Three years ago, a US District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison. Hansmeier was a key player in the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent.

Investigating and suing pirates isn't illegal, but Hansmeier and his associate John Steele entered criminal territory when they lied to the courts, committed identity theft, and created a honeypot by uploading self-produced porn torrents to The Pirate Bay as bait.

Hansmeier and Steele's individual responses to the criminal prosecution couldn't have been more different. Steele cooperated with the prosecution from the start. This resulted in a relatively modest 5-year prison sentence, including a probation period, and he left prison a few weeks ago. Hansmeier decided to go on the offensive.

Hansmeier initially denied any wrongdoing and later appealed his sentence. The convicted lawyer also launched a flurry of petitions and new lawsuits, hoping to aid his case or reduce the prison term. United States District Judge Joan N. Ericksen denied the request early this month.

The denial means that the 14-year sentence still stands, but that doesn't mean Hansmeier is giving up. A few days ago he submitted a new request, asking permission to hire an undercover investigator to enforce his copyrights. This isn't the first time that Hansmeier has attempted to continue his anti-piracy work from prison. Similar suits were filed before - and dismissed. Last summer the court prohibited him from filing more.

Despite the filing restriction, Hansmeier now requests a preliminary injunction to prevent the US Government from enforcing the mail-wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy statutes for his planned copyright enforcement activities. This basically means that he wants the court to greenlight a similar enforcement strategy for which he was convicted. That's the simple way of putting it, without any nuance.

The copyright enforcement campaign could help Hansmeier's defense, which argues that his conviction was unconstitutional. However, the former lawyer also stresses that pirates deserved to be punished. According to Hansmeier's motion, piracy is basically theft and a cancer on the creative industries.

"Internet piracy is a cancer eating away at the markets for creative expression. It destroys the incentive to invest in creative output and thus lessens the public's access to works that enrich the human experience."

"Piracy - which is really just theft - contributes nothing to our society. Efforts to deter piracy benefit our society with no corresponding harm to the public; the only person who loses is the pirate, but pirates can avoid being sued if they don't steal," the motion adds.

These arguments didn't convince District Judge Joan N. Ericksen to rule in Hansmeier's favor. In a rather brief order, the request was denied, which sends Hansmeier back to the drawing board.