Another innocent person labelled ‘pirate’
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- In Canada, guitar-maker Wayne Nagy has been targeted in a double-barrelled attack by Rogers Cable and American online bounty hunter BayTSP.
He’s accused of downloading a Lionsgate film or films. But he he says he doesn’t now, and never has, shared anything with anyone.
When he first received a pair of emails from the two companies, he assumed he was under attack because of YouTube videos he’d posted. He was wrong. It wasn’t the YouTube items. So what film, or films, is he supposed to have downloaded?
He doesn’t know.
But this kind of thing is commonplace in the US and Canada with the companies concerned using unproven claims to victimise people who’ve never been shown to have done anything wrong. And the companies, such as BayTSP, do it with impunity.
Cadillac Records
Across the border, recently, “Comcast sent out an infringement notice to an innocent subscriber because their administration was not up-to-date,” says TorrentFreak, going on:
“Dave Satz wrote in to inform us that one of his friends was served with a DMCA takedown notice a few weeks ago. His friend, John Aprigliano (right), had allegedly downloaded a CAM release of ‘Cadillac Records’, without ever having heard of the movie.”
In our first post on the Wayne Nagy farce, speaking of the Rogers end of it, “This is a standard ‘Notice and Notice’ item and has little weight of law in Canada at this time, unless Lionsgate Films actually bring suit in a Canadian jurisdiction,” said p2pnet reader sb, going on:
“It’s simply a notification that Rogers has forwarded to you. Historically Rogers has done absolutely nothing about these other than forward them.”
Forwarded to the wrong person
The Aprigliano case is just as egregious.
“Although these takedown notices are just a formality and intended to scare the recipient, John decided to contact his ISP and ask for clarification,” says TorrentFreak. “After four calls to Comcast support the truth came out.
“The infringement notice was forwarded to the wrong person because the MAC-address of John`s old modem was still linked to his account. The Comcast techs eventually corrected the mistake, but this case yet again shows how inaccurate takedown notices can be.”
Concludes Aprigliano on aprigliano.org, after a blow-by-blow description of a long and painful telephone call with Comcast »»»
Lesson: though I have had the same IP number since October, this is not a defense (at least in their minds, because IP addresses change) against you infringing copyright. Your ONLY defense is your MAC address not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If you did actually did something wrong, take the hit, but NEVER ADMIT IT! EVER! This is along the lines of self-incrimination, you are never compelled to do so, even in a court of law. BUT if the MAC address is wrong, and this could be your only defense, YOU DID NOT DO IT. You could not have.
Warns Aprigliano, “where the ‘Techs’ may not take this seriously, you NEED to, regardless of how many phone calls it takes.
“This can come back to bite you in the ass.”
double-barrelled attack – BayTSP, Lionsgate, take on Wayne Nagy, January 29, 2009
YouTube videos – BayTSP goes after Canadian guitar maker, January 28, 2009
TorrentFreak – Comcast Labels Innocent Customer a Movie Pirate, January 30, 2009
aprigliano.org – What to do with a Comcast DMCA takedown notice (especially when you are innocent), January 1, 2009
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January 31st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
MAC addresses can be faked. My cheap as chips router even allows you to configure it.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
and if these clowns cant even forward a ‘notice’ correctly, do you really put any faith in their ability to ‘detect’ copyright infringement for the MAFIAA?
January 31st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
” and if these clowns cant even forward a ânoticeâ correctly, do you really put any faith in their ability to âdetectâ copyright infringement for the MAFIAA? ”
Sadly, as shown on Ray’s blog, too many judges DO put their faith in it. It puzzles and
disgusts me.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:15 pm
hahahahhaa I have been forging mac address’s for years I dont feel slightly guilty about it either. The ones doing the accusing should feel guilty.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:54 pm
MAC can be faked but so can IP’s
if you manually enter in a IP with all the correct settings and use the right range you can get online.
they should have to prove both in the court of law
February 1st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Most everything of any node can be faked, cracked, hacked, spoofed, whatever. There’s is no real privacy unless you do. Most users thinking their email, chats and all transfers are secure are dreaming. Only way to be secure is with proprietary highly encrypted appz and that’s only till they are cracked. It’s a continuous battle of tek between users and gov, corps, spies and rest of them. They are loosing so they throttle, spy, scan and record. Using that info they charge the wrong users most of the time to increase stranglehold on everyone. The good part is we are better than they are and expose them at every turn for who they really are. This scares the living shit out of them.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
heh. i know what you mean dude, we’re on same server and i can see your up-dwn. it’s owned by mean ass biker but dude is kewl and totally sick, got over 200GB of elite toolz – half i never seen before, seen dude has total breakdown of dpi? see all filez on spooks and gov, tells ya exactly who’s screwing who. it’s under home/other_files/world/real/13_families_run_world* , chck his mod harley out – totally sick, got vid of pig trying to bust him for no reason – her threats too, cand post babe breaking his front gate, loads of vids & pics, everything to fight elites legaly – awesome