(WAWD) R & D Film 1, LLC files suit against 315 Defendants using local counsel Richard Symmes

The first time I wrote about R & D Film 1, LLC was in July, 2012 (see,”‘The Divide’ — Copyrighted Bait, New Copyright Trolls“).  In that article, R&D Film 1, LLC was suing John Doe Defendants for the alleged download of their “C-RATED” movie, “The Divide” (my version of the image is above indicating that a copyright troll was overseeing the production of the film). After six months of collecting settlements from accused defendants, it appears as if they are at it again suing new defendants, and this time, they are doing it using local counsel Richard Symmes.

If you don’t remember my post about Richard Symmes (see, “More and More Trolls“).  Richard is the one who filed six (6) lawsuits against a total of 330 defendants on behalf of Kintop Pictures, Inc. The funny about the Kintop Pictures cases is that without explanation, Symmes dismissed ALL OF THE CASES. We at the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC thought his law firm had grown a conscience and that they came to the understanding that suing individual defendants for the download of their client’s flick was immoral. I guess we were the ones who were naive. Here are his new lawsuits:

CASES FILED BY RICHARD SYMMES IN THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON:
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-46 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00050)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-45 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00051)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-41 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00052)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-22 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00053)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-51 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00054)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-50 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00055)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-44 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00056)
R & D Film 1 LLC v. Does 1-16 (Case No. 2:13-cv-00057)

In total, on January 8th, 2013, Richard Symmes sued a total of 315 John Doe Defendants, all apparently living in Washington.

What annoys me about the R & D Film 1, LLC lawsuits is that they have been suing defendants for SIX MONTHS NOW for the SAME MOVIE. In each of their new lawsuits, they specifically state the specific title of bittorrent file was allegedly downloaded. If they have had SIX MONTHS to ponder the so-called “piracy” of the films, don’t you think they had enough time to send at least one DMCA “takedown” notice to the bittorrent website(s) who are hosting these same torrent files? Or, do you think that they are LOVING this “sue my customer” strategy? Quite frankly, a judge should have them show proof that they have taken steps to police their copyrights by filing the DMCA “takedown” letters with the websites hosting the torrents containing the pirated content, and if they cannot offer this proof, in my opinion, the judge should dismiss the case.

“By the way, if you are downloading “The Divide” on bittorrent and you can see those seeding the files to you in your bittorrent swarm, tell R & D Film 1, LLC that I say hello.”

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New Baby Copyright Trolls. Copycats, shame on you.

I am looking at these new cases, and I want each new John Doe defendant to understand that these new cases that I am about to discuss are child’s play. Most of the new attorneys in these cases are newer copycat trolls who are hopping on the success of the bigger copyright trolls we read about daily in the blogs.

While the purpose of this blog is to discuss copyright cases and attorneys who sue John Doe Defendants en masse, I want to point out that this is no reflection on whether or not the attorneys are nice people.  At least one attorney here (Richard Fee) is described to me as being a nice guy, and in the comments section you’ll read about a particular attorney and his sidekick complaining about why I am making a new copyright troll feel ashamed about being a copyright troll.  My response:  Just because an attorney is a copyright troll doesn’t mean he or she is not a nice guy.  Kevin Harrison is a nice guy.  Doug McIntyre is a nice guy, and to many people’s surprise, Mike Meier is a nice guy too.

Depending on who you ask, I’m a nice guy too.  That being said, as soon as these attorneys decide to start filing copyright infringement lawsuits and they start suing defendants rather than focusing on taking down the infringing content which in my opinion is the remedy given to copyright holders by Congress via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), I leave my “nice guy” hat at the door and discuss the cases and their attorneys for what they are — copyright trolls.

Here are a few new cases to give you a taste (pardon the cynicism):

In the Florida Middle District Court:
Bait Productions Pty. Ltd. v. Does 1-73 (Case No. 8:12-cv-02554)
Bait Productions Pty. Ltd. v. Does 1-41 (Case No. 8:12-cv-02555)
Bait Productions Pty. Ltd. v. Does 1-52 (Case No. 8:12-cv-02556)

Richard Fee of Fee & Jeffries PA (attorney for Bait Productions Pty. Ltd.) — you filed each of these on the same day.  Don’t you think the courts will see that you are copyright trolling and that they will consolidate and dismiss your cases?

Now let’s go to the Georgia Southern District Court: [NEW COURT]
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-80 (Case No. 4:12-cv-00281)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. John Does 1-26 (Case No. 4:12-cv-00282)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. John Does 1-37 (Case No. 4:12-cv-00283)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-45 (Case No. 4:12-cv-00284)

Nathan Belzer (attorney for R & D Film 1, LLC)… Really? Are you really defending your R & D Film 1, LLC client’s interest in stopping piracy? Or in making a quick buck by suing downloaders? Do you even know about R&D Film 1′s other cases? Or did you just take the client thinking that you’ll make a few bucks?

Night of the Templar, LLC v. John Does 1-34 (Case No. 4:12-cv-00285)

Same attorney as above. Nathan Belzer.  I like the name of the plaintiff.

What about the Ohio Northern District Court: [NEW COURT]
Safety Point Productions, LLC et al v. Does 97-177 (Case No. 1:12-cv-02831)

Umm.. what happened to 1-96? Also, the “et al.” in this case includes Voltage Pictures, LLC. Douglas Riddell Jr. (new guy), did you think you would fool us? We have seen Voltage Pictures, LLC cases many times before in D.C.  Do you think you’ll be more successful than Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, PLLC was with this SAME PLAINTIFF?

R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 142-162 (Case No. 1:12-cv-02832)

Again, the funny Doe numbering by Riddell. This Douglas Riddell guy is funny. I’m going to enjoy his cases.

Safety Point Productions, LLC et al v. Does 1-96 (Case No. 1:12-cv-02820)

Finally, Douglas Riddell Jr. learns how to count from “1.” Again, Voltage Pictures, LLC is a plaintiff in this case.

And,
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-141 (Case No. 1:12-cv-02822)

Again, Doug Riddell.

Now, let’s go to Illinois Northern District Court:
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-37 (Case No. 1:12-cv-09036)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-92 (Case No. 1:12-cv-09039)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-103 (Case No. 1:12-cv-09041)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-66 (Case No. 1:12-cv-09043)

Todd Parkhurst (of Michael A. Hierl of Huges Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd.) must be dym-witted to think that they would succeed with a copyright troll case in the Northern District of Illinois. John Steele killed copyright trolling for this federal district long ago — Todd, did you ask yourself when R&D Film 1, LLC contacted you WHY THEY CONTACTED YOU AND NOT JOHN STEELE (OF PRENDA LAW INC.)? For a copyright troll, Steele would have been a better choice.

Hmmm… Also in Ohio Northern District Court:
Safety Point Productions, LLC et al v. Does 1-14 (Case No. 1:12-cv-02812)

Did you notice how R&D Film 1, LLC and Safety Point Productions, LLC cases are each filed by the SAME SET OF ATTORNEYS IN EACH DISTRICT? I smell a new IP monetization company behind the scenes.

That’s it for tonight. Back to work on some real cases. If I’ve offended anyone, I’m not sorry — new attorneys shouldn’t be taking on copyright trolling cases.  If you are really interested in stopping piracy of your copyrighted content, then there are better ways to police your client’s copyrights than to let the infringement continue and then sue the downloaders.  Try a DMCA take down letter one day.  You might find that it works.

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“The Divide” — Copyrighted Bait, New Copyright Trolls

I wanted to bring your attention to a new “copyright troll” in the backyard of Steele Hansmeier, PLLC (now Prenda Law Inc.). The copyright troll is “R & D Film 1, LLC” and their plaintiff attorney is Michael Heirl and Todd Parkhurst of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. Their website is http://www.hsplegal.com, and surprise, surprise — they are out of Chicago, Illinois.

It appears as if they are suing over the movie title “The Divide,” directed by Xavier Gens, which was seeded over the bittorrent network as “The Divide 2011 LIMITED 720p BRip XVID AC3 BHRG” on USAbit.com [and is coincidentally still being seeded now as we speak here, so apparently neither Michael Heirl nor Todd Parkhurst have issued a DMCA takedown letters to the bittorrent websites.] The download appears to be a rip of a Blu-Ray, the size of the file is 3.8 GB, and it appears to have been downloaded 2162 times so far (so expect to have 2,000+ defendants soon for this file alone).

On another complaint, I see the torrent file is “The Divide 2011 720p BRRip x264 -MgB,” and I could only guess that in their other lawsuits, they are suing for all the other bittorrent filenames downloaded.

It appears that plaintiff attorney Michael Heirl has targeted the following ISPs: Comcast Cable, Frontier Communications, Mediacom Communications Corp., RCN Corp., SBC Internet Services, Norlight Telecommunications, Wireless Data Service Provider Corporation, and WideOpenWest. Plus, it appears as if they have not only focused on those defendants in Illinois, but they have narrowed the IP addresses down to which town allegedly housed this accused IP address.  Thus, forget about motions to quash based on a lack of personal jurisdiction — they’ve nailed it.

So far, I only see 364 John Doe Defendants implicated in these lawsuits, but with 2,000+ downloads (and counting) for one file on one bittorrent website, they could easily amend their complaints to add thousands of new defendants as Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, PLLC and other plaintiff attorneys have habitually done in the past. Here are the lawsuit titles to date:

CASES FILED BY TODD S. PARKHURST & MICHAEL A. HIERL OF HUGHES SOCOL PIERS RESNICK & DYM LTD. IN THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS:
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-52 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05810)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-20 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05817)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-57 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05821)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-62 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05822)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-36 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05823)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-88 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05825)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-29 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05827)
R & D Film 1, LLC v. Does 1-20 (Case No. 1:12-cv-05828)

Now I have started a discussion page on the R&D FILM 1, LLC lawsuits here, and as I learn more, I will obviously post about it.

On a personal level, it is always an interesting experience defending defendants who are accused of downloading actual motion pictures (“movies”), because the attorneys for these cases are usually more self-assured than those from the porn industry. Obviously the difference between a porn copyright troll and a motion picture copyright troll is that the porn troll is usually suing because they want to 1) stop the piracy of their film and 2) it is a better business model (frowned upon by the porn industry or not) to get thousands of dollars from one internet user rather than to get hundreds of members to sign up for monthly or annual memberships at their sites.

However, with “movie” copyright trolls, they often appear to be self-righteous and have no compunctions throwing threats around because nothing of theirs stinks except for the way they have chosen to make money for their production company client (which they often share a piece of, so there are ethical implications as well [e.g., having a "stake" in the outcome of the litigation]). Looking at these attorneys, they look like older gentlemen who might not be aware of the poo they just stepped in by copying the methods of the copyright trolls.  I even wonder whether they are aware of the now hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed in the courts, and specifically the many adverse rulings in the Northern District of Illinois where any copyright troll should be thinking twice before filing there.  In short, what will be interesting is to see whether these copyright trolls are interested in stopping the piracy of their films, or whether they want to punish those who have not purchased a ticket at the box office.

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