials.

The lawsuits are filed under unnamed John Doe clients.

?These copyright infringement cases are supposedly an attempt to curb piracy, but they have been criticized as coercive because the copyright owner offers to settle for less than it would cost to hire an attorney to defend the case,? Rose said. ?Moreover, approximately 30 percent of the time, the person being sued is innocent.?

Jordan Rose and Lauren Reynolds are seeing a number of new lawsuits being filed in Arizona.

Rose and Reynolds are attorneys at the Rose Law Group in Scottsdale.


The lawsuits involve alleged copyright infringements around purported downloads of movies, pornography and other material online.

?Regular people, business leaders, moms are being sued for allegedly illegally downloading movies and pornography from file-sharing programs,? said Rose, managing partner of the Scottsdale law firm.

She has seen these cases nationally since 2010 but is noticing an uptick in such lawsuits in Arizona.

?We have seen several filed in Arizona in 2017 and believe this is just the start,? Rose said.

The civil lawsuits are filed for first identifying the IP address that allegedly downloaded copyright materials.

The lawsuits are filed under unnamed John Doe clients.

?These copyright infringement cases are supposedly an attempt to curb piracy, but they have been criticized as coercive because the copyright owner offers to settle for less than it would cost to hire an attorney to defend the case,? Rose said. ?Moreover, approximately 30 percent of the time, the person being sued is innocent.?


Defendants are often asked to settle for $3,000 to $5,000.

If the case involves porn downloads, it gets more complicated for defendants ? including businesses.

?They send letters and call consumers threatening to amend the complaint and personally name them unless they settle usually $3000 to $5000,? Rose said. ?This step is even more coercive when the content is pornography, because consumers do not want to be named in a federal lawsuit, let alone one alleging illegal porn downloading. Most consumers settle at this point, even if they are innocent.?

That sounds a lot like extortion.

In 2016, two attorneys based out of Minnesota, but with ties to Chicago and Florida, were charged for alleged blackmail in porn copyright infringement. Prosecutors say the attorneys actually also produced adult films and content as part of the alleged scheme.

Blake Whiteman, an attorney with the Jennings Haug Cunningham LLP in Phoenix, said the download lawsuits are not legally extortion if the material is copyrighted and there is some legal basis for the lawsuit.

?It?s not extortion if they have a legal claim,? said Whiteman.

Brian LaCorte, an attorney and commercial litigator with the Ballard Spahr LLP law firm in Phoenix, said the copyright cases are akin to the legal battles over Napster back in 2001.

LaCorte compares the copyright download cases with patent trolls who sue technology and other companies over alleged patent infringement and then look to settle.

LaCorte said there has been various actions taken to curtail patent trolls and new legislation is needed on the copyright front.

Whiteman said employers need to specifically ban content and other downloads at their workplaces.

He said violating that at work needs to be fireable offense.

Without that, businesses could be sued if employees are downloading at work.

The Phoenix attorney said there is a legitimate claim, including related to porn, he advising some potentially tough medicine:

?Tell your spouse,? Whiteman.

But he also advising not paying the settlement. ?Don?t pay it,? he said.

If that happens, he doesn?t expect many of the cases to move forward. That includes when the claims might not be legitimate. ?Call their bluff,? he said.

LaCorte said sometimes the downloads come out of email phishing and other schemes.

Reynolds, who specializes in cyber security legal matters, is handling a number of these cases at Rose Law Group.

?It is really frightening that a person who has never accessed online pornography can be coerced to pay $5,000 to settle a case just so that there is no federal court case with their name on it alleging such an activity,? Rose said. ?This is really the worst kind of modern day cyber extortion.?