A judge last week told a copyright troll to “get real” and stop abusing the court system.  The ruling came in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York involving four lawsuits, all of them related to the “blizzard of civil actions brought by purveyors of pornographic films alleging copyright infringement by individuals utilizing a computer protocol known as BitTorrent.”

There’s really nothing much to add to Judge Gary R. Brown’s ruling in the Eastern District of New York.  His ruling against an “avalanche” of John Doe lawsuits filed by a pornographer who admitted to a 30% “false positive” result but nonetheless used aggressive (the judge said abusive) collection tactics to try to force defendants into settling for thousands of dollars each when accused of illegal downloads.

You can read the details here, on the Fight Copyright Trolls blog — which also links to other media coverage of the story.  Don’t forget, however, that even as judges try to reign in these lawsuits, copyright infringement remains a serious issue.

There is no defense against a legitimate copyright infringement case — you either purchase it, obtain a Creative Commons license to download it, or rent it, or it shouldn’t be found on your hard drive.  For more on protecting yourself against copyright infringement claims, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation website, or check out these past articles on the subject on this blog:

5  Easy Ways to Get Sued for Social Media or Blogging 

Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley & Consumers Could Lose

Hey, Dummies:  That’s Illegal!

Legal Nightmares to Scare Bloggers on Halloween (or Anytime)

Copyright Lawsuits are Here to Stay: How to Avoid Getting Sued

Photo credit: This photo of a cave troll statue in Washington State is available via Creative Commons license from Flickr.