It's really just the continued abuse of the courts by Prenda. They have no real interest in taking this libel suit anywhere. All they want are the IP addresses, so they can cross-reference it against their list of infringer IPs and names/addresses from other cases and then file individual copyright suits against those people as punishment.

It makes this a very high stakes game, since even if the court throws out the result of the subpoena for use in the libel case, Prenda gets what they want. You could argue that is why they filed three separate actions in three different courts, just to up the odds that one of them would get the desired information.

They've done very similar things before, where they filed a lawsuit against the same list of IP addresses / John Does in a dozen different venues, because they only needed one judge to allow the discovery request to go through to get what they wanted.

Here's the actual subpoena: https://dietrolldie.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/automatticwo...

It looks like they domesticated it to California, so they (wordpress) would need to file a motion to quash.

>> "Defendants have published copious volumes of such false statements to many third parties, theoretically extending to every person on Earth through the Internet

...really swinging for the fences with this one.

I like what you did there - I clicked on the link to read the doc and then slowly realised that my IP now falls within the scope of the requested information.

I found myself reluctant to open the links to FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollsDie. Even if there is no consequence to following those links (and smackfu has argued plausibly above that there could be) there is a chilling effect from this demand.

Worse, because they almost certainly will look for some way to sue readers of those sites. On the other hand, it might give you not-so-free front row tickets should they be sanctioned by the judge.

I want to do a "I am Spartacus" thing now.

I'm surprised the subpoena doesn't have anything on it that makes it seems like a judge read it. I understand that most subpoenas are just approved by the judge and issued without review, and that the opposition is expected to file a motion-to-quash if they don't like it, but this doesn't even seem to have a signature or anything from a judge.

Generally, an attorney can issue a subpoena without a judge's approval. It's when you ignore it or challenge it that a court gets involved.