A Pennsylvania judge has decided to call the bluff of pornography publisher Malibu Media, which has filed lawsuits against hundreds of alleged copyright infringers around the country. A trial will go forward against five defendants in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, giving everyone a chance to see if the plaintiff’s accusations stand up in court.
For several years, pornography producers have pursued a controversial strategy: file lawsuits against a large number of BitTorrent users identified only by IP address, subpoena ISPs for their contact information, and then try to extract quick settlements from the defendants before their cases reach trial.
Critics charge that the plaintiffs in these cases have no intention of actually pursuing the lawsuits in court. Instead, they allegedly seek as many settlements as possible without regard for whether the targets are guilty or innocent. This summer, a California judge referred to Malibu’s lawsuits in that state as “essentially an extortion scheme.”
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