I started to take a look at the ZEMBEZIA FILM (Pty.) Ltd. Cases recently filed in the Western District of Washington. The cases are for the children’s movie “Adventures in Zambezia.” Copyrightclerk post on this. Link to IMDB page on the movie.
As I have seen how the porn copyright trolls have adapted their cases, these Zembezia cases are of the old-school variety with a slight change. Notice I said “cases,” not a single case.
For this group of BitTorrent activity, the Does/Public IP addresses/Cases were split up to ‘manageable’ sizes and all within the jurisdiction of the Western District of WA.
Here is the break down
Five cases – 2:13-cv-00308 (66 Does), 2:13-cv-00309 (66 Does), 2:13-cv-00310 (66 Does), 2:13-cv-00311 (66 Does), & 2:13-cv-00312 (70 Does)
Zambezia_Does66_00308(WA) Zambezia_Does66_00309(WA) Zambezia_Does66_00310(WA) Zambezia_Does66_00311(WA) Zambezia_Does70_00312(WA)
All the activity in cases 308, 309, 310, 311, & 312 are for SHA1 hash number: F7C32B57BF398EB7808746225C98C9EF228E7AF9.
The BitTorrent activity for all of these cases took place during 7 Oct 2012 – 7 Jan 2013.
Specific case date range.
- 2:13-cv-00308 – 7 Oct 12 – 17 Oct 12 – 66 Does
- 2:13-cv-00309 – 17 Oct 12 – 2 Nov 12 – 66 Does
- 2:13-cv-00310 – 3 Nov 12 – 26 Nov 12 – 66 Does
- 2:13-cv-00311 – 27 Nov 12 – 14 Dec 12 – 66 Does
- 2:13-cv-00312 – 15 Dec 12 – 7 Jan 13 – 70 Does
All of the public IP addresses appear to be within the Western District of WA jurisdiction. It does appear all of these cases were referred to Judge Robert S Lasnik. So hopefully a Doe defender out there will make it clear to the court that all these cases are related.
So what appears to have happened is Plaintiff/Troll monitored BitTorrent activity for 90 days for this hash file. A total of 334 Western District of WA public IP addresses were extracted from the monitoring. NOTE: It is highly unlikely ONLY these WA public IP addresses were taking part in this BT activity. The 334 public IP address were filtered for this jurisdiction.
So why split them up? For a couple of reasons –
- This reduces the chance that one judge can kill the case. But as these were all referred to Judge Lasnik, that didn’t work. Too Bad!
- By keeping the Does numbers under 100, they probably think the cases will not gain as much attention either. Too bad again!
These cases are clearly related – same SHA1 hash file and the dates of infringement link up perfectly. I would love to hear the BS excuse the local Troll will tell the court if asked, “Why did you split them up?” Did the Troll violate any rules by not telling the court they were related??? :) I expect they will say they did it for judicial efficiency and to not burden the court… Blah Blah Blah.
Here is what they state in section 7 of the complaints (Page 2 “JOINDER”).
By participating in the swarm, each Defendant participated in the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences as at least the other defendants in the same swarm.
If they make the mistake of telling the court they are not related, I will be surprised at the stupidity. I have only done a very limited review of the public IP addresses and have found one IP address that shows up in three of these cases at different dates. With that blunder, the Plaintiff/Troll just told the judge that they are in fact related. Now there is the possibility that the public IP address was assigned to different ISP subscribers, but I think that is a far reach. What do you say Mr. Troll???
24 Apr 13 Update. Thank you Doe for pointing out additional repeated IP addresses in these cases.
These cases now makes themselves a perfect target for a tactic first brought up by Robert Cashman – We both wrote a little about it in October 2012 – Cashman Article – DTD Article
Linking all the Does back together makes the management that more difficult for the Troll. It is not the Does fault the management is so difficult – Plaintiff brought these cases knowing full well how hard it would be to simply manage 66 Doe defendants. It also makes it very clear to the court that Plaintiff/Troll is trying to game the system.
I would also look into what WA statutes could be used to require a bond to be filed by the Plaintiff.
Please feel free to take a look at all the public IP address and tell me if you find any other IP addresses of interest. I don’t know this Troll (Richard J. Symmes, Frontier Law Group), but I really doubt these cases are going to be actually going anywhere beyond the settlement stage. I know there has been other activity on these cases, so please post whatever you have. Thanks!
DieTrollDie :)
Absoultely, I have several clients in these cases already. Here’s a link to an Answer and Counterclaim that I am filing on behalf of a group of defendants who did not do what they are accused of doing.
Thanks John.
DTD :)
Good find on the duplicate IP address. While I have done ZERO checking on this, this could also be the troll’s IP enforcement company tracking the bittorrent swarm. See http://ipadresa.net/whois/71.231.2/ or http://myip.ms/info/whois/71.231.2.115. Looking into this a bit further, perhaps not, but if you click on the “Resolve Host” you’ll find that this is guy appears to be a Comcast Business subscriber.
let us NOT forget the REST of the “swarm” will always be MISSING as well as the INITIAL SEEDER…
IANAL – but we wonder how that would look from a legal standpoint that the ENTIRE “swarm” is WORLDWIDE and INCLUDES an INITIAL SEEDER, too.
Just wondering if it’s Zembezia or Zambezia? Take Case 2:13-cv-00310-TSZ-RSL for example. The top page says Zembezia but the last page list Zambezia. Case 2:13-cv-00308-MJP-RSL has it Zambezia on top and bottom. So…..
Funny. I will take a look when off the mobile. Probably normal Troll sloppiness.
DTD: )
It’s not you. The original complaint had the plaintiff name misspelled. Talk about knowing your client.
In total there are 16 federal cases for ZEMBEZIA and 32 for ZAMBEZIA. The 16 were fixed in amended complaints.
There are actually 11 cases in total at WDWA for Zambezia Film, as the doe case I’m involved in you didn’t list. Making there quite a bit more does involved =/
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-18-No-13-cv-0317-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-47-No-13-cv-0307-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-47-No-13-cv-0319-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-48-No-13-cv-0313-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-51-No-13-cv-0316-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-57-No-13-cv-0318-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-58-No-13-cv-0314-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-66-No-13-cv-0309-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-66-No-13-cv-0310-(WDWA)
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-66-No-13-cv-0311-(WDWA))
Zambezia-Film-Ltd-v-Does-1-70-No-13-cv-0312-(WDWA)
Yes. Many of the other cases are for different hash numbers for the same movie. I wouldn’t doubt they have the dame issues as these cases.
DTD :)
Ah yeah fully read the post again, derp. But yeah I’m also sure the others likely have similar hashes between em
OK, I’m new to this but I thought a troll was someone who bought copyrights for the sake of filing lawsuits. This appears to be the original copyright holder so I’m not sure what the issue is.
Am I wrong or do I have the wrong definition of troll?
For many of the copyright troll lawyers, they do not own the rights, just take a percentage of the settlements. Some Troll lawyers have acquired the rights to media for only the ability to sue people. Some of these movies cannot be found anywhere except on BT. The main point is the Trolls want to generate settlements from fear on a repeatable basis. It is a business model based on FUD.
DTD: )
Yeah I didn’t realize similar suits were filed for other bad movies or that the answer claimed unclean hands so strongly.
Still, the weird thing about this is that it had at least two big name stars (one “A” list), and was just released last year. That seems a short period of time to negotiate what needs to be done for this enterprise at least for this one film.
It is available through Walmart.com but not in stores. I wonder if “copyright holders” ever release these things themselves to torrent as a honeypot.
again with the “snap-shotted” IP’s !?!?! – still missing proof of up or download activity.
“during 7 Oct 2012 – 7 Jan 2013″ – the IP address could have been recycled by the ISP, too.
might wanna research that hash number, too, aside from the simple fact that it’s still available there’s something we’re missing about the hash numbers – maybe a technical person could shed some light on the subject of hash numbers.
What are you wanting to know about hash numbers?
DTD :)
in case 308, ip#56 and ip#58 are the same. upgraded torrent client and restarted. 24.17.68.46
in 308, ip#56 and 58 are the same; 24.17.68.46. Torrent client got updated and reconnected.
I show 7 ip#s that show up 3 times each in these 5 groups. 24.16.107.93; 24.22.215.183; 50.46.209.113; 67.170.28.249; 71.231.2.115; 76.115.33.61; 76.22.52.188.
that should be 67.170.128.249.
.. and that should be 24.22.215.182. And the last 4 ip#s show up in 3 different groups. Please don’t release these errant posts to the wild.. make note of the corrections.. and nuke ‘em. :) I’ll have to switch to cut and paste, rather than reading my writing late at night.
Thanks!
DTD :)
I note that the IP has three different versions of uTorrent. That could be from upgrading, though. The version number seems to increase over time.
To recover pictures from a client’s dying Mac HD, I needed a Linux setup. The official Linux downloads for several of the ISO images required a torrent client. I seem to recall the client I’d downloaded had automatically downloaded an update and in the middle of the download of the ISO wanted to stop, run the new(er) version of the client and continue downloading the ISO. I wondered if all the doubles and triple entries in these 5 collections were from similar torrent client updates. (You’re welcome to the spreadsheet I have of the 5 cases’ ip#s if you’ll identify an email address to send it to.)
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Wow, what a mess.
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Curious to see where this goes in Washington because state law here allows the defendants to countersue for frivolous lawsuits…
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anyone sound advice of what to do? quash or not quash?
The case is stayed. ALL the subpoenas have been stayed. You need to take a look at my site, where I’m tracking these.. . . copyright.infringementadvisor.com
John,
Since most of the cases have been stayed, what happens to the cases in which individuals have filed answers? Specifically, the Does that have filed answers. Thanks for keeping the updates.
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