Page 48 - AVN December 2013

LEGAL NEWS
Judge Throws Book at Prenda Gang Claiming fraud, he orders return of settlement, lawyers’ fees
alleging had been illegally pirated by BitTorrent users, and over which they were filing suit and demanding settle-
ment payments.
Judge Noel, like other judges, had been profoundly influenced by the now legendary May 6, 2013, order
issued by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright in a Los Angeles case, and liberally copied passages from it to use in his
June order. He was especially interested in the part in which Judge Wright claimed, “The [Prenda] Principals
fraudulently signed the copyright assignment for ‘Popular Demand’ using Alan Cooper’s signature without his
authorization, holding him out to be an officer of AF Holdings. Alan Cooper is not an officer of AF Holdings
and has no affiliation with Plaintiffs other than his employment as a groundskeeper for Steele. There is no other
person named Alan Cooper related to AF Holdings or Ingenuity 13.” Ingenuity 13 is another entity alleged by
Wright to have been created and owned by the Prenda lawyers as a shell company used to bring lawsuits against
alleged pirates.
Judge Noel decided to reopen the five AF Holding cases in June “for the purpose of determining whether it was a
victim of fraud.” Following a subsequent case management conference, and a September 30 evidentiary hearing, Judge
Noel issued the November 6 order, which determined that “AF Holdings failed to produce any credible evidence that
the assignments were authentic,” and that the Court “has been the victim of a fraud perpetrated by AF Holdings,
LLC.”
The ac count on Ken White’s Popehat.com makes the Prenda Law
case r ead like a steamy crime novel, complete with a
cast of characters out of central casting.
”
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LEGAL NEWS
It has taken many months and many different cases through-
out the country to open the eyes of judges adjudicating
copyright infringement cases brought by the Prenda Law
gang, but it is finally happening, and because of it, one can
almost see the light at the end of the tunnel that signals
the final death throes of Prenda, by whatever name it may
be using at the time.
That may sounds harsh, but the damage wrought by
this aggressive copyright troll—a term that sadly fits it like
a glove—has not been a laughing matter, especially for an
adult industry whose already iffy reputation has been
further tarnished by the outrageous fabrications uttered
under oath or in writing by Prenda principals.
But as bad as it has been for the Prenda lawyers of late,
a November ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Franklin L.
Noel in five Minnesota cases involving Prenda shell
company AF Holdings indicates a new depth in terms of
sanctions levied against attorneys, most notably John L.
Steele, Paul A. Duffy and Paul R. Hansmeier.
In June, Judge Noel reopened the five cases following
an allegation that the Prenda team had “attached a
fraudulent document to the complaint.” The document
was the same copyright-assignment agreement that the
Prenda lawyers had used in previous cases, and which
they swore had been legally signed by one Alan Cooper,
assigning them the rights to the movies they were
As a result, he continued, “The Court concludes that the appropriate remedy for this fraud is to require AF
Holdings to return all of the settlement money it received from all of the Defendants in these cases, and to pay all
costs and fees (including attorneys’ fees) incurred by the Defendants. After all settlement payments are returned and
other fees are paid, all five cases should be dismissed on the merits, with prejudice.”
Alan Cooper, who the judge agreed had also been a victim of Prenda fraud, “can be fully vindicated in the case he
has pending before this Court,” a lawsuit he has filed against Steele, et al.
Incredibly, or not, there are several other cases involving the Prenda gang that are still unresolved, many of which
are going very badly for what must be considered one of the most infamous law firms to come along in a long time.
In late October, Popehat.com, a site run by Los Angeles defense attorney Ken White, compiled an up-to-date
compilation of the state of those cases as they stood at that date (things move fast in Prendaland).
As much of a slog as it is to read through a recitation of numerous legal cases and the painful twists and turns that
define these particular ones, White makes it read like a steamy crime novel, complete with a cast of characters out of
central casting. Indeed, with its main plotlines of unfettered greed, sex and global piracy, Team Prenda may one day
be the title of a Hollywood movie. If such a thing comes to pass, however, few viewers will believe that such activity
was allowed to go unchecked for so long.
For the adult industry, a significant part of which embraced Prenda with open arms, recent revelations regarding
the amount of money collected by Prenda in 2012 should be of particular interest, especially the part about 70 percent
of the proceeds going not to adult companies seeking to protect their copyrights, but to two of the main Prenda
masterminds, John Steele and Paul Hansmeier. TechDirt, in a devastating October 17 article, has the complete low-
down of that part of the story, including the exhibits (E and F) that contain Prenda’s financial records for 2012, which
had been submitted to the court by Brett Gibbs, a Prenda lawyer who turned on his former colleagues in a last ditch
effort to save his career.
What the financial records reveal is that the Prenda gang was putting one over on the industry as surely as Judge
Noel believes his court was duped. They rode in making high-minded promises about protecting the sacred copyrights
of adult producers, and proceeded to do to those producers what their performers do to one another on-screen. Along
the way, they were accused of running honeypot schemes that at the end of the day were concocted for the sole
purpose of enriching themselves. They learned well from their time in porn; unfortunately, the lessons were ones no
one expected or wanted them to learn.
The story is not done yet, either, but the take-away for the industry is already as clear as day: If it sounds too good
to be true, it is; if the money is too easy, it’s probably ill-gotten gains; treating judges like idiots is a fool’s gambit; you
live by the sword, you die by the sword. At the end of the day, however, it’s hard not to think of Prenda’s treatment of
its supposed partners in porn as a brutally karmic form of justice.
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