As a lawyer, you know it's going to be bad when a federal judge summons you to his courtroom at nine in the morning to talk about your “ill-considered lawsuit” that has “abused the litigation system in more than one way.”

Federal judge Milton Shadur, who keeps a "Now, 3 for 10¢ Federal Judge!" sign beside him in his 23rd floor Chicago courtroom, summoned file-sharing lawyer John Steele to court this morning with those words. At issue was Steele's representation of CP Productions, an Arizona porn producer suing 300 anonymous individuals for illegally sharing a film called (ahem) Cowgirl Creampie.

Shadur had already had enough of this particular litigation and had tossed the case not once but twice within the last few weeks. The first dismissal came because Steele had not actually served all defendants in the case within 120 days of filing it (Steele pleaded that he was still waiting on ISPs to turn over the names associated with the IP addresses he had provided).

Then, after receiving an amateur motion from one of the anonymous defendants in the case, Shadur was reminded of just how much he hated the whole case and tossed it again. He also ordered Steele into his courtroom to talk about ways that CP Productions would notify anonymous defendants about the end of the case, and (more importantly) how to get those defendants to stop mailing their "motions to quash" to the judge's chambers.

With that hearing scheduled for this morning, Steele yesterday asked the judge to reconsider his two dismissals, allow Steele to add a charge of "conspiracy" against all the BitTorrent downloaders, and let the case proceed. Steele even said one anonymous defendant had committed "fraud" on the court by listing "Possible John Doe" as his name. To Steele it was "somewhat unsurprising that an individual involved in theft would be less than truthful to this Court, particularly when he is allowed to operate under the cloak of anonymity.”

"I accepted you at your word"



Steele arrived in the court room for his 9am hearing at 9:19am. When called forward, Steel identified himself and then had to stand in silence as the judge dropped his previously genial manner and proceeded to read the riot act to Steele and steamroll his case.

“I accepted you at your word,” said the judge, pointing to Steele's assertion that the case was connected to Illinois. But, after allowing Steel to take discovery and issue subpoenas to Internet providers, "I start getting motions to quash” from places like Tennessee, Texas, New Jersey, from "people that had nothing at all to do with the state of Illinois.”

CP Productions was based in Arizona and, if their intellectual property was infringed, the company's injuries "take place at law at the place of the party that's injured." The case didn't belong in Shadur's district at all, he said, calling Steele's complaint about fraudulent behavior "ironic."

Steele interrupted, pointing out that he had in fact secured some settlements from defendants located in Chicago, which showed that at least some of the alleged infringement took place here and should be actionable. The judge wasn't having any of it, and he repeatedly talked over Steele to tell him, "You chose to sue 300 anonymous people that was your choice.” But the venue for the group was improper, he said, and if CP Productions plans to continue a mass lawsuit campaign, it can do so in Arizona.

“I don't see any justification at all for this action,” the judge concluded, and he had less-than-complimentary things to say about Steele's work. Facts in the case “were not as asserted,” said Shadur, adding that case filings “did not really comply with the subjective and objective good faith requirement."

After 10 minutes of this, in which Steele managed to speak for about 30 seconds, the judge ended the case for good. "That's it," he concluded.

Pressing on



The ruling joins similar rulings from federal judges in West Virginia and Texas, where most of these sorts of suits have already been dismissed. The various rulings don't ban file-sharing cases, but they make them harder to prosecute en masse.

In a statement afterwards, Steele told me that he respects the judge's decision even though he disagrees with it.

"Our client, CP Productions, is happy that Judge Shadur dismissed the case without prejudice and has allowed us to file against the few remaining John Does individually," Steele said. "We will certainly continue to fight on behalf of CP Productions in its war on piracy."

Steele is also confident that his Illinois porn cases can continue. "The judges in our other cases have, for the most part, sided with our clients and dismissed anonymous motions filed by non-parties," he added. "We expect to continue to have a majority of the courts find in our favor and allow us to find out who is stealing our client's content."