Judge tells copyright troll, “no,” he cannot continue filing piracy lawsuits from jail

Justice served: A choose has advised the co-founder of the sham copyright-trolling regulation agency Prenda Legislation that he can not proceed submitting piracy lawsuits from his jail cell. It looks as if a no brainer, however the lawyer’s final level is to make the case that the legal guidelines holding him in jail are “unconstitutional,” so he ought to be launched.

Disgraced Prenda Legislation lawyer Paul Hansmeier is serving a 14-year sentence for operating a copyright entrapment rip-off, which he pled responsible to in 2018. Since then, he has filed multiple authorized actions from his jail cell to get out of serving his time.

Hansmeier’s newest ploy was to file a movement with the US District Courtroom in Minnesota, the identical court docket that convicted him, asking for a preliminary injunction in opposition to the federal government from implementing fraud and cash laundering statutes in opposition to him. The acknowledged function is to permit him to proceed submitting copyright infringement circumstances whereas incarcerated, using a personal investigator to do the legwork.

In fact, that is what landed him in jail within the first place. Primarily he’s asking that the court docket not enable his conviction, which is below attraction, to stop him from defending his and his shoppers’ copyrights.

Hansmeier based Prenda with John Steele, and collectively they arrange a enterprise mannequin of settling bogus copyright claims for round $3,000. Up till 2013, Prenda Legislation would upload pornographic movies to websites like The Pirate Bay, then sue the 1000’s of those that downloaded the content material.

Hansmeier’s six-page movement promises his future lawsuits won’t be on the identical scale, nor will they contain pornography. As a substitute, he suggests he’ll pursue a smaller variety of shoppers and litigate in opposition to folks “pirating” materials similar to “poetry.” He claims that failure to offer injunctive aid violates his First Modification rights.

“Hansmeier is more likely to endure irreparable hurt within the absence of injunctive aid as a result of Hansmeier has misplaced his First Modification freedoms. Particularly, Hansmeier is chilled from partaking in First Modification-protected exercise. Hansmeier’s proposed copyright enforcement exercise is protected by the First Modification’s Petition Clause, which ‘protects the rights of people to attraction to courts and different boards established by the federal government for decision of authorized disputes.'”

Whereas there is no such thing as a regulation stopping an inmate from submitting a lawsuit of any variety from jail, there are obvious misgivings about permitting Hansmeier to proceed to conduct his enterprise, contemplating the character of his conviction. It solely took the District Courtroom one paragraph to say “no” below the authorized precedent of Devose v. Herrington, 1994.

After summarizing and restating Hansmeier’s request, Choose Joan N. Ericksen mentioned, “Defendant’s movement for a preliminary injunction [Docket No. 270] is DENIED. IT IS SO ORDERED [emphasis hers].

Hansmeier has filed no fewer than 16 motions to the court docket as he waits for an attraction listening to, together with asking for a decreased sentence (two years) for alleged mistreatment whereas in jail. In that one, he claimed that jailers had locked him in solitary confinement for 5 months, restricted him to just one cellphone name to his household per thirty days, withheld the newspaper from him, and didn’t enable him attorney-client privileged calls. That petition was additionally denied.