Hey, remember when we told you about how movie torrenting lawsuits had essentially turned into large corporations and law firms blackmailing private citizens? Remember how we thought that was a new low? Oh, how innocent and naive we were.
You’ve probably never heard of Stephens Media, because they print newspapers, which hardly anyone reads anymore, in Nevada and Arkansas, where not many people live. But they’ve been trying to enforce their copyrights the only way old people who don’t understand the Internet know how: By suing the crap out of anybody who violates their precious copyright.
One small problem: They want the professional troll they hired to sue over their copyrights, but without the troll holding the actual copyright to the material in question, judges don’t think they have a case.
Sound ridiculously complicated and silly? It is! Want to know how much?
The case in question is against Democratic Underground over four paragraphs quoted from a thirty-four paragraph story…posted by a user, and not the admins of the site. Yeah, somehow, we think that Stephens Media might have bigger problems with the Internet than copy and paste.