Comments on: 512 Safe Harbor Applies to Content Submitted By Independent Contractors–BWP v. Examiner https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/05/512-safe-harbor-applies-to-content-submitted-by-independent-contractors-bwp-v-examiner.htm Wed, 04 May 2016 18:31:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: David S. Gingras https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/05/512-safe-harbor-applies-to-content-submitted-by-independent-contractors-bwp-v-examiner.htm#comment-1521 Wed, 04 May 2016 18:31:00 +0000 http://blog.ericgoldman.org/?p=15788#comment-1521 Excellent case, excellent blog post, and excellent result. For the record, BWP Media is a really nasty and notorious copyright troll, so I’m glad to see them suffer a well-earned loss. Indeed, BWP has sued TheDirty.com once, and threatened a second case (which was never filed – yet).

I’ve defended plenty of copyright cases, but my experience with BWP stood out for two reasons:

1.) BWP sued without bothering to send a pre-suit DMCA removal notice (TheDirty.com is fully DMCA-compliant and would have complied with any valid removal request);
and
2.) BWP’s legal demand letters and the Complaint/Summons were sent to my home address.

That second point was really bizarre because although I am the registered DMCA agent for TheDirty, I have never used my home address in connection with either my legal practice or my DMCA agent registration on file with the U.S. Copyright Office. Also, the name and address of TheDirty’s statutory agent for service of process (who is not me) have always been prominently featured at the top of their Terms of Service page.

This means rather than using my office address to communicate with me, and rather than sending pleadings to the public address of TheDirty’s statutory agent, one of BWP’s lawyers took the time to dox me, locate my home address, and use that instead (no attempt was made to first send docs to any of TheDirty’s other addresses). Ewww.

Given those practices, it’s not surprising that BWP and its counsel (Sanders Law) have been drawing lots of criticism. See: http://copyright-trolls.com/site/copyright-troll-craig-b-sanders-of-sanders-law-p-l-l-c-overruns-court-system/

Hopefully, this latest loss confirms they’re just steps behind the Righthaven folks…..

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