Judge Jeopardizes Anti-Piracy Cash Operation
Written by enigmax on February 07, 2010DigiProtect has shot itself and its business model in the foot during a recent court hearing. The notorious anti-piracy outfit refused to open its books for scrutiny during a case where it claimed compensation against a file-sharer. The judge consequently ruled that the defendant didn’t have to pay the majority of the claim against him.
DigiProtect is a controversial anti-piracy company which also acts as a copyright holder in order to ease civil claims against alleged file-sharers in several countries across Europe. They track IP addresses on popular file-sharing networks, obtain the identities behind them and demand cash settlements.
A ruling by a court in Frankfurt on January 29th could now have put DigiProtect’s “Turn Piracy Into Profit” mass-warning business model into jeopardy.
An individual was sent a letter by the lawyer Udo Kornmeier on behalf of DigiProtect. The letter contained accusations of illicit file-sharing including a customary cash payment demand of around 651 euros to cover legal costs based on an infringement claim of 10,000 euros. It was accompanied by a demand to pay a further 150 euros in order to acquire a license from the copyright holder for the material downloaded.
While the file-sharer didn’t contest the 150 euro license fee, he refused to pay the 651 euros legal bill. DigiProtect’s lawyers countered with an offer for him to pay 450 euros plus the 150 euros license fee. Again the file-sharer rejected the offer.
DigiProtect then went on to sue the man for 651.80 euros and the case went to court.
In court the judge asked DigiProtect and its lawyers to open up their books to show what legal costs were actually incurred (and paid) to perform legal actions against the file-sharer and send him the letters. Both DigiProtect and their lawyer refused to submit the information.
During the hearing the judge discovered that the relationship between DigiProtect and its lawyers was covered by an agreement similar to the one it had previously with lawyers Davenport Lyons for their UK operations. The details of that arrangement were leaked out last year by a disgruntled insider and revealed some embarrassing truths about the operation.
DigiProtect and its German lawyer refused to allow the agreement between them to be shown in court which meant that the true costs of pursuing the file-sharer remained unproven.
The judge said that even if DigiProtect had paid 651.80 euros to its lawyers to pursue the file-sharer, these cannot be considered as involuntary damages since DigiProtect paid this fee to its lawyer voluntarily. Therefore the only involuntary damages in this case was the 150 euros rights holder licensing fee.
Due to this lack of transparency, the judge decided that the file-sharer did not have to pay DigiProtect the claimed 651.80 euros legal action costs, only the 150 euros licensing fee.
Clearly, if the lawyers can’t get their sizable share of the spoils in this “Turn Piracy Into Profit” operation, the whole business plan falls down. There was certainly no profit to be made from this file-sharer – time will tell if this effect ripples on to other cases.
Previously: Game Developers Skeptical About Ubisoft’s New DRM
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54 Responses
DAT ASS FIRST.
hope this sets a precedent.
they are fucking clueless and desperate. its starting to get irrational
@1 Go back to 4chan.
Anyway, I’m glad this happened. They aren’t so willing to open up when it’s their turn to do so. They got what they deserved. I only wish that the judge went further and slapped them with a big fine.
That’s just too bad LOl :D
Again shows the incompetence of anti piracy outfits, and just how out of their depth they are.
We need more judges like that, who aren’t immediately impressed by calims of “defending copyright”
Again shows the incompetence of anti piracy outfits, and just how out of their depth they are.
We need more judges like that, who aren’t immediately impressed by claims of “defending copyright”
Then if he pays 150 for the fee, he “owns” the “pirated” material and can SHARE it like he wants right?
shame the judge didn’t also ask for the ‘evidence gathering’ methods used to be shown and the proof they had. would have shot them down even better. cant believe the accused person didn’t contest the license fee either.
A bit sad this guy paid anything to these vultures..
he could have gone with: it wasnt me
or
open wireless
or
someone hacked my wireless
or
etc
but since he saw this through, kudos to him for standing up to the bullies.
A 150euros is nothing, like 1500 Swedish kronas or 200 USD, but if this has set precedent and can be used in other courts in the EU…its like the Mona Lisa – priceless!
Glad to see there’s a bit of sense as well, in the US you can be in the shop for upto $150,000 per *SONG* (which the current administration says is perfectly fine) this guy paid $200 for a *FILM*.
Hellz yeah. Go for piracy!
It seems really rather silly to be in the business of reclaiming lost monies, when the sum your charging for the service is 4x greater than the sum you’re getting back.
I wouldn’t, for example, pay confused.com £100 for saving me £25 on my car insurance…
Yet this is the way the system works – simply because you’ve done something illegal it seems to be okay to dump the legal costs on you.
Personally, i think the copyright holders should be the ones footing the bill. If they want a couple of pounds worth of CD’s back – and they’re going to waste the courts time in doing so – they should pay the lawyers/judge. Not the little guy.
After the appeal this will be reversed, mark my words. We are about make history…
LoL.. They won’t open their documents because there are procedures that are, to say the least, doubtful. Not to mention their data collection is flawed and their activity has been labeled ‘legal blackmail’ and despised by competent authorities.
MAFIAA and merry friends will fail in the end. Epically. Unless they evolve and start doing it right..
Who the hell sues for legal costs and er… won’t disclose thier legal expenses?
That’s just dumb.
@Reasoned Mind: Enough with the “we are going to get you, just you wait!” spiel, we’ve heard it all before.
Oh, I’m still waiting on that VPN licensing that you said would be coming soon, by the way…
Not a particularly surprising outcome. I’d much rather see a ruling on the €150 licensing fee…
DEMONOIDE REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!
so gain 150 lose 650
WOOT profit oh wait
thats not profit OH MY can we sue more people and lose money now?
haha suckers
That’s telling the ruddy morons to have themselves a nice, steaming cup ‘o STFU!
I’m dissapointed.
I clicked this and thought the Judge’s name was “Judge Jepordizes” :(
In all seriousnes though, serves them right for being such greedy bar-stewards.
Another anti-piracy group gets shot down by the court.
We need more article’s about this kind of courts.
Poor cheap kids dont have money? Lamers
look at me.I am a bus driver but still i make people offers they cant refuse (you know the way i talk walk and seduce young males)!
Result,you ask? Well i buy my fetish movies legally!
I’m Spartacus!
No i’m Spartacus!
Nov it’s obvious for everyone who is Spartacus! :)
Torrents were great years and years ago (2002ish and just before) but now all the masses are using them its suddenly a problem. Even a few years ago I was being asked and seeing comments in forums like “I tried to download such and such but I keep getting a .torrent file, how do I get my D/L” Now every computer I go and fix regardless of their knowledge has utorrent on it. Ignorant masses
@27 Rob: In my opinion, the more people who use torrents, the better. It’s called “PEER to PEER” for a reason. Stop being such an elitist jerk.
another fine example of a clueless judge.
All you have to do is say you have an unsecured router and they will drop the case. It was in the documents leaked.
They will only go after people who refused to reply and then get a default judgement or people who admit responsibility. They havent won a case against anyone who denied it.
It looks like the European courts are more objective to such copyright cases then their American counterparts.. I’ve read about Spanish courts fining downloaders one Euro (or less, can not recall correctly) and now this. Still, 150 Euros for a license to view whatever digital file is still a lot of money compared to a similar(?) movie file from iTunes.
That one little step for filesharers, one great leap for humanity.
now to trash the esa for hoarding old games >:@
Nuh uh im Spartacus!
Il be what I want and if there were not so many inarticulate comments all over TPB or even this site my opinion would be different. Only the other day on here someone was arguing with me over the existence of a Daybreakers screener which does exist! The only people annoyed with my opinion lets face it, are the people I was talking about in my comment. I don’t expect people to have to abandon P2P but I do expect less attitude from the people that barely understand it. Countless time I see people on TPB shouting and screaming about seeds or the quality of the upload and guess what, they have contributed nothing back! You know who you are! Them’s who I was talking about, like you Sendaii. Your the elitist jerk or you wouldn’t have found my comment offensive in the 1st place. :-)
I would rather see the real Reasoned Mind here than these retarded impersonators. You people are immature and need to grow up. We don’t need more trolls on here.
In my opinion, the guy shouldn’t have had to pay anything at all, or at least the judge should have asked to see positive proof what the guy downloaded before making a judgment.
Awww…poor poor lawyers.
ROFFLE! xD
Hmm, WTF is Spartacus? :)
Yeh, The guy shouldn’t have paid the 150 euro. When taken to court would have then been thrown out and defendant pay nothing. He was dumbass to pay them anything voluntarily.
Well what do you know!!!!!!???
It turns out that internet “piracy” is turning out to be HUGELY profitable for anti-piracy outfits and their lawyers!! It seems to be the best thing that could have happened for their account books!
How much of the money they extort from internet users actually goes to the (in their own words) poor “content creators” and copyright holders?
I’m Reasoned Mind!
They call them self layers, shortly they should of guest that this is the way this court case is going to go, if they are not prepared to show ever dense.
Probably because the figure is exaggerated, as we all guest!
yey cookies
Seems the anti-piracy companies are getting their fair share of losses this year..
Since nobody mentioned it:
I am just wondering what kind of license it was he received ?
As 150 euro is far to much for a movie or music album. If it is a license for distributing, this would mean he can go and share it forever now.
@ 14 Feb 07, 2010 at 16:28 by Reasoned Mind
After the appeal this will be reversed, mark my words. We are about make history…
again i call BULLSH!T…… there was the small problem of PROOF, they refused to open up their books as it would no doubt show their highly IMMORAL business practices to all
oh the irony.. lawyers, the law,integrity, moraltily hohohohohohoho
this sounds like a great business.
I am the copywrite holder of everything.
I sniff up your address.
I send you a bill/threat.
You paypal me.
I buy another pina colada in barbados and count my money.
repeat.
I’m amazed the judge didn’t nailed their corporate-friendly asses to the wall for contempt of court charges.
had anyone had any good advise from a reputable source?
Haha, nice. It’s acceptable and reasonable, in my eyes, for them to ask the 150 euro license fee. That makes sense, and it obviously did to the file-sharer too. But all those “extra” fees? Pshh, if they aren’t willing to tell a *judge* what those fees are supposed to cover, that does create some serious doubt about the validity of ANY of their claims!
Not file-sharer TF, “alleged” file-sharer.
Well, good for him… He should not have to pay anything, but at least he only had to pay a little…
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