EPTFirst time getting sued, Info needed. - Page 8
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Almin
United States583 Posts
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chongu
Malaysia2585 Posts
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endy
Switzerland8970 Posts
I mean this is serious business, I don't know in germany, but there should have been an asshole giving you the letter saying "you've been served". Nothing can prove you actually received this letter. So if you are innocent and broke and you didn't provide any acknoledgement of receipt...you know what to do. edit : after a couple of research, it seems that it happens quite often : http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/shlockmeister-uwe-boll-sues-2000-far-cry-p2p-downloaders.ars http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/nov/28/internet-porn-bill-mistake There's even a term for it, it's called spam-igation (spam + litigation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamigation Spamigation is mass litigation conducted to intimidate large numbers of people.[1] The term was coined by Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to explain the tactics of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which files large numbers of lawsuits against individuals for file sharing, Basically, it's a kind of legal scam, scary :| gl man | ||
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Beaudereck
Canada140 Posts
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Gnosis
Scotland912 Posts
On October 02 2010 00:18 FishForThought wrote: My take is: 1. You deny downloading the movie. 2. You reply to them stating facts such as there are multiple computers behind your router and the not so fact of 'One or more computers received a virus infection during that period of time'. 3. Throw in random crap about, if you ever find presence of the so called 'download content' in any shape and form, you will immediately delete it and remove any copies of it from your computer. I think no matter the country, the best 'take' is always: (1) Talk to a lawyer. (2) Don't say anything in the mean time. I believe if the lawsuit were in Canada, doing the above would net you a loss in court. | ||
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LD-SyNeRgY
United States1 Post
Oh, and buy it used if you can. No reason for them to profit from you directly. | ||
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FishForThought
Canada88 Posts
On October 02 2010 02:18 Gnosis wrote: I think no matter the country, the best 'take' is always: (1) Talk to a lawyer. (2) Don't say anything in the mean time. I believe if the lawsuit were in Canada, doing the above would net you a loss in court. Talking to a lawyer cost money. If you talk to a lawyer every time someone threatens to sue you then, you'll be in the lawyer office a lot. In any case, the only evidence they have is your ip address, which can be shared, hijacked or spoofed. So if you can prove that one or more the above has happened then you're not responsible. | ||
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Darpa
Canada4413 Posts
On October 02 2010 02:18 Gnosis wrote: I think no matter the country, the best 'take' is always: (1) Talk to a lawyer. (2) Don't say anything in the mean time. I believe if the lawsuit were in Canada, doing the above would net you a loss in court. There arent any stiff file sharing laws in Canada, at least not yet. Which is why Hollywood has threatened to release movies in Canada 6 months later to prevent piracy. So I tend to disagree, but you could be right who knows. | ||
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herve
152 Posts
On October 03 2010 23:50 Darpa wrote: There arent any stiff file sharing laws in Canada, at least not yet. Which is why Hollywood has threatened to release movies in Canada 6 months later to prevent piracy. So I tend to disagree, but you could be right who knows. The irony of that, if true, is astounding. | ||
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RaptorX
Germany646 Posts
first: On October 02 2010 00:34 chongu wrote: so, was the movie any good? ;p feel bad for you regardless that was a stupid comment... if you had taken the time to even read the short version of the OP you would have noticed i havent watched the movie, so i have nothing to answer to you. Dont feel bad for me, that helps me achieve nothing. I havent talked to a lawyer yet because of lots of impediments, number one being that my german is not at a level where i can explain, provide proofs, understand the lawyer advice and so on in a comfortable manner. Here in the small city I am there seem to be lacking english-speaking lawyers, I keep trying to get in contact with one but so far nothing. a quote i found on the net from a copyright infringement case: Glen then goes on to explain in detail that it is hugely problematic to prove any damages to rightsholders other than the single copy an infringer has on their machine and being made available on BitTorrent. “Even this is problematic as the monitoring software was the agent of the rightsholder and therefore no damage can be established,” he notes. “Because of all of these factors I believe that it would be extremely difficult to establish with any accuracy that there has been sharing except with the monitoring system which is an action by the infringer for which no damages can be accrued.” Just in case you missed that – “no damages can be accrued.” “Therefore, it is my belief that the rights holder can only rely on the damage resulting from making a single copy of the work in infringement of the rights granted to the rightsholder under s16(a) of the CDPA 1988.” So, while Andrew Crossley talks of people making available his clients’ copyright works to “potentially thousands” of other people, according to his advisor he can’t even prove a single filesharing-related infringement which results in a loss. source:http://torrentfreak.com/high-profile-high-damages-file-sharing-conviction-was-a-farce-100926/ news about that last article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7568642.stm (im still investigating further on that up to now the information seems credible and if that is the case I dont know how can they really take me to court...) | ||
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hoshi
Canada14 Posts
On October 03 2010 23:50 Darpa wrote: There arent any stiff file sharing laws in Canada, at least not yet. Which is why Hollywood has threatened to release movies in Canada 6 months later to prevent piracy. So I tend to disagree, but you could be right who knows. Wow that will solve everything, So i can either go online and get my movie right away or wait 6 months to do it legally. Hmmmm tough decision OT just found a good article on it on wired http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/the-legal-blackmail-business/4/ | ||
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sylverfyre
United States8298 Posts
I understand... also i do find it doubtful that they can even prove that I downloaded the file considering that i have 2 pcs behind this router and this router has wireless connection on which even though password protected i have seen guys cracking wireless pass with my own eyes... thats the reason i mentioned earlier that their case might not hold up in court, but i might be wrong as i have never been to court before. Don't use WEP encryption. It's so weak that you can crack it simply by listening to its wireless traffic and applying some very simple programs to it. No brute forcing necessary - the algorithm was just discovered (several years back, in fact) to be totally crackable with simple observation of traffic. WPA is significantly more secure, and pretty much any wireless router nowadays supports it. | ||
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Alaron251
United Kingdom4 Posts
They have no proof, and IP address is not proof of infrignment at all, and they have no legal right to search your computer without a court order, and trust me, that would be laughed out of court. And in fact, it's EU law that scraping the IP addresses from a torrent program is illegal, so infact you should be sueing them! In the UK a law firm is being make millions for doing the same thing that's happening here. The same thing happened to be a year ago, and it was again, something I downloaded a very long time a go. What you should have done (or do) is send a letter stating that they are mistaken, and they will likely drop the charges. The whole idea of the initial letter is a scare tactic to make you think "Oh, crap i'll do time!" You won't, don't pay the fine, it happened to me too! | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
There arent any stiff file sharing laws in Canada, at least not yet. Which is why Hollywood has threatened to release movies in Canada 6 months later to prevent piracy. So I tend to disagree, but you could be right who knows. Statements like this make me doubt the sanity of businessmen. Unethical in the name of profit is one thing. Douchebaggey in the name of profit is one thing. But being douchebaggey while making business decisions that make no fucking sense economically....wtf. | ||
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justmoon
Switzerland10 Posts
On October 02 2010 00:18 FishForThought wrote: 3. Throw in random crap about, if you ever find presence of the so called 'download content' in any shape and form, you will immediately delete it and remove any copies of it from your computer. I don't know the situation in civil cases in Germany, but generally speaking it always an EXTREMELY bad idea to try and tamper with evidence. Don't lie, don't cheat. You have good truthful defenses: 1. You can say with certainty you didn't download the movie they are accusing you of (you don't need to - and probably shouldn't - tell them you downloaded something else with a similar name) 2. You had a wireless router on your network at the time (meaning anybody could have cracked your network and downloaded with your IP) 3. You have no money (not a legal argument, but def. make sure you mention that  That said, if anybody threatens to sue you, report you to police, etc. GET A LAWYER. The threat will usually be empty, but you only need to make one stupid mistake and suddenly you're facing huge damages or criminal charges or whatever. I would not pay, because that just gets you in their database of people who will actually pay their letters, plus you'll be admitting your guilt, so next time they can call you a "known infringer" or some other fancy term. A competent lawyer will almost certainly be able to make this go away by sending them a well-formulated letter. If you respond on your own there is a real chance you'll make a mistake and suddenly find yourself in big, big trouble, even if you're innocent. Cannot stress this enough: Get a lawyer BEFORE it turns into a huge deal. The sooner you start making the right moves the quicker this will go away. | ||
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Nixda
119 Posts
2) If they have sent you a physical IRL letter, then they must have gotten your adress from your ISP. ISPs will not give out this information usually unless forced to. Law fimrs like these are speciallized in getting the necessary documents for that though, and will usually get them in such large bundles that not every case can be checked properly by authorities. 3) If you worked with a file nearly identical in name to the one they accused you of, and point 2) applies as well, then we can be quite sure its not a random scam. Note that this does not necessarily mean their evidence will prove sufficient or even conclusive, especially when there might be a file discrepancy. 4) German judges on average are not too knowedgeable on internet, computers and the fine distinctions when having logged an IP adress is proof or not. There have been weird rulings in the past. So in conclusion, I think this is serious enough to warrant professional help from a Lawyer - check german forums if you can speak our language to hopefully find a lawyer specialized in the defense of these cases - stuff like that happens A LOT, and is being discussed a ton on various german forums. | ||
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RaptorX
Germany646 Posts
On October 04 2010 10:05 sylverfyre wrote: Don't use WEP encryption. It's so weak that you can crack it simply by listening to its wireless traffic and applying some very simple programs to it. No brute forcing necessary - the algorithm was just discovered (several years back, in fact) to be totally crackable with simple observation of traffic. WPA is significantly more secure, and pretty much any wireless router nowadays supports it. I use WPA2 TKIP, that doesnt mean that it cant be cracked, there is something called rainbow tables which anyone can just simply google for them and download them for free and allow you to crack WPA in minutes/hours... is stupid to be honest. anyways an update: Found a german forum dedicated to specifically this law firm, which has around 1700 pages of discussion about this topic. It turns out they have been doing this since 2004. The number of people they have brought to court: 2. Why? because the fools incriminated themselves thus giving legal ground to the law firm to go on for the lawsuit. source: will add it when i find the link on my bookmarks xD I think contacting the firm directly is the worst idea, and quoting one Law student from TL man power: The reason why you seek a lawyer is because in law there are some words that you are familiar with but they have a completely different meaning than the one you know. So you might be incriminating yourself without noticing. I will continue updating in whatever i find, in case any other TL'er find itself in a similar situation. | ||
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RaptorX
Germany646 Posts
It seems to be part of the "pay or else" wave. I read that in US there is a lawsuit in progress and I am very happy to see people reacting to this kind of abuse. http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-lawyers-sued-for-fraud-abuse-and-extortion-101129/ So, I think im good to assume im safe. Thanks guys for your support. If anything else comes up I will update it here. | ||
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Troopi
Denmark383 Posts
On September 30 2010 02:41 Blackou wrote: From what i understand, he did NOT download that specific movie but a anime with almost the same name ( but with different copyright owners) so i guess it is not that simple in his case! This film has been downloaded from his ip, he cant deny this. Even if he havent done it, one computer who used his internet connection did it. Movie and Music companies often upload their files themself in filesharing networks and monitor them. So it is easy for them to see who is downloading and uploading (you getting sued for uploading at first. Since years many lawyers are doing this exlusively and sending out thousands of bills because it pays off. I hade the same problem 3 years ago (downloaded a game, had to pay 150€). I can only recommend to not use filesharing programs! Have also a look at www.123recht.de . There are a ton of people with the same problem where you can share your experiences. | ||
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nalgene
Canada2153 Posts
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