Lawyer Gets 14-Year Sentence for Porn Video-Sharing Fraud Scheme

A federal judge in Minneapolis has sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison for an elaborate fraud scheme that involved uploading pornographic videos to file-sharing networks and then threatening to sue people who downloaded them. Prenda Law came up with a novel way of ginning up more business: uploading the films itself, including some that were produced by Prenda associates.

The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.