Updated: Anti-Piracy Outfit and Lawyers May Operate Illegally
Written by enigmax on September 19, 2009Last month TorrentFreak reported on DigiProtect, the anti-piracy company with the tagline “Turn Piracy Into Profit”. A manager from DigiProtect revealed some of the inner workings on how the company operates but according to a lawyer who defends alleged file-sharers, he may have revealed just a little too much.
At an increasing rate copyright is ‘used’ as a tool to carefully extract money from file-sharers, instead of protecting the creative works of artists. The anti-piracy outfit DigiProtect is one of the companies that uses copyright for this new purpose.
“We get the legal rights from the companies to distribute these movies to stores, and with these rights we can sue illegal downloaders,” said Digiprotect’s account manager Thomas Hein as he explained how his operation works. “Then we take legal action in every country possible, concentrating on the places where such action will be profitable.”
“No one working for DigiProtect has a fixed salary. If we make money, everybody makes money. If we don’t, nobody does. This means the lawyers, sales people and customers. It’s all about how much money can be recouped and then sharing it,” he added, crucially.
And here lies the problem. According to lawyer Christian Solmecke of Wilde & Beuger law firm in Germany, the law requires such an operation to have an RVG agreement, which is part of the mechanism to regulate attorney’s fees. Since no-one can say how much the lawyers get paid, this causes difficulty.
“The interview creates the impression that no RVG agreement was entered into by DigiProtect and the law firms who admonish users [threaten with pay-up-or-else letters]. The report relating that the money thus earned is shared, rather suggests a success fee. Such an agreement is illegal. An admonishment based on it would equally be illegal and admonishing expenses would not have to be paid,” Solmecke notes.
DigiProtect have been pretty open about their aim of generating profit for their own company and their partners – indeed, its tagline is Turn Piracy Into Profit. This may also cause problems for their lawyer partners.
“If the admonishment serves solely the purpose of generating gains, it may furthermore be repudiated for reasons of abuse of legal right,” says Solmecke.
DigiProtect partners with lawyers ACS:Law in UK and presumably operates in a similar manner, sharing profits from those who ultimately pay up on the threats.
Update: Aldor Nini from Easycom contacted TorrentFreak with his view on this article. It’s a long read but interesting nonetheless
Our company develops end-user software, custom B2B solutions and sometimes we do also create software for anti-piracy purposes. We’re not related with DigiProtect, nor do we have any business or private relatinoship with them, but we’re very specialized in the German law together with our law-firm in Germany. The German RVG states, that the lawyer should be compensated by the RVG, that’s true. The RVG does also allow the lawyer to be compensated by additional charges like working hours for special tasks, this is also very usual.
The lawyers, in case of DigiProtect, might have the right to be compensated by a fee, defined in the RVG and calculated by the value of the case, but they’re not obliged to charge their clients with that fee (invoice them) – except in case if it is an ongoing trial at the court.
They are not allowed to benefit from the licence fees the user pay (like having an agreement that they will get 20% of the fee DigiProtect earns on top), but they might be able to compensate this by defining that they’ve worked 3 more hours on various cases and add a fee of e.g. 200 EUR on top of that.
Their statement that no-one will benefit from the business if no-one is going to pay that fees is also accurate, because the german RVG is just the minimum of a fee that a lawyer should get. The RVG is not meant to let the lawyer survive until he gets retired. At least, that’s the truth many lawyers have to experience in Germany. The more people pay the fees, the more the lawyers do also benefit from it, this is normal, because the more work they have to do, also based on working hours, which they can charge on top. If no-one would pay it, the client wouldn’t allow extra hours to be charged on such cases. All in all, this is definitely not an illegal behavior.
Previously: Arrr, Talk Like A Pirate Day 2009 is Here
Next: German Youth Would Vote Pirate Party Into Parliament
65 Responses
Question now is, who’s gonna take them to court and sue their asses for acting illegally?
@1: No one. There’s one law for them and one law for everyone else, remember?
They should be put in jail
These people have only a IP Address to go on which can be used by pretty much anything. Hackers do something called war driving where they go drive upto a random house then hack into a wireless network for temporary use and then drive off once they are done.
http://www.Adult-Facebook.com
Theres also a third, when the masses get really pissed at the second unfair law they pick up baseball bats (or pitchforks in older times) create a mob…umm,protest group and go pay folks a visit to “discuss” the third law.
Its gonna happen soon: TF is going to be reporting about how some RIAA scumbag gets his teeth handed to him or some BPI bitch (not basing this on gender) gets run over by an “irate consumer” or a douche from the MPAA gets taken out by a high powered rifle – personally, i’m surprised its taken so long.
Jeez, if piracy is illegal, isn’t “profiting” from piracy, like, VERY illegal?
This business model is total corrupt. In theory, the more piracy there is, the more money they make, so they have an incentive to encourage piracy. Thus, how can they call themselves an “anti-piracy” outfit.
They probably have a secret division that promotes piracy.
I you make trouble, then it is to much work for them, so never comply to any order from them.
Ban number 4’s ip
Thank all that is holy for unsecured wireless networks. They’re handy for downloading pirated movies and music. :)
how about regulating there monitoring buddies there the crooks raking it in,ip harvesters are new tyrants
I said this before and I’ll keep on repeating it.
The Music and Movie industries are playing a very dirty game.
They are demonizing consumers, changing laws to facilitate their pockets and are instigating piracy in any way they can to generate even more profit.
They deliberately leak music and movies, for a 2 fold plan.
1 is to sue the crap out of anyone they leaked it to.
2 is because they DO KNOW that its a great mechanism for advertising and hype.
There is nothing better then free advertising. Be it good or bad advertising. It doesn’t matter, as long as it gets in the media, it’ll generate profit.
Remember “Snakes on a Plane”?
Its a shit piece of film that doesn’t even rank down there with the worst of the worst horror flicks.
It got crap loads of publicity and, yes, viewers, just because it is that bad and got alot of media attention because of it.
The entire industries doesn’t care about anything but money and they will do just about anything to get it, they skate the edges of law for any and all means to generate hard cold cash.
Wooo now that pirating music off of the internet puts food on ppl’s tables i can feel good about watching the new final destination or listening to tons of free music!!!!
Lets pirate to feed the economy!!
I wonder if they, and their ilks, would be happy with the IRS’s of each country breathing down their neck on a daily basis, controlling and making sure they ain’t breaking the law.
We will exterminate all the parasites from DigiProtect.
I don’t see a problem here.
DigiProtect has every right to break any law and to extort a profit. It’s called copyright and I’m all for it… <3
i wonder why the world frowns on sharing? whether its sharing files or fees, sharing is always discouraged
If they have the right to distribute, how is it illegal to download from them?
Someone please enlighten me. I’m confused.
pls pls for the love of god tell us reasoned minded/neo/dumb asses IP i would love to personally find and kick hes face in fucking scum bag
This is what a lawyer points out? Not the whole fact that this is considered in many countries to be ENTRAPMENT! Which is very much illegal… Not to mention, some countries are looking to burn the companies that try to ‘lease’ copyrights, calling it unfair business practices. If they want to ‘lease’ such a right then they need to allow for EVERYONE to have the possibility to ‘lease’ it…
“Turning piracy into profit” is just as immoral as piracy is made out to be by the copyright industry. Not to mention it’s much more illegal.
By doing this, you’re making profit off of crime. Now, if the campaign were “turn filesharing into profit”, without the implication that it were a crime, I would have no problem with it – after all, isn’t that what Facebook does?
@16 (Reasoned neo|riaa):
You didn’t even try. 26/100.
That’s interesting because it shows they’re doomed. Lawsuits as a business model just isn’t sustainable, there’s no creation whatsoever. Additionally, it shows how flawed the current laws are.
@knux, where is it considered entrapment? Not here in the US. Here, only the government can be accused of entrapment, not private parties, and even then only if they induce someone to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done. And since you have to look for things to download, that excuse goes out the window.
That being said, I don’t have a problem with downloading things. There are many legit reasons to do so, from evaluation to the fact that copyright has been distorted beyond recognition. You should try to help the creator of anything you really like in some way, with the easiest being financially.
Wow, way cool dude what a great idea!
RT
http://www.real-privacy.net.tc
@Reasoned neo|riaa
Seriously? Go jump off a cliff already and make everyones life easy. Don’t forget to write your social insurance number on your arm to save police the hassle of identifying you.
but isnt it illegal to fish for people? as in their the ones sharing the damm thing and then they to after the people they shared too… well if they didnt share people wouldnt download as much… -_-x
their fishing for law suits that should be illegal..
So they are going to ‘extract’ money from us. F k them!
Money grubbing wh res, they can’t win against us, anon baby!
Fuck, this fits the definition of “piracy” WAY better than “downloading a movie off the internet”.
Who is the real pirate after all ? The one who shares a file for free or the one who makes a shitload of money thanks to filesharing ?
Its simple
1: They take control over certain copyrighted material.
2: They go on file sharing sites and get the ip’s of people who share from them.
3: They sue the people who the ip’s point to, even if they have been spoofed OR rather they threaten to sue.
4: Profit
….BUT WAIT 4 is wrong as they are the copyright holders and as they went on file sharing networks and shared the files to acquire the ips of other people they are in fact legitimising the file been shared.
Its like this imagine a band goes to a high street and starts handing out there music burned to black cds to people on the street they then find out who they are and sue them for acquiring there music illegal as the blank cds are not official products, well to bad as the band itself was handing them out everyone who acquired one gets off scot free as the cd’s are official as its the band giving them out, its does not matter if they went to someone else on the same street who was not part of the band and got some of the bands other music on blank cds the bands gripe can only be with the people who they have cds out to.
Now before anyone comes and says that its different on the net than the high street think on this the companies suing people and making adverts are saying that copyright infringement is stealing a physical action so as such my example above carrys over as they have mixed the real world and the virtual one already.
-Jay
Yall suckers biatch!! I can proudly say piracy sucks and I’m making big bucks thru this shit.
These people should be burned, they are the scum of the earth, true parasites!
Disgusting.
like we didn’t know this about time they faced crimes against humanity charges and spend the rest of their lives locked up or on licence.
with there so called family and community values brought to shreds. and exposed for greedy buggers that they are.
i just loved it when that guy name and shammed that davenport and lyons twit hehe he will be paying the rest of his life with his family reputation shattered now to get his psedo lawyers like him barred and locked up for all time.
hell to the hatters and their supporter’s and family/friends may their blatant lies be exposed for all to see.
“Demonzing consumers” That funny. YOU AREN’T A CONSUMER IF YOU STEAL THE PRODUCT.
@29 Reasoned Mind
You have now just confirmed to us all that your not just a fanboy but one of these parasites. And as such all your words and comments will be treated in the same respect.
Face it your a parasite like the lawyers and such in the company stated in the article and when your gone from this earth the entire human race will actually improve in standing nothing will be lost or missed.
Wow that’s actually quite sad to know that by simply existing your bringing the entire species down a notch.
-Jay
@33 Sep 20, 2009 at 13:35 by A Victim:
Right, but there is the question of what you are talking about because if it is about an imaginary product that have no physical form it is not stealing.
I have stopped buying any films or music because of these scumbag greedy corporate companies
break down the monopolies! kill them dead. check this out: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/compulsary_worldwide_digital_mus/index.html
I thought Bittorrent was untouchable
everybody is scared shitless
scared little boys
Bittorrent will be attacked for as long as you guys are using it for illegal purposes. It’s as simple as that. They will not go after the technology, they will go after the people behind it.
But Kermit and Grover told me that sharing was good! Maybe they need to sue CTW? Force them to make Elmo an intellectual property lawyer and sing-song all day about complex legal issues – 1 year olds grasp that, right? Maybe send Bert and Ernie to the big house for sharing too much (music, not that other rumor).
@44
define illegal …sharing files is not illegal :)
Wow, #5 and #6 say it all. Good job guy’s take the words out of my mouth why don’t ya! lol.
I have also COMPLETELY STOPPED BUYING ANYTHING or paying for anything that will put money in their pockets. I used to use torrents for varying reasons; like not available or released in my country, to evaluate, or simply because I couldn’t afford it. I would always be sure to buy and support the bands/movies/games I really enjoyed. That’s history…
Now I just download stuff because it’s the closest I can come to spitting in the face of the MAFIAA. Buying something is simply not an option. Why would you finance the enemy in a war on your people?
Downloading torrents is really satifying, every time utorrent makes that little “download complete” sound, I picture the face of some MAFIAA scumbag and laugh.
I used to be a little shady about my downloading, but nowadays I encourage all my friends and family to do the same, and I make sure to inform them of the disgusting behavior of the entertainment industry.
My advice:
Don’t pay, don’t be afraid and don’t be threatened…Keep file-sharing alive. WE WILL WIN THIS FIGHT!
They should never have picked a fight with their customers… the poeple! Especially ones they can’t win.
I have been saying from the beginning that they need to start looking at former employees of these organizations to get an idea of how they are collecting user information. Its not just IP and Questioning the Internet carrier they are certainly violating a clients privacy using illegal methods. A former employee may not be willing to come forward with a statement because of some signed paperwork but but they may be willing to tell someone off the record how they are doing it. Giving the attorneys a leg up in filing a cross suit for invasion of privacy and hacking. Not every employee leaves happily and someone will certainly be willing to spill the beans on how far and methods used to collect the user information.
Ive seen many illegal acts from various corporations the problem is most of these attorneys methods arent worth crap because they arent asking the right questions to the right people. Put the person who collected the information on the stand and question his method of data collection especially if that user had a firewall.
I have yet to see an attorney bring up that the defendant had multiple firewalls, AV software, Anti-Malware and Spyware programs running on thier PC and then question these parties with how can you correctly identify them as being the file sharer when they have layers of security without circumventing that security that is in place.
Once you show they are circumventing personal security your going to start opening them up to lawsuits.
These industries are making so much noise about protecting the rights of musicians, but when it comes down to it, they don’t even pay their musicians. In reality, they are only concerned about their own profits, and they are screwing everyone else. If I were a musician (in the majority of their “clients”), I would belong to a union siding with the fans. I would know that the RIAA was the enemy of my success. Instead of me getting paid pennies for the hundreds of thousands of CDs they sold in stores, I could become famous from all the file sharing, announce a concert in the city of my choice at the venue of my choice with the terms of my choice, and make money selling t-shirts and self-burnt CDs. I’d make a LOT more money this way. The RIAA is seriously misrepresenting their motives and reality.
Better yet, I would include a short sound byte about my website, where you can download all the music I make. At the website, I’d include a PayPal link/direct credit card donation button. I’d tell the downloader that they can pay whatever they like. About 50% of the downloaders would give me money, anywhere from $5 to $20. As my consumer awareness went up, as the direct result of fan sharing, my profits would rise in a directly proportional relationship, unlike working for the RIAA.
Im betting you that all pirates also act illegally too.. This is only one anti piracy organization..
Their slogan should read “Turning the legal system into a lottery” which is a lot more accurate then “Turn Piracy Into Profit”.
@32 (Reasoned Mind):
Even worse than the previous guy I rated. 18/100.
In response to comment 5, if file sharers become violent and do the things you describe, it would give RIAA, MPAA, and other like organizations even more of an excuse to go after us, also it would give governments and judges more incentive to side with the pro-copyright groups and the anti-christs. err…..i mean anti-pirates.
The way DigiProtect operates is really asinine and so damn hypocritical. The MAFFIA needs to be kicked in the wallet, and they hide their wallets down the front of their underwear. So lets kick ‘em hard.
If a company puts up a file, hopping that you download it, so they can sue you. Is that not called entrapment, which is against the law, as well.
what kind of idiots work for an outfit that cannot provide a solid pay. sharing is NOT stealing. no more money for the greedy corporations from me. @33 shut up your not a “victim” nothing was actually stolen from you
Why don’t we have a right to see before purchase? Even libraries are now charging fees. Reading a magazine found in the trash could help a homeless person to a nice warm jail cell. If you are reading this, you owe me. Where is the “ex post facto”? Every piece of media you pick up has a new rule written on it. A file title is only that, and the contents are unknown. If you post it, then you would have probably known what was there. An extensive library of purchased media is more convenient to access and enjoy on a computer. The television networks are now circumventing all local stations. Every type of media has a market strategy. “Wanna buy some tinsel?”
Rating people is almost as retarded as not understanding sarcasm… <3
To all you anti-piracy trolls (you know who you are): I wish for you to be falsely accused of copyright infringement by Digiprotect, MediaSentry/Media Defender, or any other of the MAFIAA’s enforcers. They all are notoriously inaccurate at determining who is guilty of infringement and often finger those who are completely innocent.
And besides, what is the point of trolling a pro-filesharing blog when most of those who regularly read it are going to ignore you anyway?
As for the lawyers at ACS:Law, one of whom is named Andrew Crossley, there’s a good chance they will be sanctioned or even disbarred. SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) in the UK has been flooded with complaints about him and his company’s behavior.
wondered why they dont sue me
my guess also is anyone with a real brain they are truly afraid of
This sounds like interesting site in UK
http://www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk/
“abuse of legal right”
Im gonna play on both sides of the field here.
ARR MATEYS!!!!!
This does indeed victimize the consumer because like people have mentioned this causes a lot of harm to people that may have been spoofed. Also this business model CANNOT succeed in the long run.
PIRATE HUNTER ZORRO!!!!
Piracy, all kinds, is an economic activity. Eventually a business model will emerge that will drive piracy DEEP underground. It will not be nearly common because it just wont be worth it. Itunes getting rid off DRM was a sign of the apocalypse for piracy. Eventually all media will shift over to a consumer friendly format and piracy will cease to be a problem. Our cause isnt noble please dont try to act like it is ;).
I am a victom of Acs law, currently i have received 2 threatening letters and i am expecting more. I have never downloaded or made available anything, i have my connection secured so i will not pay anything out to these bullies and look forward to meeting mr crossley in court where you will be made to answer to a judge for your harassment of innocent people and i will make sure it hurts you the most YOUR WALLET!
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