In "I Am Furious (Yellow)", Bart Simpson creates "Angry Dad", a cartoon about the rages into which Bart's dad Homer often flies. Bart puts the series online, and it becomes "the single most popular non-pornographic website of all time". Almost eight million viewers watched the episode when it aired in 2002.
Perturbation over the use of online tools to swipe copies of a German porno movie, "Der Gute Onkel", prompted a lawyer in Denton, Texas, to sue 180 or so "John Does" in Dallas. The northern Texas lawyer moved, on behalf of his Teutonic client, for an order that would have let him skip the step of talking with the John Does about a plan for dealing with pre-trial "discovery" — requests for documents and other info — before serving formal requests, including document subpoenas to third-parties.
The district judge wrote about what happened next:
To summarize the staggering chutzpah involved in this case: [The lawyer] asked the Court to authorize sending subpoenas to the [Internet service providers] ISPs [because they could identify the porn-swipers]. The Court said "not yet." [The lawyer] sent the subpoenas anyway. The Court appointed the Ad Litems to argue whether [the lawyer] could send the subpoenas. [The lawyer] argued that the Court should allow him to — even though he had already done so — and eventually dismissed the case ostensibly because the Court was taking too long to make a decision. All the while, [the lawyer] was receiving identifying information and communicating with some Does, likely about settlement. The Court rarely has encountered a more textbook example of conduct deserving of sanctions.
On July 12, the Fifth Circuit ruled on the lawyer's appeal from the district court's order awarding $10,000+ in sanctions against him for serving the subpoenas and for thus trying to shame the Does into paying money in order to avoid exposure as viewers of online porn. The panel held that the lawyer had waived all of the points he made on appeal because he failed to make them in the district court. But it added:
[The lawyer] committed those violations as an attempt to repeat his strategy of suing anonymous internet users for allegedly downloading pornography illegally, using the powers of the court to find their identity, then shaming or intimidating them into settling for thousands of dollars — a tactic that he has employed all across the state and that has been replicated by others across the country.
Mick Haig Productions E.K. v. Does 1-670, No. 11-10977, slip op. 6 (5th Cir. July 12, 2012) (footnote omited).