EFF recruiting attorneys to fight piracy lawsuits

By Eriq Gardner

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is organizing a counter-insurgency against a recent litigation campaign that targets tens of thousands of individuals who allegedly pirated movies on BitTorrent. 

Currently, ISPs including Comcast and Time Warner are alerting customers whose IP addresses have been flagged for copyright abuse and giving them an opportunity to file a motion to quash the subpoenas.

EFF is now reaching out to lawyers across the country in order to fight what it calls "spam-igation." The non-profit organization says it is seeking as many attorneys as possible to advise the targets of the lawsuits.

So far, attempts to quash subpoenas haven't been very successful. We previously reported about individuals who tried to use state shield laws protecting journalists, as well as those who tried to escape the legal wrath because their IP address wasn't listed on the original complaint. Last week, another individual tried to quash a subpoena, arguing that the plaintiff hadn't "sufficiently identified" him as responsible for an alleged infringement. The judge denied the motion.