Noah Feldman, Columnist

Porn, Copyright Law and a Raised Judicial Eyebrow

Morality sometimes trumps the letter of the law.

June 15, 2016 at 3:54 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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Trolling for copyright violations for illegally downloading pornographic films seems like a near-perfect business. What viewer would want to fight a lawsuit in which he1466002703888 could be forced to pay damages if he lost and embarrassed even if he won?

Yet a law firm that almost turned the trolling business into a science ended up sanctioned by a U.S. federal district court – and now an appellate court has upheld the sanctions despite a scanty legal basis for doing so.