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Court Suspends ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer from Practicing Law

28 points by deesep 6y ago

ficklepickle 6y ago
In one jurisdiction, temporarily.
- deesep 6y ago
  He requires a license to practice in other jurisdictions. Upon application, the authorities will look up his background, and they are most likely to reject his application.
redis_mlc 6y ago
For those that don't follow US IP cases, here's some general info. - there are several private US lawyers whose goal in life is to earn $10,000/day. They have figured out that one way is to engage in mass patent or copyright lawsuits. (Another famous one is to represent dead celebrities. There's a documentary online.) Prenda Law was a similar example back in the day: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-troll-saga-ends-with-prison-for-founder/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-... - but in this case there is a legitimate need for a copyright lawyer to represent photographers against the large rights aggregators, who claim copyright ownership on everything they can find to convert it into a revenue stream. (The online music industry works the same way. If your work is not registered in their particular database, they just keep the revenue until you make them do a database insert with your works and payment address.) - the problem is that this lawyer didn't approach it in an organized fashion, including contacting the actual owners - this is not patent trolling, as frequently reported in the press, which is concerned with "defending" one or two patents by the owner. This is when a lawyer acting as a third-party does litigation regarding masses of IP for the primary purpose of generating fees, not actually to represent a client who came forward. And that's what the suspension is about.
kayfox 6y ago
Leonard French (copyright attorney and YouTuber) reviews what is going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAoRO6GfXG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAoRO6GfXG8 The suspension is pretty complete in the circuit it is in and will likely be adopted by some other jurisdictions or otherwise make it impossible for him to enter an appearance in other jurisdictions.

28 points by deesep 6y ago

ficklepickle 6y ago

In one jurisdiction, temporarily.

deesep 6y ago
He requires a license to practice in other jurisdictions. Upon application, the authorities will look up his background, and they are most likely to reject his application.

redis_mlc 6y ago

For those that don't follow US IP cases, here's some general info. - there are several private US lawyers whose goal in life is to earn $10,000/day. They have figured out that one way is to engage in mass patent or copyright lawsuits. (Another famous one is to represent dead celebrities. There's a documentary online.) Prenda Law was a similar example back in the day: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-troll-saga-ends-with-prison-for-founder/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-... - but in this case there is a legitimate need for a copyright lawyer to represent photographers against the large rights aggregators, who claim copyright ownership on everything they can find to convert it into a revenue stream. (The online music industry works the same way. If your work is not registered in their particular database, they just keep the revenue until you make them do a database insert with your works and payment address.) - the problem is that this lawyer didn't approach it in an organized fashion, including contacting the actual owners - this is not patent trolling, as frequently reported in the press, which is concerned with "defending" one or two patents by the owner. This is when a lawyer acting as a third-party does litigation regarding masses of IP for the primary purpose of generating fees, not actually to represent a client who came forward. And that's what the suspension is about.

kayfox 6y ago

Leonard French (copyright attorney and YouTuber) reviews what is going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAoRO6GfXG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAoRO6GfXG8 The suspension is pretty complete in the circuit it is in and will likely be adopted by some other jurisdictions or otherwise make it impossible for him to enter an appearance in other jurisdictions.