People who downloaded certain pornographic movies over bit torrent were getting legal letters from the copyrights owners asking for a payment or threatening to take the downloader to court.
But the company that "owned" the IP was a shell company set up by the lawyers sending the letters. They created the company and then represented that shell company. It's not certain whether the IP could be transfered in the way Pre da said it had been. In some situations Prenda law just lied about it and forged signatures.
One person stood up to the legal threats and it all started going downhill from then on. Multiple judges across the US have expressed disappointment with Prenda and surprise at the shennanigans.
Additionally, there's good evidence that principals of Prenda Law were the ones that uploaded the movies in question to bittorrent in the first place. These movies were never released through more conventional channels.
But the company that "owned" the IP was a shell company set up by the lawyers sending the letters. They created the company and then represented that shell company. It's not certain whether the IP could be transfered in the way Pre da said it had been. In some situations Prenda law just lied about it and forged signatures.
One person stood up to the legal threats and it all started going downhill from then on. Multiple judges across the US have expressed disappointment with Prenda and surprise at the shennanigans.
Wikipedia has a rather jumbled timeline. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law