Given how badly things have gone, it seems like the copyright-lawsuit factory that is Prenda Law should be on the verge of shutdown. The lawyers behind the operation were hauled into federal court in Los Angeles, and questioned about possible "fraud on the court." Instead of talking about their litigation tactics, they chose to clam up and plead the Fifth Amendment. Meanwhile, they're dismissing their copyright cases as fast as they can.

Now, Prenda is actually pushing boldly forward with a new set of threat letters—and this new campaign has the potential to be the biggest set of threats yet.

Prenda has been best known for using a variety of shell companies, like AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13, to file copyright cases. It uses discovery in those cases to scoop up as many names connected to IP addresses as possible, accusing defendants of downloading porn files through BitTorrent. But Prenda has also filed some bizarre non-copyright lawsuits, making claims over computer hacking and other offenses. Those lawsuits are lower-profile and harder to find, since they are filed in state courts and can't be found through PACER, the federal courts database. Even though their claims are somewhat muddy, they still lead to discovery.

Now, through one case filed against a single defendant in St. Clair County, Illinois, Prenda has been given an order of sweeping magnitude. Less than two weeks after filing a lawsuit [PDF] against one Christopher Hubbard, Prenda lawyer Paul Duffy submitted an agreed order along with Hubbard's lawyer, asking for discovery to be allowed against hundreds of ISPs. Through this discovery, LW Systems would supposedly be able to track down Hubbard's "co-conspirators." There was seemingly no disagreement among the parties, and the order was quickly signed by the judge.

In the lawsuit, Hubbard is accused of breaking into the computers of LW Systems, an adult content distributor, and installing malware that "destroyed and rendered functionless Plaintiff's authentication systems." The malware Hubbard allegedly installed also made LW Systems computers run slower and use more memory.

The order was signed in late January, and was practically an open invitation for Prenda to get whatever contact information it wanted, from any ISP in America. For instance, since the company may have a backlog of ISP records in copyright cases that it never received, it may be able to get contact information for those defendants through the new case against Hubbard.

After the April 2 hearing, the question remained: would Paul Duffy actually move ahead with this case? After all, Duffy had just pleaded the Fifth in front of a federal judge—admitting that he could actually incriminate himself by answering simple questions about who controlled Prenda, and where the money was going.

Now it's clear that Duffy isn't slowing down. In fact, this may be Prenda's last, hardest push before it gets shut down. The Fight Copyright Trolls blog posted one of Duffy's threat letters today. The blog also reports that "Harassing calls have been placed by [Prenda affiliate] Mark Lutz throughout April." The Duffy letter is dated April 18, on new letterhead reading "Duffy Law Group."

Under a "Frequently Asked Questions" section, Duffy answers the question "How do I make this case go away?" by suggesting a settlement sum of $2,400 be paid before May 3rd. "If you reject or do not respond to our offer, our client will be pleased to proceed forward with litigation." It points to the $222,000 verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset as evidence of someone who "rejected a comparable initial settlement offer" and ultimately suffered a stinging loss.

Even though the Hubbard case doesn't make specific allegations about BitTorrent downloading, the threat letter is—indirectly—all about BitTorrent. But the letter makes a variety of confusing statements, noting that LW Systems has a lawsuit that "will allege you violated state and federal computer misuse statutes." It goes on to make threats that mingle hacking and intellectual property claims:

"[LW Systems] is frequently targeted by people who wish to avoid paying for access to adult content. From stealing adult movies or credit card information, to causing computers to crash, such illegal activity is extremely harmful to our client. In fact, it is this rampant theft of online content that has led many industry organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and Internet Service Providers to go after those who trade in BitTorrent movies and other files."

Questions about which side a defense lawyer is really on

How did Prenda manage to get a judge to sign off on such incredibly broad discovery? Two anti-troll activists—defense lawyer Morgan Pietz, and the anonymous author of the blog FightCopyrightTrolls—have an interesting theory. They're questioning whether Adam Urbancyzk, the lawyer defending Christopher Hubbard, is actually working with Prenda.

"NOTE: We would caution you to NOT contact attorney Adam Urbanzcyk," writes Pietz in his blog post about the case. "Due to potential collusion with the plaintiff, it may be that Mr. Urbancyzk and his client Christopher Hubbard could be adverse to you." In at least one case, Urbancyzk told a client to quickly settle for $2,000 and not bother fighting. Between "the insistence that 'Steele will get you earlier or later' [and] the alleged collusion," copyright troll defendants should not trust Urbancyzk, writes the author of Fight Copyright Trolls.

To some, Urbancyzk's cases look like they aren't true "defenses" at all, primarily because he has struck deals with Prenda lawyers allowing for broad discovery—and quickly. Getting that kind of discovery basically gives Prenda everything they need to write another batch of threat letters.

If the allegations are true, it wouldn't be the first time that Prenda has been accused of colluding with a person who was essentially set up as a "sham" lawsuit in order to lead to more discovery.

Ars contacted Urbancyzk to get his take on these accusations but didn't hear back. We'll update the story if we do hear back from him. We've also reached out to Duffy, who has declined to speak to us about any of his cases thus far.

Correction: A previous headline called the lawsuit a "Minnesota hacking lawsuit." An earlier case involving Prenda and alleged collusion was based in Minnesota; the LW Systems case is based in St. Clair County, Illinois.