p2pnet - rss feed: ‘I think I’m being sued …’
p2pnet news | P2P:- With apologies to the overclockers.co.uk, below is a post from peanutismint on the site’s forums.
It’s focus isn’t primarily on music or movies, but ………..
It kicks of with, “I’m probably incriminating myself here, but I just want to test the water and maybe get some advice, so please, if all you want to say is ’serves you right’ then save your keyboard”.
It goes on >>>
Right so, down to the nitty gritty. Yesterday morning I received a letter from some random ‘law firm’ in London claiming that my ISP had provided them with evidence that I downloaded (and shared) an Xbox game via BitTorrent about 6 months ago. I’ll hold my hands up right now and say that this claim is completely accurate, I downloaded a game via the BitTorrent protocol for my own personal use. I skimmed through the letter and read the name of the game I downloaded, the times and dates, my IP address and more. They basically said ‘you’ve downloaded this game, therefore, on behalf of the game company, we’re going to take you to court unless you pay this settlement fee’. In my just woken up state, shocked and slightly amused by this letter, and half-not believing it was authentic half-not WANTING to believe it was authentic, I threw the letter out.
My thoughts on this matter are thus:
1. I’ve downloaded more games, movies and albums than I can accurately count in my life, and suddenly somebody wants to call me on a game I downloaded, played for an hour, then thought ‘man, this game sucks, I’m SO glad I didn’t waste £40 on this’ and never played again?! Unlucky.
2. I’ll ignore this letter; perhaps they’re just fishing to see who’ll bite; if I don’t respond then maybe they’ll leave it, if they don’t leave it well I’ll be moving house in 3 months anyway, how are they gonna find me then…
3. Even if this is real, I don’t have the sort of money they’re telling me I have to pay them…I’d rather try and fight it on the grounds of ‘downloading copyrighted media is intellectual property theft, but it’s not like I’m selling them at a car boot sale or publishing it online for people; it should be up to me and all individuals what I/they download, and any attempt to control this is a breach of my human rights.
I wouldn’t call myself a criminal, far from it. I have reasonably high morals and can tell the difference between right and wrong. I believe in supporting the people who create the things I’m passionate about, and spend money on works (be they games, movies or music) I deem worth buying, my game, DVD and music collection can attribute to that. I do see how downloading can hurt industries, and I don’t excuse it by saying ‘they’re a big, faceless company, so it’s okay’, but rather realise that every penny goes towards furthering that industry, even if they do charge way too much for their media sometimes.
The thing is, most of the large, money-hungry corporations have this ‘you wouldn’t steal a handbag; you wouldn’t steal a car; but downloading is stealing!’ mentality, when frankly I think this is just a scare tactic.
(at this point in the story, see http://stealthisfilm.com/
You can’t steal data. You can make it. You can un-make it. But you can’t steal it, it’s not a possession. You can however share it.
So without getting too lost in rhetoric here, I just want to share my story with the community here and ask
- Has anyone else received one of these letters before?
- Does anyone have any advice/suggestions?
- Has my ISP broken any laws by making my information available to this law firm without my consent?
- If I have unknowingly given my consent because it’s lost in the small-print somewhere, can I appeal this?
- If you’ve ever downloaded anything, or continue to, please say ‘***I DO***’, just so I can gauge a level of people’s atitudes towards file sharing.
If Mods deem any part of this a breach of regulations, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Thanks for listening.
P
Definitely stay tuned.
(Thanks, Giles —- I saw it too / Jon)
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March 6th, 2008 at 9:10 am
this sounds alot like the Colin McRae Rally thing that was happening with Davenport Lyons. in these instances, people ignored the letter and it was simply forgotten.
read this forum at slyck.com for more info.
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=39877
March 7th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Take that logo down. 4chan….
March 10th, 2008 at 3:54 am
With all due respect , this is an attempt to make yourself feel better and massage your guilt gland - the “other people are doing it to and worse than me” defence will not wash . Focus on facts , go see a solicitor and get some facts out of him , don`t take peoples advice online where people have an agenda and will warp truth into fact and vice versa , I have no agenda , I sit on a fence of fairness and integrity .
March 12th, 2008 at 7:04 am
This actually stems from one of the technical aspects of utilising bit torrent to download items for your persoanl use, normally this is legitimate activity but when you use BT you upload as well as download and this is the legal offence they will be accusing you of, despite many calims and false reports I have not seen anyone sued for downloading the small print always makes it clear they where sharing or uploading and theirefore infringinh the copyright owners right of copy, downloading does not constitute this infringement unless you upload as you seem to have done.
I agree with the poster above who suggests taking legal advice on this matter BEFORE responding in any way, there have been a small number of companies demanding money on behalf of rights owners (or so they claim) and in most cases the evidence collected was gathered illegally and would not stand up in court, the laws on data protection in the UK and Europe are clear, unauthorised IP harvesting is an offence and its likely any “evidence” gathered in this way would be ruled inadmissable as companies involved in handling any sort of private information should be registered with the data protection registrar/commisioner.
But like the Robster says ask a lawyer and tell him to look at that Slycks link before deciding how to proceed.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Ive also had a letter like this from davenport lyons. saying if we dont pay the money they want within 7 days, there taking us to court, and like the person above we simply dont have the money they are asking for to pay.