Prenda's John Steele Pleads Guilty, Admits To Basically Everything

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Remember all the bravado behind John Steele and his copyright porn trolling? I've noted in the past that Steele reminded me of some guys I knew in college who believed that they were so smart that they could do whatever they wanted, and talk their way out later if they got into trouble. And, for many years, it seemed that Steele was fairly successful in doing exactly that. Remember all his big talk right after Judge Otis Wright referred Steele and his partners to law enforcement over his copyright trolling efforts? At the time, he yelled and screamed about how it was unfair and unprecedented, and insisted loudly that he would prevail.

Iand others involvedhave been in front of hundreds of judges. This is the first judge that has ever sanctioned anybody involved with Steele Hansmeier, Prenda Law, or whatever.

I work part-time with Livewire Holdings, one of the entities that Lutz owns. My role is on the business side. I acquire other adult content companies and deal with expanding the holding company. The main goal is to handle a lot of content and websites and to be involved in the adult space. For that, I'm paid a flat fee. I won't say how much, but it's a modest flat sum.

Beginning in about 2011 and continuing until about 2014, defendant John L. STEELE and co-defendant Paul Hansmeier executed a scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars in copyright lawsuit settlements by deceiving state and federal courts throughout the country. The defendants--both lawyers--used sham entities they controlled to obtain copyrights to pornographic movies, some of which they filmed themselves. The defendants then uploaded the movies to file-sharing websites hoping to lure people into downloading their movies. When STEELE and Hansmeier ensnared someone in their trap, they filed false and deceptive copyright infringement lawsuits that concealed their role in distributing the movies, as well as their significant personal stake in the outcome of the litigation. After fraudulently inducing courts into giving them the power to subpoena internet service providers and thereby identify the subscriber who controlled the IP Address used to download the movie, the defendants used extortionate tactics to garner quick settlements from individuals who were unaware of the defendants' role in uploading the movie, and often were either too embarrassed or could not afford to defend themselves. When these individuals did fight back, the defendants dismissed the lawsuits rather than risk their scheme being unearthed. After courts began limiting the number of people STEELE and Hansmeier could sue in one lawsuit, they changed tactics and began filing lawsuits falsely alleging that computer systems belonging to certain of their sham clients had been "hacked" and recruited ruse defendants to fraudulently obtain authority from courts to subpoena internet service providers. Furthermore, when courts began questioning the defendants' tactics, the defendants repeatedly lied and caused others to lie to courts in order to conceal the true nature of the scheme. The defendants also caused interstate mailings and wire transmissions to be conducted in furtherance of the scheme to defraud.

Steele and the government have stipulated to factors yielding an anticipated guideline range of 97-121 months of imprisonment. Yes, up to ten years in federal prison. This is not a highly favorable plea agreement Steele isn't getting any killer deal (yet) for pleading guilty. The feds made him plead to both mail fraud and money laundering a "good deal" would drop the money laundering. In addition, the feds made Steele agree to just about every Guideline enhancement I can think of, rather than leaving those enhancements open to argue. Steele has truly hurled himself on the sword here....[....]I've seen a lot of plea agreements in a lot of federal cases, and I don't recall another one that so clearly conveyed the defendant utterly surrendering and accepting everything the government demanded, all in hopes of talking his sentence down later. Trusting your ability to talk your way out of it later is typical of a sociopath and a con man, of course.

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Vizio Fails To Dodge Class Action Over Its Spying 'Smart' Televisions

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So if you hadn't been paying attention, most of the "smart" products you buy are anything but intelligent when it comes to your privacy and security. Whether it's your refrigerator leaking your gmail credentials or your new webcam being hacked in minutes for use in massive new DDoS attacks, the so-called "smart" home is actually quite idiotic. So-called smart-televisions have been particularly problematic, whether that has involved companies failing to encrypt sensitive data, to removing features if you refuse to have your daily viewing habits measured and monetized.Last month Vizio joined this not-so-distinguished club when it was discovered that the company's TVs had been spying on users for the last several years. Vizio's $2.2 million settlement with the FTC indicates that the company at no time thought it might be a good idea to inform customers this was happening. The snooping was part of a supposed "Smart Interactivity" feature deployed in 2014 that claimed to provide users with programming recommendations, but never actually did so. In short, it wasn't so much what Vizio was doing, it was the fact the company tried to bullshit its way around it.And while Vizio may have settled the FTC investigation into its snooping televisions, the company now faces an additional class action after a California federal judge late last week denied the company's motion to dismiss. The court ruled that Vizio customers' claimed injuries were "sufficiently concrete" to bring suit under the Video Privacy Protection and Wiretap Acts:

"Congress has determined that the interception of a person's electronic communications and the unauthorized disclosure of a person's video viewing history are sufficiently harmful to warrant private causes of action," and in response to Vizio's contention that the information it allegedly discloses is not personally identifiable, adds, "Taken to its logical conclusion, Defendants' argument absurdly implies that a court could never enter judgment against a plaintiff on a VPPA claim if it found that the disclosed information was not within the statutory definition of personally identifiable information; instead, it would have to remand or dismiss the action for lack of jurisdiction."

"Plaintiffs point to a report by the security software company Avast, which concluded that Smart Interactivity's off function was not operational for months, if not years. So, even if consumers believed they had opted out of Vizio's data collection practices, Vizio was still collecting their data for a considerable period. In addition, Vizio's...Smart Interactivity software switches back on without warning if the Smart TV ever reverts to the factory settingsas can occur through Vizio's software updates. Consumers would likely not realize for a significant period that Vizio's collection and disclosure software has been re-enabled because the opt-out feature is allegedly buried in an obscure settings menu."

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