San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked an Illinois judge to quash subpoenas issued in predatory lawsuits involving alleged illegal downloading of pornography. In an amicus brief filed Friday, EFF argued that the adult film companies were abusing the law in order to coerce settlement payments despite serious problems with the underlying claims.

Friday's brief is the latest of EFF's efforts to stop copyright trolls -- content owners and lawyers who team up to extract settlements from thousands of defendants at a time. Tactics include improperly lumping defendants together in one case and filing it in a court far away from most of the accused people's homes and Internet connections. When adult film companies file these predatory lawsuits, there is the added pressure of embarrassment associated with pornography. All of these factors can convince those ensnared in the suits to quickly pay what's demanded of them instead of arguing the merits of their case in court.

"Copyright owners have a right to protect their works, but they can't use shoddy and unfair tactics to do so," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "We're asking the court to protect the rights of each and every defendant, instead of allowing these copyright trolls to game the system."

Just last month, a judge in West Virginia blocked an attempt to unmask accused pornography file-sharers in seven predatory lawsuits. Closely following the reasoning from an EFF amicus brief, the judge ordered the plaintiffs to file against each defendant individually. Also in December, a judge in the District of Columbia dismissed hundreds of individuals named in the U.S. Copyright Group troll campaign because of lack of personal jurisdiction. EFF had filed an amicus brief in that case as well.

"As judges start to force copyright trolls to play by rules, this kind of mass litigation will no longer be a good business model. That helps protect the rights of Internet users everywhere," said McSherry.

Charles Lee Mudd Jr. of Mudd Law Offices assisted EFF with the filing of this brief.

For the full amicus brief:

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/uscg/effamicus11411.pdf

For more on copyright trolls:

https://www.eff.org/issues/copyright-trolls

Contact:

Corynne McSherry

Intellectual Property Director

Electronic Frontier Foundation

corynne@eff.org