Defending myself against bogus copyright infringement claims

[cook1984]

I got my second letter regarding copyright infringement today, and as before I am innocent. I wrote back to tell them that, but frankly I have had enough. I am looking for ways to protect myself.

This interesting article was posted today:

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-b...-peers-081020/

It looks like The Pirate Bay is randomly framing IP addresses for copyright infringement, to make it impossible to tell real downloaders from fake ones. That's all well and good if you are a pirate, but means innocent people like me get hit with copyright infringement claims

I have looked into using PeerGuardian, but when you look at the list of IP addresses it blocks, it's 52% of the internet. That seems like massive overkill, and surely disreputable companies like Media Defender and BayTSP are using IP addresses that are not blocked anyway.

How can I stop this happening? Is there any way I can claim money back for the time I have to waste responding to these bogus claims? What if it goes to court, can I get free legal representation? Can I stop VM giving away my details?

[Gary L]

Ignore them. don't get into any communication with them. just ignore them.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Gary L

Ignore them. don't get into any communication with them. just ignore them.

NO, that is not good advice. These people don't muck around, they have secured one default judgement of £16,000 because somebody failed to turn up in court, or potentially ignored the letters from Davenport Lyons.

In response to your post about TBP, I have commented here.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34658667-post176.html

You'll need legal representation if you believe you are innocent. I'll find the company prepared to do it and post back here.

EDIT: This is the post you need to look at, which you should already be familiar with as you have posted a number of times in that thread, visit the link included in the post.

2nd EDIT: This thread may need merging with the thread linked to from my first edit, as it seems to be the same subject matter.

3rd EDIT: Don't use the term peerguardian here, or in court, as some may get the impression that your claims of innocence are not as white as you make them.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Toto

NO, that is not good advice. These people don't muck around, they have secured one default judgement of £16,000 because somebody failed to turn up in court, or potentially ignored the letters from Davenport Lyons.

In response to your post about TBP, I have commented here.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34658667-post176.html

You'll need legal representation if you believe you are innocent. I'll find the company prepared to do it and post back here.

EDIT: This is the post you need to look at, which you should already be familiar with as you have posted a number of times in that thread, visit the link included in the post.

Good advice and well presented unlike some dubious advice given out in this Thread.

[piggy]

Originally Posted by Toto

NO, that is not good advice. These people don't muck around, they have secured one default judgement of £16,000 because somebody failed to turn up in court, or potentially ignored the letters from Davenport Lyons.

In response to your post about TBP, I have commented here.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34658667-post176.html

You'll need legal representation if you believe you are innocent. I'll find the company prepared to do it and post back here.

EDIT: This is the post you need to look at, which you should already be familiar with as you have posted a number of times in that thread, visit the link included in the post.

2nd EDIT: This thread may need merging with the thread linked to from my first edit, as it seems to be the same subject matter.

3rd EDIT: Don't use the term peerguardian here, or in court, as some may get the impression that your claims of innocence are not as white as you make them.

top advice as toto stated DO NOT IGNORE!

@cook your link imo is another interesting defence to muddy the water

[chickendippers]

Do you have a wireless router? Is it secured using WPA2? Have you changed your password to a secure one (8+ characters, numbers and letters and no dictionary words) since you received the previous letter?

Do not ignore as if it gets to court the Civil Court Judge can look upon it as an admonishment of guilt and rule in favour of the plaintiff.

DO NOT IGNORE IT, DENY IT , DO ANYTHING ELSE, BUT DO NOT IGNORE IT!!

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by chickendippers

Do you have a wireless router? Is it secured using WPA2? Have you changed your password to a secure one (8+ characters, numbers and letters and no dictionary words) since you received the previous letter?

I have a wireless router, but it is only on WPA because WPA2 does not work. I don't know if it's the router or my wifi card.

I just discovered a program which can give you the default WPA2 key of Sky routers based on their MAC addresses, which of course they broadcast. Scary stuff.

Originally Posted by Toto

You'll need legal representation if you believe you are innocent. I'll find the company prepared to do it and post back here.

Thanks for the link, I will contact them next time. I'm really looking for ways to stop this legal harassment with the minimum amount of fuss though. Why should I waste my time dealing with it?

The last time I wrote back and asked for compensation for my wasted time, but didn't hear anything. Next time I'll try Small Claims Court if they don't pay up.

3rd EDIT: Don't use the term peerguardian here, or in court, as some may get the impression that your claims of innocence are not as white as you make them.

I suppose it depends how you put it over. It would be interesting to find out what IP address they were using, so it can be added to the block list. Presumably they would have to tell you.

[dev]

If you're innocent, what will peerguardian do? AFAIK peerguardian will just stop them connecting to you to verify you're sharing the file. If you're not actually sharing/downloading anything, they won't try connecting so peerguardian won't block anything

[Toto]

Originally Posted by cook1984

Thanks for the link, I will contact them next time. I'm really looking for ways to stop this legal harassment with the minimum amount of fuss though. Why should I waste my time dealing with it?

I suppose it depends how you put it over. It would be interesting to find out what IP address they were using, so it can be added to the block list. Presumably they would have to tell you.

Why should you waste your time? Good question, but the answer should be obvious, you're at risk of being taken to court, losing, and having a black mark on your credit rating at the very least, and being substantially out of pocket as a consequence.

You owe it to yourself to at least contact the firm who are prepered to work pro bono to beat this thing.

[piggy]

@cook
the reason why you must waste your time is that this is civil law you are guilty until you can prove your innocence,that is why if you do nothing the judgement goes against you and you end up with a hefty bill.

[dev]

Originally Posted by piggy

@cook
the reason why you must waste your time is that this is civil law you are guilty until you can prove your innocence,that is why if you do nothing the judgement goes against you and you end up with a hefty bill.

i wouldnt say you're guilty until proven innocent. It's more likely that the person taking you to court has some form of evidence to back the claim up, and as there is no evidence going against theirs, then they win the case. A civil case requires less proof you did something compared to a criminal case, and afaik, you aren't entitled to free legal represenation in civil cases.

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by dev

i wouldnt say you're guilty until proven innocent. It's more likely that the person taking you to court has some form of evidence to back the claim up, and as there is no evidence going against theirs, then they win the case. A civil case requires less proof you did something compared to a criminal case, and afaik, you aren't entitled to free legal represenation in civil cases.

That is/was my understanding of the law, but it appears that the actual situation is that you can simply make a list of 25,000 IP addresses, force ISPs to give up subscriber details and then spam those unfortunately innocents with demands for money. Hopefully some will just pay up or ignore you. It's some new kind of scam/business model.

They seem to have every angle covered. If you tell them you are innocent, they drop the claims so they can't loose. Next time I get a letter I'm going to demand restitution in the hopes of breaking their business model.

I just can't believe it's legal. Surely there must be some law against doing this, or at least some consequence of accusing thousands of people but only bringing cases against the ones who don't respond?

[dev]

dont know the specifics, but i assume that to get the name / address for the person who was using a specific IP at a set date/time requires a court order. Now to get a court order, I would also assume some form of evidence would need to be given (granted this could be made up).

On the other hand, it's pretty easy to guess which houses have cable and which do not, after all, how many homes have a cable box on the outside but no cable services? So it could easily be a scam where they use the assumption that someone in the house has downloaded something illegal at some point.

Does the letter give specifics to what you downloaded? Usually they'll give the method of sharing (eg torrent/p2p app), what the file was and a date/time they found you were sharing it.

The main problem with cases like this is, how do you exactly defend yourself? If you prove you weren't in the house on the date/time they say you were sharing the file, that won't prove you weren't sharing it as you don't have to be at a computer to share the file.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by cook1984

That is/was my understanding of the law, but it appears that the actual situation is that you can simply make a list of 25,000 IP addresses, force ISPs to give up subscriber details and then spam those unfortunately innocents with demands for money. Hopefully some will just pay up or ignore you. It's some new kind of scam/business model.

They seem to have every angle covered. If you tell them you are innocent, they drop the claims so they can't loose. Next time I get a letter I'm going to demand restitution in the hopes of breaking their business model.

I just can't believe it's legal. Surely there must be some law against doing this, or at least some consequence of accusing thousands of people but only bringing cases against the ones who don't respond?

No, your comment in bold is not correct and its very dangerous to assume that. Evidence is supplied to the judge at the hearing for IP data access, and to each ISP, they can't just turn up with a list of IP addresses in the hope they can secure their request, they must supply evidence, or a legal statement to that effect. There is a very specific process in play.

These are experienced law firms that represent rights holders, reputation is everything.

Have you written to them yet and actually asked for the evidence against you, have they responded?