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Paul Hansmeier, who’s serving a 14-year jail sentence for submitting sham copyright infringement lawsuits and extorting cash from victims, has misplaced an try to implement copyrights from jail. In a ruling Monday, a federal decide rejected Hansmeier’s request to forestall the federal government from imposing mail-wire fraud and cash laundering legal guidelines towards him. Hansmeier wished an injunction in order that he may file copyright lawsuits with out going through new prices.
Hansmeier, who can also be interesting his conviction regardless of having pleaded responsible, can be acquainted to Ars readers as one of many principals behind the infamous “copyright troll” agency Prenda Regulation. He was sentenced in June 2019 “for an elaborate fraud scheme that concerned importing pornographic movies to file-sharing networks after which threatening to sue individuals who downloaded them,” as our reporting on the time stated. Prenda Regulation’s technique concerned searching for settlements of some thousand {dollars} from every sufferer.
Prenda Regulation founder John Steele pleaded responsible in 2017 to prices of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit cash laundering and cooperated within the investigation into Hansmeier. Hansmeier finally pleaded responsible to the identical prices in August 2018. Steele was sentenced to 5 years in jail in July 2019.
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