BitTorrent Users Refuse To Pay Copyright Fines
Written by enigmax on June 15, 2008During the last couple of years, hundreds of people have received letters from lawyers demanding compensation for the alleged uploading of copyright works. Their demands state that if you don’t pay up, you will be taken to court and dealt with severely. However, when people refuse to pay - nothing happens.
Back in March 2007 it became apparent that it would now be the turn of UK citizens to receive threatening letters for claimed breach of copyright. A team consisting of lawyers ‘Davenport Lyons’, anti-piracy tracking company ‘Logistep’ and several games publishers such as Zuxxez/Topware and CodeMasters started sending letters to those it accused of unauthorized distribution of their products - otherwise known as ‘uploading’. The most persistent cases are those featuring the games Dream Pinball 3D, Colin McRae Dirt and Call of Juarez.
In their letters, Davenport Lyons adopt a very serious tone, as they threaten to take people’s homes away, should they be unable to pay their ‘fines’. Of course, not many people like this tone, and they can get very indignant in the face of it. Needless to say - guilty or not - some people are sufficiently annoyed and simply refuse to pay. Others refuse to pay for different reasons - TorrentFreak is in touch with a few of them.
The reasons for non-payment vary, but some simply don’t have the money. ‘Tania’ told us: “I’m a single mom and my son must’ve done this but I don’t have £600 ($1200). I can’t pay it, I don’t have that sort of money.” ‘Paul’, who works a 70 hour week on two jobs explained that he is massively in debt with credit cards and the demands for cash from Davenport just go “on the pile with the others.” None of these people have been taken to court.
Others are refusing to pay because they are innocent. Even though Davenport insist that its anti-piracy tracking partner ‘Logistep‘ is faultless in its data-gathering, it’s generally accepted that anti-piracy companies are using systems which can produce bad data. Only last week researchers managed to get infringement notices sent to printers, devices incapable of committing such an act. Davenport insists - rather like BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor - that if the High Court thought the evidence was compelling enough to order the ISP to give up the personal details of the alleged sharer, then the data must be accurate. If that is the case, how come Davenport haven’t taken anyone to court or asked Logistep to take up the offers they received to have their system independently audited? That would surely boost their credibility. Or not.
TorrentFreak spoke with many people who are obviously wrongly accused for various reasons. We’re pretty sure that ‘Lucy’, a 67 year old grandmother of 8, had no interest in Colin McRae Dirt, and that ‘Peter’, a 21 year old student who used to have a game-loving flat-mate, is completely innocent. What about ‘Jason’, a father of four who was in the Middle East at the time of the alleged infringement, or ‘Joanne’ who had probably been running a wide-open wireless router for the best part of two years - in a building of around 60 residents? As with the other group, none of these people have been taken to court.
One man, ‘Stuart’, has been corresponding with Davenport Lyons for many months now over claims his uncle with whom he lives, infringed copyright on Colin McRae Dirt. The Internet account is in his uncle’s name, but his uncle never uses the computer, so the wrong person was accused immediately and Stuart vigorously denies all accusations too.
After many letters sent to Davenport last year, where Stuart (on behalf of his uncle) denied all allegations, with Davenport duly ignoring most points and reiterating that if he didn’t pay he’d be going to court (each time giving only a few days to stop the court action), everything went dead. Then a couple of months ago, déjà vue kicked in as a letter dropped through the door which seemed to start from the beginning again, essentially stating that if he didn’t pay, court papers would be prepared and he would be incurring huge costs, etc.
Stuart wrote back, re-iterated his total innocence, and reminded Davenport that endless correspondence was getting them nowhere while they insist he is guilty, and he insists he is not. They wrote back and reminded him (again) that they were going to start court proceedings if he didn’t pay. He hasn’t paid and they have not taken him to court. Again.
Stuart is not unique in receiving lots of letters, lots of threats and then - nothing. TorrentFreak is in touch with nearly 40 people accused in these cases and not one of them has been taken to court, in some cases more than 15 months after these people apparently had 14 days to pay up or else.
It’s not clear if Davenport Lyons has completely given up on taking anyone to court, they may still surprise us. It’s believed they did ‘win’ one case when someone they accused didn’t turn up in court but all the indications point to a stalemate on the outstanding cases, including those of Stuart, Lucy, Peter, Jason, Joanne and countless others.
It’s thought that around 40% to 50% of people who received letters have paid up, and maybe that’s enough for the operation to be profitable for Davenport. Taking people to court in the UK for such a small infringement is definitely unprofitable. Maybe this is the greatest indicator as to where these cases are going to end up when the defiant, penniless and innocent refuse to pay.
Previously: MediaDefender Goes Forward with P2P Marketing
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73 Responses
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More need to refuse to pay.
they simply do not want their bad system tested in court
I’d call their bluff and ask them to set a court date.
everyone should protest against it and not pay. its not like them can take us all to court.
Yeah, Don’t pay, they can’t do anything.
They are Super A-Holes ;-)
Very nice article, and i’m sure it will help quite a few people who were thinking of paying but then “reconsidered” after reading here.
I do think that their system is going to be “independently verified” soon… by someone who is going to get a fat amount on the side of course, the ONLY way that they will get real credit if they opened up their source so that anyone could analize their code… needless to say, that will only happen after pigs start to fly and hell freezes over (and since pigs are flying and hell has frozen over its Paris Hilton’s cue to get some talent and brains).
The only thing I fear is that if a lot of people/websites run articles like this is that the “bad guys” will kind of push a couple of people to court just to make an example of them… because fear mongering is one of their main weapons in their dirty arsenal.
Just my $0.02
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
Fight back and sue the scum for harassment!
Lawyers aren’t better than those rabble-rousers RIAA/MPAA, they all have no conscience!
Sad that there’s as many weak minded individuals as there appears to be..
If no one paid these extortion attempts then like any company who’s expenses are greater than their revenue they’d have to close up shop..
Great job for those of you who aren’t paying up.
For those that are, honestly, better luck next time. There’s no need for it.
Funny, you say, “…boost their credibility…”
As if they have any. All the anti-piracy gangs get a big head after one court case goes well for them (OiNK) but forget that their evidence is virtually useless.
These guys should just go home and cry to their mommies like WebSheriff.
I don’t think it’s fair to criticise those who have paid up.
Davenport Lyons and Zuxxez etc are the evil here, not people who’ve been scared into paying £500 so that they don’t have to go to court.
I am not blamming people who have paid.
However:
DO NOT PAY! DO NOT PAY AND DO NOT PAY!
Ther is nothing to fear!
Worst case scenario go BK chapter 7 to make them go away!
get a good BK attorney and pay his/her fee upfront with a credit card that will go in the BK.
Unless you have substancial asset such as more than one home, more than one car per person in your familly, investement outside of your retirment.
They can not take your home your car or your retirment plan! This is protected in case of BK.
If they were to change the law over this then it would be time to take our guns but this is not the case right now. So?
Also BOYCOTT THE RIAA/MPAA PARASITES!
This mean anuything:
1)Vivendi,Universal
2) Sony/BMG,
3) EMI,
4) Time Warner,
5) Viacom,
6)Every thing owned by this parastite and old bag of shit of Rupert Murder. Heu. . . I mean Ruper Murdock. (Sorry.)
7) And their numerous subsidiaries.
@11
Those people who have paid, have submitted to an unjust tyranny.
@trn, I think the correct word for those people who have paid is: victims
I really hope those bastards from Logistep will face the same slow death as MediaDefender is now …. They are hurting a lot of innocent people with their malicious bully-boy tactics.
I would whole heartedly pay up.
WITH BOTH BARRELS!!!
LIBERTY OR DEATH !!!!!
I have no quams about meeting my maker or defending my God given rights to a FREE existence in any and all expressions where in.
Evil prevails when good men do nothing.
And hey, worst comes to worst, if you do have to pay them money from a court case, clear yourself of legal connections and declare bankruptcy, when you die there’s no one legally capable of paying off your debt to them so they never get paid.
Never reply to these letters!
Big daddy George Lucas sent me a similar letter…. back in 2005
I had 7 days to contact them or they would “take further,harsh,actions against me”.
I simply scanned it
Archive it(To file a harassment suit if anymore came to my door)
Then put it in my shredder(damn thing gave me a papercut)
Besides the scar from the papercut,i havent heard back from George.
Btw george your game sucked donkey balls
So yes i did delete it
LOL
i had letters concerning the pinball game,i aint paid ,what i find odd is that you have to sign a form before you can pay them ,stating you wont upload anymore,so correct me if im wrong if you did not upload there game and paid out of fear,then how can you use the net again,for fear of a repeat,it,s a scandel,p.s. ive never even heard of the game never mind uploading it
i said them to go and fuck them selfs
the signing letter thing is the admission of guilt upon which they base their claim
never admit guilt and let they try to prove it
it will never happen without your assistance
I feel sorry for the people that DID pay. Best thing to do would probably be to write “Return to sender - no such resident” on the letters and forget about them.
Perhaps they are just a bit more friendly than the rest of the lawyers. Anyone thought about that?
Perhaps they know, that many of the people can’t pay, or won’t, but they hope that getting a threatening letter would make the pirate stop downloading/uploading.
They probably just don’t think it’s worth taking peoples money, and instead they try to scare them away from pirating. Which is better than taking their money, or at least I think so.
The point of course being:
All these people, us, would never have bought that software, music, movies to begin with. Simply because we don’t have the money for it.
The *only* real reason these people are being sent letters is because current day technology allowed them to be entertained for a lot less, by having a PC and an internet connection.
I.e. they should not send these letters to the people, but to all those hardware and systems manufacturers and maybe even internet service providers for making this posisble.
In short: It’s a waste of time.
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