The trolls are, of course, following a trail blazed by the major music labels through the Recording Industry Association of America. Beginning around 2003, they sued about 35,000 people, using the courts’ subpoena powers as a private investigation service to find names and addresses. The RIAA ended its lawsuit campaign in 2008, apparently realizing the damage that suing its own fans had done to the industry’s image.

It was perhaps inevitable that the vacuum would be filled by opportunists with no public image to protect. Since 2008, troll lawyers have sued about six times more people than the RIAA ever did, and pursued them even more aggressively, probably netting millions in settlements. Some have faced court settlements for cutting corners in court procedure, and one was even caught practicing law without a license. But this scheme wouldn’t be a viable business model without the draconian imbalances of U.S. copyright law and legal precedent that the entertainment industries and their lobbyists have pushed through Congress and the courts. Link to article is: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/hollywoods-trolls

Oh yes, you can argue in many of these cases the suit gets dismissed, or there’s a minor settlement, but the costs in time and money for companies and individuals is enough to seriously hurt them.

I remember a case not too long ago where a company in Florida was sued by some women feeling descriminated against because the company had no female employees, it then came out that no women had applied. The case of settled, etc. but the legal costs of just going through the process were outrageous!

There needs to be significant accountability added to the court system, frivolous lawsuits needs to be identified as such and there need to be consequences, for example, anyone filing them needs to be fined the cost of the other party’s court expenses, plus they need to pay for wasting the court’s time. I’d suggest the lawyers have to share a percentage of this cost so they aren’t so eager to encourage their clients to sue in such cases.

Let’s remember the financial incentives here. Who really wins primarily through all this legal action? Primarily it’s the lawyers. They have a ton of incentive and very little accountability when it comes to encouraging all these suits, turn some accountability back on them and see what happens.