Accused of torrenting copyrighted material

[fraufruit 42,667]

I would also like to ask you if you have any experience with the legal fees from the above mentioned 'good' lawyers (WBS, Wachs, etc...) when the case goes to court?

 

The good lawyers keep it out of court. That's the point of hiring them.

[Qwert2014... 0]

Hi,

 

I would like to share my case also, it might be useful to someone else.

 

I received a letter a few days ago, also requiring 815 euros payment, and I do not agree with what is claimed there. My approach is not being an easy target to this threatening system, so I chose consulting a lawyer. 

I sent an email to a firm that was mentioned in a post on the internet and I received a more or less automated reply. I could choose between paying near 300 euros for this case, or near 600 to cover possible future letters regarding other cases with the same classification (e.g. Movie) or +200 for each additional media types (e.g Movie+Music = 600+200). Interesting is that I just wrote "Cease & Desist letter from Waldorf Frommer" as the meaning of the consultation, without showing them my letter or my position on the case. My opinion is that this is now an easy business from both sides.

 

I also looked for a lawyer in my city (face to face meeting is much better). The lawyer explained me that he got other cases like this and that his services would cost me a fraction of the 815 euros (more or less 150 euros, including VAT). I accepted the proposal.

Interesting is that the lawyer has instructed me to sign the original  declaration (attached). I told him I heard about to not sign it, but instead send a modified version, but he told me that this is already a new version and that it would be ok to sign it.

 

That's it, lets wait for the best. I want to sleep without thinking too much about this.

 

Cheers

  

[Adam Sweeny 9]

Hey qwert, I hope it works out ok for you and I don't want to ruin your sleep, but... you're not the first one to go to a "cheaper" lawyer. Check out BigBafana for example. Choosing 150 Euros vs 595 Euros seems smart at the time, however:

- There's a good chance you could be charged for possible future correspondence on this case.

- A bigger risk is that there could be new letters/cases coming for other downloads, for which you will have to pay a new fee for.

- And perhaps riskiest of all, he got you to sign an unmodified letter. I've said this before, the modified letter sent from the "expensive" law firm sh#ts over everything else.

 

I honestly hope it works out ok for you, but anyone else reading this please just beware.

[Qwert2014... 0]

- And perhaps riskiest of all, he got you to sign an unmodified letter. I've said this before, the modified letter sent from the "expensive" law firm sh#ts over everything else.

 

 

  Hi Adam, please share the modified letter sent by the "expensive" law firm. I might still have time to show it, face to face, to my "cheaper" lawyer.

[razzkazz 7]

Hi All

 

I just came back from my holidays to find 2 letters from the law firm of Daniel Sebastian claiming I downloaded and distributed copyrighted material. I have done some research in this thread and elsewhere on this person and it seems this is his speciality, and he is somewhat of a legal con-artist. I have contacted a number of lawyers just now and am waiting to hear back from them.

A few others in this thread have mentioned they also received letters from this person but they didn't mention the outcome. I would preferably like to ignore these letters as I see this as extortion relating to something I didn't do, though the general consensus seems to be this is not a good idea.

 

Any advice? Thanks in advance

[Uncle Jamal 132]

So, for those of you who have received these letters, hands up who did actually download stuff.

[Biglaa 147]

So, for those of you who have received these letters, hands up who did actually download stuff.

*Firmly sits on hands, seething*

[razzkazz 7]

All joking aside a lot of the allegations/accusations are related to uploading now downloading. What "people" are accused of is often only partly true, and to explain your case you would need to go to court and regulations in Germany in this area are a bit behind the times so this could work out costly. The "proper" solution is to pay a different lawyer (supposed saviour) to silence the lawyer ( supposed sleazebag) making the accusations (for the good of intellectual property) and the problem disappears, and justice/calm is restored

[cb6dba 7,318]

The main point here is that they will try to make it cheaper to pay them than to fight it.

 

They ask for 300 and you pay another lawyer 100 for a reply. They then reply etc.

We had a letter like this around 7 years ago and we were lucky to have a friend of the family who was a lawyer. As such they just took a one of payment and took the case as a test.

 

They seemed quite excited on how the rip off firm were going to handle it. For them it was like Rocky stepping into the ring for a bout of sparing against Mr T. 
They just kept reply, they even went as far to get hold of a copy of what we were accused of downloading and say that the owner of the copy right is not listed on the box. SO how could the rip off firm represent the copyright holder.

Had we not been so lucky, it could have gone badly for us. The fact is (having judged the quality of the correspondence) these things are produced on mass. The replies were photocopied and generic without any reference to us by name. 

I expect they have an office with people following a process, this answer comes in, send this reply. Looked very unprofessional which is why I think the lawyer we had took it as a bit of fun. They wanted to see just how far the rip off firm would go before giving up.

I have not had much need to look into this over the last few years, but the last time I looked not one case had made it to court. I read that this would be rare as to lose the case would kill their cash cow.

I am not sure if the closed some of the loopholes they use to get people's details (which involved filling a criminal case and then dropping it).  

 

 

 

 

[sotirios 0]

Hello
My name is Sotiris and I had
The first letter
“Abmahnung von Waldorf Frommer” at 28 september 2015 for the film “jupiter-ascending “

I didn’t take any action about it , I had to drive back to my country and to return  , to establish my family in Germany, to make some arrangement  and I didn’t contact them or answer to them with the MOD UD, And I was thing that is a joke ( 815 euro are a lot of money and I don’t sell drugs)

 

And a week before at 8-9 October they send me the next letter! Again I didn`t do anything about it !.
Because a have three children and I am unemployment (only my wife is working at the moment) I understand (finally )that isn’t a joke anymore (that is very common here someone to suit you  for file sharing ) and I have to do something about  it
I have read 80+++ pages here and I understand that I have to contact a lower,( because I don’t speak German And my wife don’t understand very well German either !)
I make a decision to contact tomorrow morning
www.polishuk.de

or       www.wbs-law.de
Or     www.anwalt.de
 Do you have any opinion-expiriences about those lowers agency’s?, any comment  ? do you know the cost perhaps?
Thank you in advance for your time
Sotirios

[savoysuit 13]

www.polishuk.de

or       www.wbs-law.de
Or     www.anwalt.de
 Do you have any opinion-expiriences about those lowers agency’s?, any comment  ? do you know the cost perhaps?
Thank you in advance for your time
Sotirios

 

There is also Kanzlei Hoesmann in Berlin who is quite good, and pretty cheap.

[razzkazz 7]

This is a useful site when some good lawyer recommendations. http://www.abmahnwahn-dreipage.de/berlin/

 

I paid around €500 to a lawyer to get Daniel Sebastian to stop annoying me

 

 

[elect 2]

Hi TTers,

 

is there still a place in the WF club? ^^

 

WF wants do play hard? Let's play baby

 

I read all the 112 pages of the thread, it containes a lot of useful information, but you have to precisely aim them.

 

That is why I created this folder, that everyone can access. It containes all the most relevant interventions in this long thread. In this way, you don't need to read it all..

It also contains some files that were mentioned in some post. I downloaded and put them there, so in case the links go broken, they are safe accessible there. I will try to keep it update

 

Anyway, given the following condiitons:

- WF is still coming back, even when you pay some smaller amounts

- the basic laywer, 150/200€, just mean filling a mod. EU

 

I decided to go by myself, filling a mod. EU and send it back. I will probabily get a consult from Verbrauchtzentral only for god's sake, 60€. But that is.

 

They ask me 815€, but I'll be rather glad to pay 1000 or similar in court. If they want them, at least they must work to get them.

 

 

Ps: since nowaday I always used encription, hoping it was enough to keep the faggots away, but I think is not enough any more, seedbox is the way to go, their are outside any jurisdiction, cheapest start from 1,89€/months + VAT. Please no moral bullshit, because I buy legally, use Netflix and go to cinema. The problem is that we don't have any legal popcornTime because major want to squeeze up to the last cent from each channel. You can't defeat completely piracy, it is pretty obvious, but you can keep it as low as 0,x%, Steam proved it in the computer videogame world.

[Alpha92 1]

What do you guys think is the most ethical thing to do in a situation like this? If for example a housemate infringes copyright and then the landlord gets the abmahnung. The landlord may be liable for what happens on his connection because of his legal obligation to control or supervise the use of his connection by other members of his household. Should the housemate just pay all the costs for a settlement + lawyer anyway, or should it make no difference if the landlord actually tried to instruct the users of his connection in the first place? But would it be fair for the landlord to get out of this legal negligence without consequences or is it the housemates job to know that the landlord has a legal obligation to supervise the connection?

[Conquistador 11,153]

The ethical thing is obviously for the housemate to pay, Why does this adult get to use the excuse of not being specifically instructed by the landlord not to infringe copyrights? The landlord was kind enough to provide Internet access, after all, and does not deserve to get screwed over. Finally, what constitutes "supervising the connection"- looking over the housemate's shoulder every time they go online? Ridiculous.

[zwiebelfisch 7,067]

2 hours ago, Alpha92 said:

 But would it be fair for the landlord to get out of this legal negligence without consequences or is it the housemates job to know that the landlord has a legal obligation to supervise the connection?

 

 

It would be wholely unfair to expect the landlord to pay for the misbehaviour of their tennant especially in the case of something like internet access which would be questionable at best to monitor.  The fact the law tends to blame the owner of the connection (presumably the landlord) is unfortunate but only an asshole tennant would abuse that.

[Jonny 1,325]

Just a quick update for anyone who's interested.

 

I received an abmahnung in December 2012, nearly 3 years after I received an initial extortion letter from the legalized robbers known as 'lawyers'. I objected to this and I've just realised that it's now more than 3 years since I've heard from the scumbags. So I'm guessing that after 6 years (and after already paying them off) I'm off the hook.  

 

At the time, an ex lawyer told me that companies like these often send out abmahnungs to scare people but if you oppose it, the onus is then on the lawyers to build a case against you. This takes time and effort and often they cannot be bothered. It seems to be the case here.

[Alcala 551]

Mid December I received from Waldorf Frommer an invoice for 1600 euros for some dick watching Mad Max...on the weekend I received a second invoice for a second film...so 3200 euros in total...

[Jonny 1,325]

Just follow the advice on this thread. Send a modified UE etc etc and hopefully it will go away in 3 years.

[Alcala 551]

I went to my lawyer and he recommended I pay the first one...so have done...guess I will go and see him again about this one...but not sure if I will accept...