first published week of: 07/18/2016
Both Malibu Media and Prenda Law have run into different roadblocks
The number of copyright lawsuits in the US over online file-sharing have dropped significantly this year, according to data compiled by Lex Machina. Data released by the legal research company shows there were 249 file-sharing lawsuits filed in the second quarter of 2016, compared to 517 cases the previous year.
Anti-piracy copyright lawsuits began increasing in number dramatically around 2012 and last year constituted the majority of all copyright cases nationally. The number of copyright disputes unrelated to file-sharing have held steady for the last five years, as shown in the graph above.
Lex Machina defines file-sharing lawsuits as cases having "John Doe or anonymous defendants" and allegations related to file-sharing technology, typically BitTorrent.
Some of the most litigious copyright holders have run into major roadblocks in recent years. Of the two lawyers who created "copyright trolling" firm Prenda Law, one has agreed to suspend his law license, and John Steele is facing allegations that could also lead to disbarment. continued…