Judge kills massive P2P porn lawsuit, kneecaps copyright troll
Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 16 December 2010
Ken Ford, the lawyer behind the Adult Copyright Company, has just had his business model chopped off at the knees; not only did Judge John Preston Bailey dismiss every defendant but one in Ford's mass lawsuits, he also demanded that each case be filed separately and that Ford only submit IP addresses likely to map to West Virginia Internet users.
In a series of orders today that cover all seven of Ford's initial September cases, the judge "severed" every defendant but one. If Ford wants to proceed against all these people, he can do so individually and pay the $350 per case filing fee. (For the cases severed yesterday, this would amount to $1.8 million in filing fees alone.)
That should stop quite a few trolls who planned to try the same; it also sends a nice signal to the industry.