EFF To Represent Bloggers Against Copyright Troll, Prenda Law
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is joining with attorney Charles Lee Mudd Jr. to represent two blogs caught up in a bizarre lawsuit filed by Paul Duffy and Prenda Law LLC, Duffy's copyright troll law firm.
Copyright trolls try to make money by suing Internet users under various copyright laws. Their tactics include targeting large groups of anonymous "John Doe" defendants for downloading files on BitTorrent, seeking their identities, and exploiting the massive damages in copyright law in order to pressure defendants into settling quickly.
Duffy and his firm's tactics are frequent subjects of criticism on FightCopyrightTrolls (fightcopyrighttrolls.com) and DieTrollDie (dietrolldie.com), two watchdog blogs maintained by anonymous authors. Late last month, Duffy and Prenda Law filed two separate defamation lawsuits in Illinois state court, which have since been removed to federal courts in the Northern and Southern districts of Illinois. The complaints claim the bloggers and their commenters defamed Duffy and his firm, despite the free speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.
