SAN DIEGO — One of the John Does named in a Corbin Fisher BitTorrent suit has decided to settle with the gay porn company, agreeing to a $10,401 judgment while also acknowledging that his failure to secure a wireless router may have invited nefarious torrent users to trade stolen content.
Doe 4, as known in the suit, said that he takes the position that if he committed any infringement at all, it is as an "innocent infringer" and wants to avoid the expense and uncertainty of continued litigation.
As a result of the settlement reached this week, he'll pay the judgment and agree to secure his router and deny use of his connection to anyone who would engage in infringing conduct.
Marc Randazza, who represents Corbin Fisher, worked the settlement with Doe's Florida attorney and told XBIZ that the agreement shows that the defendant was cognizant that leaving a router open to the public without a password was a risk.
"Given the terms of the offer, he seemed to understand the fact that 'I had an open wireless connection' is not a likely successful defense in these cases," Randazza said. "If you leave your keys in your car, and someone takes it and crashes into someone else, you'll likely be found negligent. There have been enough high-profile incidents of open residential wireless networks being used for illegal purposes that it should be common knowledge that leaving your wireless open is taking a risk.
"I don't mean to suggest that you're a bad person if you leave your wireless open. But, if you want to do that, you assume the risk — at least for civil claims — of what will happen as a result."
Randazza, while admitting that he wasn't certain that Doe 4 didn't trade CorbinFisher content through a BitTorrent, said that if litigation continued he may have found other evidence in the case against the defendant, one of 95 targeted in one of a many porn BitTorrent suits filed by the gay entertainment company.
"My client was satisfied with the proposed judgment, given that fact they saw no reason to press the issue beyond the terms of the offer," he said. "The offer has been satisfied, and my client has dropped the case with respect to Doe 4."