4
identified defendant sought to actually litigate, Prenda Law
would simply dismiss the case. See Ingenuity 13 LLC, 2013
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64564, at *6-7. As Duffy acknowledged at
oral argument, of the more than one hundred cases that AF
Holdings has initiated, none has proceeded to trial or resulted
in any judgment in its favor other than by default. Oral Arg.
Rec. 30:09-20. Nevertheless, according to one article, Prenda
Law made around $15 million in a little less than three years.
See Kashmir Hill, How Porn Copyright Lawyer John Steel
Has Made a ‘Few Million Dollars’ Pursuing (Sometimes
Innocent)
‘Porn
Pirates’,
Forbes
(Oct.
15,
2012),
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/10/15/howporn-copyright-lawyer-john-steele-justifies-his-pursuit-ofsometimes-innocent-porn-pirates.
The present lawsuit is a quintessential example of Prenda
Law’s modus operandi. Represented by Prenda Law, AF
Holdings brought suit in the United States District Court for
the District of Columbia against 1,058 unnamed Does who it
alleged had illegally downloaded and shared the pornographic
film Popular Demand using a file-sharing service known as
BitTorrent. As an attachment to its complaint, AF Holdings
listed the 1,058 IP addresses assigned to those subscribers
whose Internet connections had been used to share Popular
Demand, along with the specific date and time at which it,
using what it described as “sophisticated and proprietary peerto-peer
network
forensic
software,”
had
observed
each
defendant’s allegedly infringing activity. AF Holdings also
attached the purported assignment agreement through which it
claims to have acquired the copyright to Popular Demand.
Although it has no effect on our resolution of this appeal,
other courts have since concluded that at least one of the
signatures on this document was forged. See Ingenuity 13
LLC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64564, at *8; AF Holdings LLC
v. Navasca, No. C-12-2396,
2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
102249,