Copyright Troll John Steele Vs. Illinois Code Of Professional Conduct (oped)

Given Mr. Steele's obsession with trolling around the web and trying to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt, I would like to point out the fact that 90% of the time Mr. Steele's comments lack substance and merely consist of insults, complaints about being insulted(he whines about that on a ton of different forums, which I monitor periodically), and threats about how "they are going to get you." I consider his need to threaten the Internet to be a strong indicator of a weak case. Why bother discouraging people from sending in complaints if the ARDC thinks they are a joke? Seems more like damage control

Hello, I enjoy reading all the non attorney analysis of the ardc and me, they think pirate complaints of our suits are a joke and don't even forward them to me anymore.

I never hear anyone claim they didn't do it on this site, just complaints of getting caught. These sites are always two months behind what is going on. Just wait. We are just getting started. Here is my advice: next time your mom makes you a snack, and your thinking about taking a break from world of Warcraft, just close Your eyes and dream of your favorite star trek character. It's cheaper

Well, I don't see IARDC is taking any actions against steele. By now, they received at least a dozen complaints and they all know exactly what he's been doing, but they didn't take any action against him yet, I wonder why!?

John Lawrence Steele and Paul Hansmeier DISTRIBUTE PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL WITHOUT AGE VERIFICATION! Hansmeier says something in the complaint along the lines "I download (through torrents) the entire file to make sure it's the actual work of the plaintiff". Here's an admitted file sharer who spreads pornographic material indiscriminately to, most likely, minors!

To address the extensive issue of deceit/misrepresentation before the courts:

1) Many of Mr. Steele's complaints include multiple file names which indicates that there must have been multiple torrent swarms. Mr. Steele's attempt to claim that he can join multiple titles into one action by stating that all the John Does were acting in concert was shot down way back in October of last year:

On October 1, Judge Ruben Castillo dismissed another John Steele complaint, stating that various titles couldn’t be lumped into one case.

"After a careful review of the case docket, the Court hereby dismisses the complaint without prejudice to a proper amended complaint which names individual defendants. Plaintiff's attorney is cautioned that there must be joint activity by similar defendants to name said defendants in one lawsuit...Individual lawsuits against any defendant operating individually would be appropriate."

Rather than learning from this mistake, Mr. Steele simply decided to change venues in hopes that a new judge would overlook the inappropriate joinder.

2)To justify expedited discovery, Mr. Steele has claimed that his client has reason to believe that the accused continues to share his client's content. He also states that monitoring of infringing activity is ongoing. One would not need expedited discovery if you are constantly monitoring an IP address's alleged sharing of a specific file. I find the argument questionable because he could have issued a cease and desist letter and then followed up with a lawsuit if necessary. For his firm to ship out letters that include start and stop times for a torrent from several months ago implies a severe disinterest in determining whether or not infringement is ongoing. The fact the he starts at $2900 despite the start and stop time on some letters only being a few hours apart indicates that, as a federal judge put it, his firm is fishing for cash

3)To justify lumping hundreds of people together and trying to get access to their personal info, Mr. Steele claims in several complaints that his firm does not know the location of the defendants because they are hiding under the cloak of IP addresses. However, he simultaneously tries to use geolocation tools as justification for his choice of venue. Apparently, geolocation is acceptable when looking for new targets but it is impossible to use when trying to determine whether or it is proper to sue someone in a Chicago court
---------On a related side note, if anyone looks at some of Mr. Steele's exhibits you will notice that the file names are not sorted. In order to avoid targeting people outside of his court's jurisdiction, Mr. Steele's firm should have sorted the spreadsheets by title, used geolocation tools to determine the location of the accused and whether or not the IP addresses have any connection to anyone in Chicago, and then proceeded with sending subpoenas to ISPs. That would have been the ethical thing to do, however his firm is only seeking contact info so it can harass people

4)Mr. Steele's firm tries to threaten people out of money by claiming that they could be held liable for failing to secure their wireless network. Such a claim is not supported by laws in many states including his own:

"According to Winnebago County State's Attorney Paul Logli, unauthorized access of a WAP is illegal in Illinois, even if the network is unprotected"
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/03/6447.ars

5) Mr. Steele claims in his complaints that all of the torrent files were clearly labeled in a way which identifies his client as the copyright owners. Yet his evidence includes file names like jenny01 or kaycee01. There is nothing in those titles to indicate that his client owns them. When asked about this, Mr. Steele stated that his client knows which models the name refers to, but that statement can not logically apply to the judge or any third party. It's just a woman's name and a number

6)Mr. Steele is contacting people and claiming that their info was turned over because they allegedly downloaded a copyrighted file. However, as his complaints state, the files had not been copyrighted at the time of the request. I am still having trouble locating the copyright info for many of the files in his complaints. Mr. Steele's own website states that registering a copyright is usually a prerequisite for filing a copyright infringement suit. Makes one wonder if he is merely trying to buy time until the applications clear

John Steele and Paul Hansmeier are next!

http://torrentfreak.com/senior-judge-slams-file-sharing-law-firm-orders-costs-pa...

to finish up the article:

for free, so his only motive is pecuniary gain. Therefore, Mr. Steele has violated this rule on multiple occassions

Rule 8.4

RULE 8.4: MISCONDUCT

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

(a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another.
-------See above

(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.
-----Blatant lies are included in some of his pre-Settlement letters

(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.
-----Purposefully restricting access to evidence and failing to take the steps necessary to verify the guilt of the accused indicates actions which are prejudicial to the administration of justice

Additional rules violations will be added ASAP. Unfortunately, the number of potential violations exceeded the number of characters current.com allows for a single article