Source: https://www.iniplaw.org/category/file-sharing/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 16:15:38+00:00

Document:
Hammond, Indiana – ME2 Productions Inc. of Carson City, Nevada filed an additional lawsuit in the Northern District of Indiana alleging copyright infringement of the action thriller Mechanic: Resurrection.
The movie, which is the sequel to the 2011 action film Resurrection, stars Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. Plaintiff contends that the Doe Defendants are Indiana residents, stating that it determined through the use of geolocation technology that each had an Indiana Internet Protocol address.
This litigation, filed by a copyright lawyer for ME2 Productions, lists a single count – copyright infringement – and asks the court to award injunctive relief, damages, costs and attorneys’ fees.
Hammond and Indianapolis, Indiana – A copyright litigator for Plaintiff ME2 Productions, Inc. of Carson City, Nevada filed three new complaints in Indiana federal courts alleging copyright infringement.
Plaintiff asserts that a total of 25 as-yet-unknown Defendants infringed the copyrighted movie “Mechanic: Resurrection,” which stars Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. The movie has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office under Registration No. PA-1-998-057.
In its complaints, Plaintiff contends that Defendants were traced to Internet Protocol addresses in Indiana using geolocation technology. Two lawsuits were filed in the Northern District of Indiana; one was filed in the Southern District of Indiana.
Indianapolis, Indiana – A copyright lawyer for Plaintiff ME2 Productions, Inc. of Carson City, Nevada filed two new lawsuits in Indiana federal court alleging copyright infringement.
Defendants in each of the two lawsuits have been sued as a group, as Plaintiff contends that the Doe Defendants participated “in a collective and interdependent manner with other Defendants via the Internet for the unlawful purpose of reproducing, exchanging, and distributing copyrighted material” that was unique to their BitTorrent swarm.
The movie, which stars Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones, has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office under Registration No. PA-1-998-057.
Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief, statutory damages, costs and attorneys’ fees.
Northern District of Indiana – A trial attorney for Plaintiff ME2 Productions, Inc. of Carson City, Nevada filed two lawsuits in the Northern District of Indiana alleging copyright infringement of the action thriller “Mechanic: Resurrection.” One lawsuit was filed with the district court in Hammond while the other was filed in Fort Wayne.
Plaintiff contends that a “screener copy” of the movie was leaked and subsequently distributed illegally using BitTorrent, a file-sharing protocol. In each of the lawsuits, multiple unknown “Doe” Defendants are listed. They are accused of committing copyright infringement by participating “in a collective and interdependent manner with other Defendants via the Internet for the unlawful purpose of reproducing, exchanging, and distributing copyrighted material.” Plaintiff states that it has traced these Defendants to Indiana through the use of geolocation technology, which was used to determine the Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses of each Defendant.
The movie, which is the sequel to the 2011 action film “Resurrection,” stars Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. It has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office under Registration No. PA-1-998-057.
New Albany, Indiana – Intellectual property attorneys for DISH Network L.L.C., EchoStar Technologies L.L.C., and NagraStar L.L.C., all of Englewood, Colorado (collectively, “DISH Network”), filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Indiana alleging that Danny Abner of Paris Crossing, Indiana illegally intercepted, decrypted and viewed DISH Network satellite programming.
Defendant Abner has been accused by DISH Network of “circumventing DISH Network’s security system and receiving DISH Network’s satellite broadcasts of copyrighted television programming without payment of the required subscription fee.” This intellectual property lawsuit, brought in the Southern District of Indiana, claims Abner violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1201 et seq., the Federal Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 605 et seq., and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511 et seq.
According to DISH Network, Abner’s piracy occurred via the use of Nfusion Private Server (“NFPS”), a television-pirating service. Francis Philip, a/k/a Vgiddy, sold subscriptions to the NFPS service. Philip provided DISH Network with copies of his business records pertaining to Abner, which showed that Abner had purchased one or more subscriptions to the piracy service in 2012.
Through the NFPS piracy service, Abner allegedly obtained DISH Network’s digital “keys,” which he used to decrypt and view DISH Network programming. The type of piracy of which Abner is accused, Internet key sharing, is still possible despite DISH Network’s latest generation of security technology.
DISH Network seeks injunctive relief, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and reimbursement for DISH Network’s costs, attorneys’ fees, and investigative expenses.
San Francisco, California – A lawyer for Prenda Law argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was heard by Judges Harry Pregerson, Richard Tallman and Jacqueline Nguyen. The appeal focused on the rulings of U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright II.
The intellectual property attorney representing Prenda Law, the now-infamous copyright trolling law firm, squared off with the judges of the Ninth Circuit recently. In a hearing before the appellate court, he contended that the district court had denied due process to the Prenda Law parties. He noted that Judge Wright had threatened incarceration argued and, in doing so, Judge Wright had indirectly initiated a criminal contempt proceeding.
“The entire proceeding was tainted. Mark Lutz, the CEO of Ingenuity 13, was not allowed to testify. As soon as they asserted their Fifth Amendment rights, the judge stopped the proceeding,” Prenda Law’s lawyer said. “He can’t use that against them,” he continued, arguing that Judge Wright had punished the Prenda Law parties for invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination.
Indianapolis, Indiana – Magistrate Judge Mark J. Dinsmore recommended that Judge William T. Lawrence deny Malibu Media’s motion for fees and sanctions against two Defendants and copyright lawyer Jonathan Phillips.
This Indiana federal lawsuit involves allegations of the use of BitTorrent to illegally download copyrighted adult films. Plaintiff Malibu Media, LLC of Malibu, California initiated copyright litigation in the Southern District of Indiana alleging that Charles and Kelley Tashiro, husband and wife, violated its intellectual property rights by downloading copyrighted videos without authorization.
On the morning of a scheduled evidentiary hearing in the matter, attorney Phillips, who at the time represented both husband and wife, learned of Mr. Tashiro’s intent to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid testifying about certain matters. The defense attorney for the Tashiros advised the court that, as a result, a conflict of interest between husband and wife had arisen and that he would be withdrawing as the defense attorney for Mr. Tashiro. As a result, the court postponed that day’s hearing.
Malibu Media subsequently filed a motion asking the court for sanctions, seeking to hold Mr. Tashiro and his copyright attorney jointly and severally liable for the costs and fees incurred in its preparations for the postponed hearing. Malibu Media contended that the defense lawyer’s failure to recognize the conflict of interest between the two Defendants in a timely manner had required Malibu Media to incur unnecessary expenses for the evidentiary hearing. More specifically, Malibu Media contended that it incurred several thousand dollars in unnecessary fees, travel expenses, and other costs. It sought to recover those fees, expenses, and costs 1) under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37; 2) under 28 U.S.C. § 1927; 3) through an exercise of the court’s inherent authority; and 4) under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.
Magistrate Judge Dinsmore first concluded that FRCP 37 was inapplicable, as it was generally appropriate for “disputes or misconduct during discovery” and the delay of the evidentiary hearing had not resulted from discovery misconduct.
Plaintiff’s claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 was also rejected. That section provides that the court may order costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees incurred as a result of an attorney’s unreasonable or vexatious expansion of the proceedings in litigation.
Malibu Media asserted that this section applied because the copyright attorney’s failure to timely recognize a conflict of interest between the husband-and-wife Defendants failed to meet the standard of care required of attorneys. The court disagreed, stating that the case had involved no incompatibility of the copyright Defendants’ positions, as both had steadfastly asserted that neither had infringed any of Malibu Media’s copyrighted material and that no evidence had been destroyed. Consequently, the defense attorney’s belief that he could provide concurrent representation to both Defendants was neither unreasonable nor vexatious and, thus, relief under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 was unavailable.
Moreover, the court explained, even had § 1927 applied, it provided recompense only for the excess costs and fees incurred – those that would not have been otherwise necessary. Because much of the material prepared by intellectual property counsel for Malibu Media would likely prove useful later in the litigation, those costs and fees had not been incurred unnecessarily.
Magistrate Judge Dinsmore also rejected Malibu Media’s argument that the court should sanction Mr. Tashiro and the defense attorney under the inherent authority that the court holds to manage its affairs through the sanctioning of a party that has abused the judicial process. The court had already determined during its analysis under § 1927 that the defense attorney had acted neither unreasonably nor vexatiously. Thus, a sanction against the defense attorney for abuse of process was similarly found to be improper. The court also declined to hold that Mr. Tashiro’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights was an abuse of judicial process.
The court then addressed Malibu Media’s contention that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 authorized sanctions in this case. It concluded that, as the rule authorized the imposition of sanctions only in matters regarding scheduling conferences or other pre-trial conferences, it did not apply to the evidentiary hearing at issue in this request for sanctions.
Finally, Magistrate Judge Dinsmore recommended to Judge Lawrence that Malibu Media’s motion, which had been filed without the required statement showing that Plaintiff’s attorney made reasonable efforts to confer with opposing counsel prior to filing the motion for sanctions, be denied for failure to comply with Local Rule 7-1(g).

References: § 1201
 § 605
 § 2511
 § 1927
 § 1927
 § 1927
 § 1927
 § 1927