Accused of torrenting copyrighted material

[patsywest 7]

I've been sent a letter demanding payment of E5,100.00. But if I pay before 18th it reduces to E850.00 for illegally downloading a film.. actually it was my 17 yr old who downloaded it, (among others). The letter stretches to 8 pages, all in german. I was hoping if there was someone out there who could look at it for me and pick out the relevant information, discarding all the legal blurb...

Has anyone else had anything similar? My husband is of the opinion to ignore it.But it does look genuine.

I really need to know what it says, Bablefish translation is no good for the legalities.

I could scan and email it, if some-one could help me.

[Yarra 60]

Who sent you the letter?

[Guest]

yes, from whom is the letter?

[MadAxeMurderer 6,216]

Wait till the TT legal experts get involved, but my gut reaction is that if they reduce from 5100 to 850 for early payment, its got to be a scam. Good scare tactic.

 

Type the name of whoever sent it into google, and you'll hopefully get reports of this being a scam, and how to (not) handle it.

[sarabyrd 18,767]

Take the letter to a lawyer, preferably specializing in internet law, for an Erstberatung, shouldn't set you back more than €100. He'll give you an opinion on what to do, if you want follow up the fee for the Erstberatung is offset against the fees of his representation.

[patsywest 7]

The letter came from BaumgartenBrandt,Friedrichstrasse 95, Berlin.

 

It identifies our IP address via Deutsche Telecom and the name of the film downloaded

 

Googling the name brings up a reputable looking site that has the right address

[MichiS 39]

Have a look at http://www.rechtsreporte.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Itemid=40

Basically they say you should contact them (They're a law firm), or any other lawyer. They say don't sign anything get legal advice (Did I repeat myself there?) as paying the smaller fee doesn't stop this process.

Oh and it says do it NOW!

[rhody 3,170]

I am sure it wasn't your kid. You actually misconfigured your wireless router to have it open and some malicious internet fiend connected to it and downloaded the movie. Ask your lawyer if that is a valid defense.

[Guest]

Which then brings Neglegence into the story! :)

[DandL 22]

Didn't I read beginning of this year or latter part of 2008, that Germany was not going to enforce the regulation of downloads or something like that?

[Darkknight 2,305]

 

I am sure it wasn't your kid. You actually misconfigured your wireless router to have it open

Perhaps.. Good Call

 

 

Which then brings Neglegence into the story!

Nope, as prev. stories/cases have shown a person can't be tried for having an insecure Wireless connection which somebody downloads content from.

 

 

Didn't I read beginning of this year or latter part of 2008, that Germany was not going to enforce the regulation of downloads or something like that?

Yes you did. But this isn't "Germany", going after the OP, its a priv. law firm. In all actuality is prob. all just a scam. Even good scams have good websites to fool people.

 

And how did they get you contact details, from the supposed-ed IP address without 1st filing a criminal case against the OP? This is needed to get

the required details from the ISP. Thus, pointing more to a scam.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

I don't understand these cries of "scam". If the OP's son downloaded that particular film, then presumably the law firm is working on behalf of the movie industry. This has been the case for several years already in Germany with regard to the music industry, whereby demands for payment have been made as a result of MP3s being downloaded by torrent (cf. Clemens Rasch), so it wouldn't surprise me that the movie industry has also decided to raise some cash this way. Whether their case would stand up in court is another issue and ultimately determines whether you should pay this fine, but for that kind of legal advice you need to find a specialist lawyer.

[legal_alien 192]

 

And how did they get you contact details, from the supposed-ed IP address without 1st filing a criminal case against the OP? This is needed to get

the required details from the ISP. Thus, pointing more to a scam.

 

But how would some scammer know an exact film he actually downloaded (assuming his son did get it) and his address? It sounds well executed if it is a scam.

edit: beaten to it by the eloquent STB

[Darkknight 2,305]

Same as anyone else on a P2P network. The info is out there freely avail. to all on the P2P network. Install one, and check it out for yourself.

[BadDoggie 1,575]

 

But how would some scammer know an exact film he actually downloaded

Because the law firm is the scammer. They have a torrent client, enter a film and then check to see which IPs downlaod it. With some quick detectoring you can often find out who's using that IP at the general time and with various free, on-line resources, get enough information to come up with a street address. Chances are it was a highly popular film like the latest Hairy Spotter.

 

Germany allows lawyers who haven't been engaged by any client to seek out violations of the law and take action. There was a very notable case of this back in 2001 with the Open Source project called "Killustrator" which the law firm "Reinhard Skuhra Weise & Partner" went after, claiming that it was a trademark violation. Adobe didn't even know this was going on. Presumably the law firm would've cut Adobe a check for some of the money it got, minus costs, expenses, disbursements and fees, leaving Adobe supposedly owing a bill for a few thousand.

 

Rhody's comment is the right way to go but I'll add to it the fact that unless you have a static one, an IP address CANNOT be proof of identity (even without the wireless router that the original poster didn't understand how to secure and which some 3\/i|_ HaXX0® must have used). Far from it, IPs are recycled by ISPs, even if you have a DSL modem connected to a router which will keep a connection alive. If Editor Bob checks this comment he'll see that according to the IP address I'm posting it from San Francisco.

 

woof.

[legal_alien 192]

Good answer, thanks. I'm amazed joe public / lawyers can trace an IP to an address without the ISP being involved - interesting and a little scary.

I only usually DL obscure films and music (many of which I've had on vinyl/video), so hopefully that might just save my bacon. The kids do love the latest Disney/Dreamworks stuff though. It would be good to know what the film was.

[BadDoggie 1,575]

 

I only usually DL obscure films and music (many of which I've had on vinyl/video), so hopefully that might just save my bacon.

 

Nope. You've just admitted to violating the law. You're fucked. "MANY of which" doesn't mean "ALL". If you own current versions in analog form you have a case that the download wasn't a violation of any criminal or civil law since it was just "space-shifting" but you have now outright admitted to downloading items for which you have not paid any sort of licensing fee. Kill the account, restart your modem and start a new account.

 

woof.

[siskebap 331]

It would be easier if you could speak german. Just go to http://www.youtube.com/user/katzenjens Katzenjens is a guy that explains how internet ripoff schemes work and his - non-lawyer - hint is always to ignore anything because all of these ripoff companies are illegal. At least in Germany. And that´s the reason why these companies are always non-german companies.

 

You could search for name of the company ripoff at google. This way you could possibly find a page in english explaining the ripoff and explaining in detail that in some Filesharing-Networks some people can trace the IP-Adress of other participants and what they did search for or tried to download.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

That's something different you're referring to (example). In this case, the letter came from a law firm based in Berlin.

[Darkknight 2,305]

 

The letter came from BaumgartenBrandt,Friedrichstrasse 95, Berlin.

 

because all of these ripoff companies are illegal. At least in Germany. And that´s the reason why these companies are always non-german companies.

 

Read Fail!!!