‘Copyright Troll’ Has Already Filed Over 1,000 Piracy Lawsuits This Year

upstart writes:

'Copyright Troll' Has Already Filed Over 1,000 Piracy Lawsuits This Year * TorrentFreak:

For more than 15 years, alleged file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees. These so-called 'copyright-trolling' efforts are pretty straightforward. Copyright holders obtain a list of 'pirating' IP-addresses and then request a subpoena from the court, compelling ISPs to hand over the associated customer data.

These schemes can be rather lucrative. With minimal effort, rights holders can rake in hundreds or thousands of dollars per defendant. That is, if a court grants expedited discovery, allowing the companies to request the personal details of alleged infringers from ISPs.

In the United States it was relatively easy to pursue these cases but over time that began to change. Most prominent was the 2018 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Cobbler v. Gonzales case. Here, the court ruled that identifying the registered subscriber of an IP-address was not sufficient to argue that this person is also the infringer. Rightsholders needed "something more".

This has made it harder to pursue legal actions against file-sharers, but not impossible. While pretty much all prolific lawsuit filers have ceased their activities, Strike 3 Holdings is still going strong.

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