Lawsuits as a business model

In The Economics of (Killing) Mass-BitTorrent Lawsuits at TorrentFreak, Alan Gregory examines the likely effects of recent rulings in the Northern District of California and elsewhere, all of which discourage the filing of copyright infringement lawsuits against whole swarms of BitTorrent users.

While not exactly a VRM topic, I’m posting pointage to it because Alan was an intern for ProjectVRM at the Berkman Center in the summer of 2009, when he was still in law school at the University of Florida. Work he did for us then still applies today, and we’re pleased to see him prospering as an attorney practicing in Florida, and staying on the copyright case, which does affect you, me and the new markets that VRM will make.

Some bonus links:

• Judge Shuts Down Another Mass Copyright Case, Characterizes Lawsuits as “Massive Collection Scheme” (eff.org)
• Copyright Trolls: 200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued Since 2010 (pcworld.com)
• BitTorrent: Copyright lawyers’ favourite target reaches 200,000 lawsuits (guardian.co.uk)
• Wikileaks Reveals BitTorrent Lawsuit Background (yro.slashdot.org)
• Expendables producers drop lawsuit against 23K BitTorrent file-sharers (venturebeat.com)
• Vuze BitTorrent Client Adds DLNA Support for Easy Streaming to TVs and Other Devices [Updates] (lifehacker.com)
• Anti-Piracy Lawyers Find Cheaper Way To Identify BitTorrent Users (torrentfreak.com)
• How to Handle a BitTorrent Lawsuit (seattleweekly.com)
• Bethesda’s ‘Scrolls’ Lawsuit Going Ahead (games.slashdot.org)
• Grandmother Porn Lawsuit Dropped (huffingtonpost.com)
• Deceased BitTorrent User Sued By Makers of The Hurt Locker (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Here Comes The World’s First BitTorrent-Certified Television (businessinsider.com)
• Shocker: Piracy Rises After Fox Delays Hulu Shows (techland.time.com)
• ‘Expendables’ Piracy Lawsuit Dropped, for Now (techland.time.com)
• P2P Swarm Defendants Can’t Be Joined in the Same Lawsuit — Pac. Century Int’l Ltd. v. Does (ericgoldman.org)