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KENTUCKY IS PASSING AN ANTI-FRAUDITOR LAW

Welcome back everybody. I hope you guys are doing fantastic. In today's video, I have a pretty significant update on the lawsuit I want to give you guys. But first, I want to talk about the situation in Kentucky where there is a bill to prevent interference with first responders and it has cleared a committee aka an anti-frauditor bill. Now, for those who might be new around here, there are several frauditors that are roaming Kentucky and Indiana causing problems. One of them goes by Craig Hedrick. He's currently in jail. And the other one is called Chris Rider. Now, this guy is kind of like the village idiot. He gets stuck in elevators. He's pretty funny to laugh at. I think he's too stupid to cause any real harm, but it's still a Kentucky frauditor that is worth mentioning. All right, so let's take a look at the article. It says, "Frankfort, Kentucky legislation sponsored by Senator Matt Nunn from Sadieville, a Republican, that would establish a buffer zone around first responders cleared the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs, and Public Protection Committee on Thursday. Senate Bill 104, also known as the Halo Act, would provide a 25-ft safety zone around first responders while they are lawfully performing their official duties." Nunn said, "It is intended to prevent interference with first responders in dangerous high-stress situations while preserving a lawful public activity. SB 104 is modeled on Florida law and establish escalating penalties for repeat violations by individuals who, after a verbal warning, impede or interfere with a first responder's official duties, threaten them with physical harm, or harasses them. It applies to first responders as defined in the Kentucky Revised Statute 507.070, including peace officers, paid or volunteer firefighters, emergency medical services, or rescue personnel, and personnel of private, nonprofit fire, rescue, or EMS organizations, as well as probation and parole officers, and university and airport police. So, obviously, this is modeled after the Florida Halo Law, and as a avid watcher of body cam videos on my body cam channels, I have seen plenty of Halo Law arrests, and it's clear that this law was designed to counter frauditors because, if you might not be aware, in Florida, there was a huge frauditor problem where you had middle-aged men that were having a midlife crisis. They would pick up a flip phone and start harassing cops for money. Now, that is still happening, but they have switched targets because of the Halo Law. Now, they target dispensaries and private citizens because they're pieces of But anyways, let's keep reading. Under the Halo Act, a first offense would be a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail. A second or third offense would be a class A misdemeanor, carrying a 1-year sentence, and any subsequent offense would be a class D felony with 1 to 5 years in prison. Nunn explained that with a graduated sentence provision included in the bill, a felony charge would not occur until what would be multiple convictions. "I felt that was appropriate," he said. "We do see people in this space who unfortunately are repeat offenders." He's referring to frauditors. "And at some point, we have to have proper deterrents, and that's what the penalties are. They are a deterrent to ensure people don't continue this type of behavior." Senator Craig Richardson, that is a Republican from Hopkinsville, spoke in support of the proposal. "When Senator Nunn first filed this bill, I texted to my law enforcement back home, and they loved it. I think this creates well-defined standards to protect people who are concerned about what is happening, but also those who are trying to serve and do their job." Richardson described specific incidents shared by law enforcement and EMTs in the area, including a case in which EMTs treating a gunshot victim were unable to communicate while stabilizing the patient for transport due to a disruptive crowd. The bill now heads to the Senate floor. Now, this is really interesting because someone like Craig Haney, who is a habitual offender, who is always trying to harass cops while they're doing their job, eventually he would get a felony out of this. So, it's a very very good deterrent. Now, like I said earlier, there is an update in the lawsuit, and this is about the motion to extend deadlines. So, DMA got his third video tossed out because he asked for declaratory judgment. The judge tossed it out with our motion to dismiss. Now, he's trying to bring it back into play. And for that, he filed two motions. He filed a motion to amend his complaint and a motion to extend the deadlines. Now, my attorney is answering both these motions with one document to save time and to promote the efficiency of the court, and he found something very very interesting. It turns out that DMA does not have standing to bring these lawsuits in the first place because he doesn't own the copyright. Let's take a look. Firstly, the plaintiff has no standing to bring a copyright infringement claim for the video in question. He is neither the author nor the owner as confirmed in the US copyright registration that the plaintiff has failed to present to this court. The assertions in the plaintiff's supporting declaration are squarely contradicted by the copyright registration certificate. Secondly, and in any event, the plaintiff ignored the clear guidance from the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruling that a copyright infringement suit must await successful registration of the copyright. That's the Fourth Estate uh Benefit Corp versus Wall Street. In other words, it is not proper to file a complaint for a work that has not been registered. The plaintiff failed to bring this to the court's attention. More fundamentally, district courts across the nation have refused similar motions to amend to add copyright works that were registered subsequent to the filing of the complaint. To do otherwise would be indirectly circumventing the fourth estate decision. The motion to extend deadline and motion to amend should be denied. So, here I took another 2 seconds to blur out his address because I'm not a piece of but let's keep reading. It says in the supporting declaration the plaintiff only provided the US Copyright Office registration number for the Courthouse Fail video, but did not explain why the actual certificate was not provided. The certificate actually states that A, the author and owner of the work was Executive Lens LLC, not the plaintiff, and the work was a work for hire. And as you can see, this is the declaration of Simon Lin, and the exhibit shows the copyright registration form. So, they just provided the number, but if you take a look at the form, you see that there's all these flaws. Now, let's keep reading. Five factors are taken into account to assess the propriety of a motion for leave to amend. Bad faith, undue delay, prejudice to the opposing party, futility of amendment, and whether the plaintiff has previously amended the complaint. Futility alone can justify the denial of a motion to amend. See Wheeler versus City of Santa Clara. Leave to amend may be denied if the proposed amendment is futile or would be subject to dismissal. Defendants submit that the futility of the amendments alone is a complete answer for both motions. As detailed further below, the amendments are futile for two distinct reasons. Plaintiff has no standing to to copyright infringement of Courthouse Fail, plaintiff is seeking to circumvent the SCOTUS decision. And it says, "17 U.S.C. code 501b clearly provides that only a legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it. The U.S. Copyright Office certificate clearly shows the legal owner of the Courthouse Fail video is Executive Lens LLC, not the plaintiff. A copyright registration is prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and the facts stated in the certificate, emphasis added. The certificate also confirms that the plaintiff could not have been the author of the Courthouse Fail video because the certificate also clearly indicated that it was a work made for hire. According to the Copyright Act of 1976, ownership of a copyright initially vests in the author or authors of the work. In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author. As such, the plaintiff's proposed amendment is futile. The plaintiff does not have standing to claim copyright infringement based on the plain text of the copyright certificate. To the extent that the plaintiff seeks to challenge the accuracy or correctness of their own statements in the copyright certificate or present facts that contradict their own certificate, that may not be permissible. 17 U.S. Code 506e provides that it is a criminal offense to submit a copyright registration containing a false representation of a material fact. The requirement to submit accurate information is made clear on the copyright registration forms. So, either DMA is not the owner of this work or he lied on the application form and committed a crime. So, I guess we'll find out. We'll wait for their response to figure out which one of the two it is. Now, let's keep reading. In addition to and independent of the issue of standing above, which may already be a complete answer, the plaintiff is clearly seeking to circumvent the legal requirement that before filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement, the work must first be registered with a copyright office with a registration certificate in hand. Many district courts have refused to leave to amend in very similar circumstances when the registration was never obtained prior to filing the lawsuit and then it seeks to cure the deficiency after the fact by amendment. So, plaintiff cannot cure its failure to meet the precondition set forth in 17 USC 411 by amending its pending complaint and granting motion to dismiss without leave to amend even though plaintiff had a pending application for a registration because permitting amendment to cure a claimant's failure to register its copyright before suing would undermine the objectives animating the Supreme Court decision in the Fourth Estate. So, in other words, there is Supreme Court decisions that already say you cannot do this. Now, of course, the document's a little bit longer, but I want to keep the updates under 15 minutes so that it's just better for the average viewer. Now, as you guys can see, the money is being well spent. Simon is picking up on all these little details that have a very big importance in terms of the case. So, I'm very happy with his work. If you guys want to support the lawsuit, I'll leave the link in the description and in the pinned comment. It would mean a lot if you help us with attorney fees. Thank you so much in advance and I'll see you guys on the next one.