US Federal court dismisses another porn torrent piracy mass lawsuit

West Virginia federal judge John Preston Bailey has once again dismissed the majority of defendants involved in a massive lawsuit against alleged porn file sharers filed by the Adult Copyright Company. This suit targeted individuals who supposedly downloaded the film “Batman XXX: A Porn Parody”.

Unfortunately for the porno-protecting lawyer, the judge has tossed out all of the defendants in this case with the exception of one, just like the previous adult film piracy case filed by this legal team.

The judge has severed 7,097 out of the 7,098 defendants named in the suit, effectively killing the case. Judge Bailey ruled that these cases have been improperly joined (as a misjoinder), since the defendant’s alleged acts were totally unrelated to one another.

Ars Technica reports the judge as writing “Several courts agree that where there is no allegation that multiple defendants have acted in concert, joinder is improper. Accordingly, this Court finds that the defendants’ alleged use of some of the same ISPs and P2P networks to commit copyright infringement is, without more, insufficient for permissive joinder.”

The judge also mentioned that all of the individual defendants in this case will probably have a different defense, leading further credence to his decision to split up the suit.

At this point, the Adult Copyright Company has the option to refile each case independently, but at $350 per case, it’s unlikely. The court also won’t allow out of state defendants, so the law firm would be limited to filing cases against defendants whose IP’s resolve within West Virginia.

Personally, I’m glad to see these massive file sharing lawsuits get squashed. The Adult Copyright Company appears to be yet another law firm that is looking to make an easy buck by sending out extortion-like settlement letters to accused file sharers without actually finding sufficient proof that the IP owner actually committed the act. The fact that these lawsuits involve adult content makes it even worse, as some defendants might opt to “settle” via a monetary payment rather than risk public scrutiny and possible embarrassment for being involved in a pornography lawsuit, whether or not the suit contains merit.

If the Adult Copyright Company had been paying attention to the similar cases filed by the US Copyright Group, they might have expected this result.