(Restoring this article 1 month after it was flagged to death by his client)Attn: Porn Fans. You can help stop Copyright Troll John Steele's "blackmail" campaign by canceling memberships and boycotting products from his clients
source: http://www.li
(No pic. Can't trust a copyright troll. He has a current account BTW.)
For the last several months, copyright troll John Steele has been mailing out letters to unsuspecting internet users demanding sums of cash for allegedly downloading copyrighted pornography. Many of his targets have disputed his claims, some of whom include older individuals who have no idea what a torrent file is or what P2P means/how it works. He sends out letters that list a single file that was allegedly downloaded months ago and then threatens the reciepent with legal action if they are unwilling to settle for a sum of anywhere from $1,900 to $3,000+. He also tells his targets that he will add an extra charge if there is evidence that they have deleted files from the computer, which is their legal possession. He usually gives his targets a mere 7 days to come up with the cash and to decide whether or not to settle.
His clients are companies which are estimated to make a few million dollars a year distributing films. They claim that their declining sales are the result of rampant piracy. They appear to never consider the fact that there is a ridiculous amount of free porn(legally free BTW) and also large network sites that offer full access to thousands of videos for usually about $20 a month. For $20 you can download and store thousands of movies legally. How these studios came up with trying to charge $3,000 per alleged copyright infringement is beyond me(greed? manipulating the legal system to bypass basic supply and demand?). It seems as though they can't deal with the Netflix effect of not being able to compete so they feel justified in suing potentially innocent people so that they can take a "larger part of the pie" than demand for their content would allow.
In order to get guaranteed returns from lawsuits that involve thousands of "John Does", these companies and Mr. Steele are willing to accept the very real likelihood that they are threatening,harrassing, and attempting to blackmail innocent people who are probably the victims of viruses, backdoors, or hackers. The evidence Mr. Steele uses to threaten people with comes directly from software he paid to have developed. According to him there are no false positives. Could a person who paid for software to be made convince the programmers to fabricate evidence? Probably(purely hypothetical statement. Don't sue John.)
Best part is, he doesn't charge for his services. His clients pay him out of the money he extorts, or I guess according to him recovers, from his targets. These multi-million dollar companies get free legal representation, while scared poor people have to try to scrape money together for a lawyer.
I'm not trying to condone piracy, rather I am hoping that you can join me in banding together to prevent innocent people from being harassed by greedy companies and a copyright troll. There are thousands of pay sites to choose from, many of which offer great deals and frequent updates. They treat people with respect and are therefore successful.
If you happen to have an account with any of the companies involved in Mr. Steele's lawsuits I am asking that you join in a campaign for "troll-free" porn by canceling your membership. When you cancel, the site should offer a text box asking why you are leaving. Let these companies know that you will not stand for them considering computers noobs and old people collateral damage in their quest to fill their pockets. Respecting the general public, which is potentially your future customers, is essential to maintaining and growing a business. Trying to scare people into paying you money just because some lawyers(they happen to get to write their own rules and in Mr. Steele's case they get to make their own evidence) can exploit the legal system in a way which lets them legally commit "normal people" crimes(harassment, blackmail, perjury, etc.) is morally deplorable.
If you are a more traditional porn consumer, please make the commitment to boycott the DVDs and magazines of any company willing be Mr. Steele's client.
The courts are willing to allow Mr. Steele despicable tactics, however if his clients take a financial hit they will likely stop their witch hunt. Tell them you are against blackmailing moms, dads, grandparents, kids, and all other innocent people. Let them watch their bank accounts dwindle just like those belonging to the people they are unjustly targeting. If a porn company is willing to abuse innocent people, do your part and slowly bankrupt them in protest.
Below is a list of companies using Mr. Steele's services. Cancel as soon as you can(most sites will let you download films, so just get as much as you can and then tell them to leave innocent people alone). Will be updated as news of more letters being sent out by Mr. Steele's firm is posted on-line:
Hard Drive Productions LLC
www. amatuer allure .com
Light Speed Media
http://www.light speed girls.com/
First Time Video, LLC.
www.ftv girls. com
Show Mr. Steele that the public won't stand for harassment and blackmail just because the courts are willing to allow it. This is a free market economy and what the customers want is what needs to happen.
On a side note, if any adult films stars support protecting the rights of innocent people please join the campaign to stop these bottom feeder lawsuits
(Quick random math problem. Likely cost of developing a single basic pornographic film: $1500-$5000+ depending on the model. Potential return on a fully successful Mr. Steele lawsuit: $3000 per John Doe. Average number of John Does in a Mr. Steele case:1000. Potential return with successful threats : $3,000,000 over a single film. John claims it's not about the money. I call b.s.)
BTW, before anyone tries to call me a pirate: I have 3 active memberships at 3 very well known sites that have never utilized Mr. Steele's services. For roughly $60 a month I am legally accessing over 6,000 videos and will continue my support because these troll free companies refuse to abuse people
Lastly, if any webmasters who host free samples for paysites on legal TGP or video sites are seeing this, please delete any samples you are hosting for any of Mr. Steele's clients. Since there is so much free porn on the internet, most paysites have to rely on samples in order to get people to realize their site exists. Cut off the samples and Mr. Steele's clients will be forced to rely on their excellent PR skills to get porn consumers to visit. I suggest "we sue innocent people in order to compensate for the fact that some people simply aren't interested in our content" as a tagline. See that in the news and the customers will come pouring in
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4thePeoplesrights
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Looks like google doesn't like this article either. Hopefully, it doesn't get flagged to death. Google seems to be ghosting the broken link for the original version of this article, but for some reason, the re-uploaded version has disappeared from the first several pages of a search despite being on the first page as recently as an hour ago. Qword shows the article on the first page
- 1 year ago
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4thePeoplesrights
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4thePeoplesrights
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Backup of Mr. Steele's comment(he said he would never have an article removed from the web, so he shouldn't mind me re-posting this). Some comments were lost since the cached version of the article was removed from Google(very anti-piracy company). Comments from others will not be restored without their approval:
"The author doesn't get it. PIRATES DO NOT PAY FOR CONTENT. That is why they are pirates. People simply do not use the (much) slower BitTorrent method of downloading content from Lightspeed if they had an account with Lightspeed's site. They would just go to the Lightspeed site and get the content instantly, or download it in a matter of seconds.
So essentially, this article is geared to a mythical group of people: Those that steal content despite having a membership to that content owner's site where they could go and get that content more easily, much faster, and completely legally.
My client's policy is anyone who can prove they have an account with a client will be released from any litigation. Try not to be shocked when I tell you no pirates have come forward with such a claim.
PS. I do not call myself The Sheriff."
- 1 year ago
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4thePeoplesrights
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4thePeoplesrights
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4thePeoplesrights:
My original reply:
It is you who fails to see the point. This article is geared towards people who realize that the internet can be a very dangerous place for inexperienced users. Anyone who frequently uses the web has at some point had software installed onto their computer without their knowledge. There are even companies that create pop-ups that tell the user that their computer is infected with a virus and needs to be scanned. If a user clicks on the scan now button these rogue security companies actually install viruses during the scan.
This article is geared toward protecting and defending inexperienced individuals who are being targeted by your fishing campaign. Take my mother for example, one time while I was at work, a pop up came on the computer which claimed she won a free computer. She kept the pop up on screen all day because she sincerely believed that the ad was legitimate.
This article is also geared towards people who believe that small companies should not be able to abuse the courts and the rights of innocent people in order to boost profits due to declining sales. Sales which are usually lost due to a lack of interest.
Just curious, why don't you charge for your services? Are you simply that confident in the software you paid to create(and can potentially manipulate)? Or are you simply confident that you should be able to net enough scared inexperienced computer users to make a massive profit?
You're using software that you paid to make and are backing unsuspecting people into a corner simply because the courts will allow you to.
The internet is full of users that have significantly more programming and information security experience than the people you are paying to make your evidence. You seem to want to gloss over this fact and hide behind the protection of the courts so that you can avoid defining the evidence against the accused.
I stand by my request for people to boycott your clients.
- 1 year ago
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4thePeoplesrights
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4thePeoplesrights
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I am restoring this article a month after it was flagged to death, primarily due to recent events which indicate the extreme likelihood that one of Mr. Steele's clients was responsible for trying to make the article disappear. Last week, I wrote an article about how Hard Drive Productions(Amatuer Allure owners) is attempting to sue people for copyright infringement while simultaneously paying for hosting from a company that also hosts free porn tube sites that contain multiple full length copyrighted/watermarked videos on their homepages. That article was flagged to death. On a hunch, I went and checked the IP address for Amatuer Allure(btw it's a 3 person company that is seeking around $3 million) and noticed that they switched servers from the one that hosts free tube sites to one that hosts sites like smallbizlabs and prochef. They appear to be the only adult content site on the server. The change occurred right around the time the article went down(like within a 48 hour timeframe). Other things which were flagged to death and indicate one of his clients is involved:
A comment including contact info for the ethics violations department of the Chicago Bar Association
Two articles which called Mr. Steele's clients out for trying to silence the opposition
A comment that included a link to an article about how ACS Law(UK law firm that engaged in the same sort of activities Mr. Steele engages in, for three years, before going under due to criticism from the UK courts and the equivalent of Bar Associations) accused over 150 innocent people of copyright infringement(only other person who might want the article gone is someone who hates innocent people)
Offline, Mr. Steele and his clients appear to be engaged in censorship attempts as well. A couple weeks ago a John Doe sent in an amateur motion to quash which resulted in one of Mr. Steele's cases being dismissed. About a week ago, Mr. Steele filed a motion to strike similar motions to quash and letters by John Does from the record. These non-attorneys were, according to Mr. Steele, "too stupid" to learn the rules of the court for a different state and he was therefore obligated to silence them(the too stupid part is a direct quote). Personally I think he was worried that another amatuer would point out the obvious flaws in his case and have it tossed. ACS Law used to engage in similar censorship attempts as well, the most noteworthy attempt being when the firm threatened slyck. com with a lawsuit because the site's users made discussion groups about the firm's unethical behavior.
Overall, I am restoring this as an attempt to do my part in making sure that Mr. Steele's blackmail campaign doesn't drag on for as long as the letter campaign of ACS Law. If you locate and read the torrent that includes ACS Law's private e-mails you can see similar sorts of corruption as well as the impassioned pleas of innocent people. ACS Law went down hard. If you're being target by Mr. Steele, there is hope so don't give in. I, for one, have just begun to fight
- 1 year ago
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4thePeoplesrights
