At any given moment, tens of thousands share porn using bittorent.

Somewhere in Minnesota, a “forensic expert” spends sleepless nights in front of his monitor, tracking down evil porn pirates, writing IP addresses on a stained notepad with an obtuse pencil, and, opening a new box of Kleenex, carefully comparing downloaded flicks with master copies provided by pornographers, scene by scene, to make sure there is no mistake.

Given the faulty collection methods of such “experts” and their dontgiveafuckness about high collateral damage rate, it does not matter whether you are guilty or not: even if you never heard about bittorent, you are not immune to finding a scary letter in your mailbox one day. Wiping sweat from the forehead with a shaking palm, you, a “winner” of the “reverse lottery,” will learn about the prospects of selling your house, forgetting about your children’s education, and working years and years for free in order to pay $150,000 to the creators of the most useful of arts, low budget pornography.

But wait! The author of this letter, Joseph Perea¹, is not a douchebag, as fightcopyrighttrolls.com and dietrolldie.com try portraying him! He is a Santa Claus, bringing a gift of relief in a form of small, almost nominal fee to make this nightmare to go away! Just pay $3,400 and this ordeal will turn into an educational story you will tell your grandchildren many years down the road, a story about a wise choice.

It is difficult to get rid of the following question though: what happens to you if you refuse to pay? As the letter suggests, a lawsuit will be commenced against you personally and you will lose, sell your house, work for free… Right?

Wrong! Given the history of Prenda Law (as well as any other troll), out of 300,000 targets, not a single person was found liable based on merits. All the “victories” either resulted from default judgments (when a person ignores court orders — not wise) or instances when a not litigation-savvy defendant incriminates himself by talking too much.

Yes, we know, there were individual lawsuits filed, but most of them went nowhere, and two even turned against the crooks. A defendant-turned-plaintiff in one of those two lawsuits, Liuxia Wong, not only managed to be left alone, but also received some money from the blackmailers. Recently Prenda attempted a new round of FUD, filing more than 50 “individual”² lawsuits in three states, but it was too late: the majority of targets, after spending a day on the Internet and understanding the anatomy of the scam, started openly laughing at the trolls and replying to the hollow threats properly:

Needless to say, the author of this response never heard from Prenda again.

Thanks to the author for making my (and, I hope, yours) day.

The document is mirrored here for those who can’t access Scribd.

Update

11/13/2012

Apparently I was overoptimistic: this gentleman has heard again from the crooks, which provoked an expected result. I simply fail to understand a masochist Steele, who keeps deliberately inviting pain into his ass.