It’s getting more and more difficult to have any shred of respect for copyright lawyers these days. For the second time in as many weeks, yet another case has surfaced where one firm has copied the documentation of another.
Chicago lawyer John Steele usually specializes in divorce and family law, but decided to take a copyright case representing First Time Videos, LLC, an adult entertainment company whose content was being shared through BitTorrent. When filing the complaint, it seems that Steele decided to “borrow” text that was filed by the US Copyright Group in the Hurt Locker file-sharing case.
The striking similarities were noticed this week by reporters at Ars Technica.
One passage from Steele’s complaint says:
“In recent years, federal district courts throughout the United States, including this Court have granted expedited discovery in Doe Defendant lawsuits that are factually similar, if not identical, to this instant lawsuit.¹ In these cited cases and others like them, copyright holder plaintiffs have obtained the identities of P2P network users from ISPs through expedited discovery using information similar to that gathered by Plaintiff in the instant case, and they have used that information as the basis for their proposed subpoenas to these ISPs.”
The comparable passage from the Hurt Locker case says:
“In fact, for the past few years, federal district courts throughout the country, including this Court, have granted expedited discovery in Doe Defendant lawsuits that are factually similar, if not identical, to the instant lawsuit.² In these cited cases and others like them, copyright holder plaintiffs have obtained the identities of P2P network users from ISPs through expedited discovery using information similar to that gathered by Plaintiff in the instant case, and they have used that information as the basis for their proposed subpoenas to these ISPs.”
I’m pretty sure that any high school English teacher in the United States would label this as a clear-cut case of plagiarism. And the similarities don’t stop there, with even more passages posted over at ArsTechnica.com.
A similar situation in the UK has lawyers pointing fingers at one another about who has legal rights to use specific wording in a settlement letter created by a firm which has now exited the business.
Fortunately for Steele, the creator of the Hurt Locker complaint isn’t offended by the situation and says that he is actually, “Flattered that he likes my pleadings.”
One would think that those prosecuting copyright infringement would have the sense not to copy another’s work. I guess it’s one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” type of situations. Let’s hope we don’t continue to find more.
