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yea afaik, there are people that just send out thousands of letters to random homes in hopes of taking at least 1 bite from one coincidental downloader. Its kinda similar to the nigerian 419 scams. They email tons of people until 1 idiot takes the bait. not saying you are an idiot, just that you were the target here.
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On August 19 2011 01:18 Plutonik wrote:
not to mention, how the hell would they get your email address?
Subpeonaing ISP's
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Any serious settlement offer will be mailed, not e-mailed (I am not a lawyer). If they had subpoena your ISP, they would had your home address, not just your email.
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On August 18 2011 18:13 stink123 wrote:
You have a right to torrent their files if you actually own the files in question (such as you own the DVD, given by a friend, etc). If you want to defend it safely the cheap way, you can purchase (or have a friend purchase) what you torrented and then tell them that you already own the DVD, and was torrenting for an electronic copy (can't rip DVD or some other excuse). This would be a legitimate use of the torrent. You actually did download this right?
You do have the right to make an archival copy of copyrighted material you own, but I doubt buying the DVD after the fact is going to help. In a civil trial, the judge/jury rules based on a preponderance of the evidence, which simply means whichever side presents the more believable case wins. If you are on a jury for this case, what are you more likely to believe: OP torrented the file to make a backup copy of a DVD he already owned, or OP bought the DVD after he got caught.
As for the legality of uploading and downloading, both are "copying" and therefore copyright infringement. So far, bittorrent users have been sued for downloading because it's easy to prove. If you connect to a torrent and go from 0% to 100% of the file, the copyright holder knows you downloaded it. They don't, however, know what you uploaded. If they connect to the torrent and download the file themselves, at most they catch you uploading parts (unless you happen to be the only other person on the torrent, I suppose). Other countries do have different laws regarding uploading and downloading content, but in the US, they're essentially the same.
To clear up some confusion on how these letters/e-mails get sent out:
1) Copyright holder / law firm connects to torrent, gets a list of IP addresses and times of people sharing their content.
2) Firm contacts your ISP and sends them your IP address and the time of download.
3) ISP figures out what account that had that IP address at that time.
4) ISP forwards on firm's letter/email to you and probably tells you to stop violating copyright or they'll cut you off.
What may happen after:
5) If you don't settle, firm files a lawsuit against your IP address anonymously and subpoenas ISP for your identity.
6) ISP complies with subpoena (this is what a motion to quash is designed to prevent).
7) Law firm updates suit with your identity to replace the IP address they sued.
8) Lawsuit proceeds as normal.
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this sounds really scary, but most ppl say its probably a scam and it makes sense to me
I hope you are ok!
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Sorry to bump, but I'm really interested in how this ended or whether there was any update?
Was it a scam?
Did you get screwed? What happened?
Anyone else have a similar experience or know of a similar thing happening and how did it end?
I guess I could PM but I’m sure others are interested too.
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Oh right thanks and also my bad I should probably have thought of looking for another blog entry really.
Also ouch, poor guy.
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EPT
