Codemasters Set Lawyers Loose on BitTorrent Colin McRae Fans
Written by enigmax on November 29, 2007Video game outfit CodeMasters are the latest company to take legal action against people it accuses of infringing its copyrights. Hundreds of people received letters demanding up to a staggering $9,000 for allegedly sharing the game Colin McRae Dirt via The Pirate Bay. What now for these people?
Earlier on this year we reported many times about UK law firm Davenport Lyons threatening hundreds of people it accused of sharing the Zuxxez game, Dream Pinball 3D.
Davenport Lyons hired Swiss company Logistep to collect data about alleged file-sharers with a system called ‘File-Sharing Monitor’ which we investigated for our article ‘This is How We Catch You Downloading‘. Logistep’s system is unlicensed and unapproved by any official independent or government organization. Put simply, anyone could gather this data from the internet and claim that it’s accurate and it’s particularly easy for a company in Switzerland to do this, outside as it is of any European jurisdiction.
In order for Logistep to have any credibility, they should open up their system for independent audit, something they have refused to do so far. Indeed, Logistep and Davenport Lyons have only sent those it accuses a very basic explanation of how their system works and to add insult to injury, the supplied documentation has nothing to do with the system they use to catch alleged BitTorrent infringers – all of the documentation refers to their eDonkey tracking system.
In order to discover the identities of those it accuses of infringement, Davenport had to make ISPs give up their customer’s personal details. It’s interesting that Davenport and Logistep are even still operating in this manner, given that Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice said that while it is a requirement for ISPs to divulge personal details in criminal cases, the law does not have the power to force them to disclose the same in a civil case. In Europe, the personal, non-commercial sharing of copyright works is a civil issue yet Davenport Lyons insist that this is a criminal issue, an assertion seriously up for debate, as we will learn later in this article.
It seems that other European country’s legal systems have had enough of Logistep. In Italy during July, the Courts decided that Logistep invaded the privacy of internet users and the information it gathered could not be used in a lawsuit.
In France the Courts ruled that accused citizens were denied “a contradictory procedure making it possible all the interested parties to be represented in front of the judge within the framework of the use of a peer to peer software” and declared that in future, any businesses or individuals wishing to breach standard privacy laws to monitor file-sharers on the internet, must first get their activities sanctioned by a judge.
Quite why Davenport Lyons and Logistep are getting away with actions in the UK that appear to be illegal in other parts of Europe is unclear at this stage but those concerned should present this information to their legal adviser for further investigation.
These issues aside for a moment, TorrentFreak spoke with our own counsel who has examined these lengthy documents (accusing people of sharing the game ‘Colin McRae Dirt’ on The Pirate Bay) and has taken the time to answer questions that could be helpful to all recipients of this Davenport Lyons correspondence.
Firstly, I’m not giving legal advice here, merely general advice that I hope will help people to deal with the demands being issued by Davenport Lyons.
I think few legal professionals would be entirely comfortable with any firm issuing automated threats of civil action to individuals without allowing them any reasonable opportunity to respond, let alone the ludicrous “costs” they are claiming or the absurd claim that anyone who is filesharing for domestic purposes (i.e. not for commercial gain) could be committing any criminal offence.
So you’re saying the letter from Davenport Lyons is wrong, possibly illegal?
No, I’m saying that in my opinion it’s thoroughly unprofessional, wildly inaccurate and totally misleading. It’s for the court to determine that it’s illegal, but so far as I can tell, they haven’t actually sued anyone yet, so I suspect that it may all be smoke and mirrors.
[Note: As far as TorrentFreak is aware, from the hundreds of people threatened in the original 'Dream Pinball 3D' case, no-one has been taken to court. In fact, we are in personal contact with people who refused to pay in this case and they have heard nothing further from Davenport Lyons, supporting the opinion of our counsel]
Let’s start with their presumption that filesharing is a criminal act. Unless you are using filesharing for commercial purposes, it isn’t a criminal act. (s107 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act) And if someone was doing so for commercial purposes, then it is a matter for police or trading standards officers to enforce, not an invitation for a high street solicitor to start unwarranted demands for money from people with menace.
Let’s then deal with their refusal to enter into any correspondence. This is not only contrary to The Code of Practice for Pre Action Conduct in Intellectual Property Disputes (Section 4) but contrary to the Human Rights Act Article 6 which states the principle that “there shall be no punishment without law” as well as the legal systems own rules, CPR (Civil Procedures Rules). These rules generally state that the person making the accusations must behave reasonably and they must also give the other person a chance to answer. The BBC give an excellent overview here.
Let’s then move on to the matter of their alleged costs which they claim they are simply recovering. It is customary to first write to ISPs and ask them to contact the customer and caution them regarding their use of the internet for filesharing.
Davenport Lyons have chosen not to do as everyone else does, instead relying on a so called “forensic analysis” from a person who is not even recognised as an expert witness in the English courts, based within a country that doesn’t even lie in any European jurisdiction to obtain an order forcing the ISP to identify the subscriber.
Litigants are required to mitigate their costs,to act proportionately and to resort to the courts only as a last resort. Davenport Lyons have done everything they can to exacerbate their “costs” without even trying to resolve matters informally, as everyone else does, and most courts would regard that unfavourably.
Civil Procedures Rules (CPR) 44.5 state that costs will be determined by the court on the basis of: a) the conduct of all the parties including conduct before as well as during the proceedings and the efforts made, if any, in order to try and resolve the dispute and (b) the amount or value of any money or property involved. Davenport Lyons have hardly demonstrated reasonable conduct.
Taking someone to court should be a last resort, something to do when all other attempts to resolve a dispute amicably have failed, not a matter of mechanical routine.
So you think these letters are merely a bluff to get people to pay up without fighting them?
I think that could be perfectly likely, although it would be foolish to simply ignore their letter or be rude in response. Even if it did get to court, the fact that you ignored even an inaccurate and intimidating letter such as this could harm your defence
It is important to remember that the courts expect people to behave reasonably, and the way and speed in which someone responds can influence the outcome far more than people may ever imagine. Respect counts for a lot when you’re dealing with a court.
So what should recipients of these threats say in their reply?
I can’t give that guidance, for each case will be different and I’m only answering general questions here.
One person may admit the allegations, and may be perfectly willing to sign an undertaking never to do so again. I would never recommend signing anything without proper legal consultation.
Another person may prefer to simply pay but not make any promises, and therefore I suggest they clearly mark the undertaking as being “signed under duress and without prejudice” above the signature line.
Others may wish to dispute the allegations. If so, they should demonstrate how reasonable they are being by documenting a reasonable response, in which they will include some proof of their position.
Anything sent should always be posted by recorded delivery, so that you have proof of posting and evidence of receipt.
[Note: Davenport Lyons didn't send any of this correspondence by recorded delivery requiring a signature, so there is zero proof at all that anyone even received a letter. Given the Royal Mail's record (losing 14 million letters in 2004 for example) one would have thought they would've taken steps to ensure delivery]
What sort of proof do you need to give to them? I thought people were always presumed innocent, why should they have to prove otherwise?
People accused of a crime are always presumed innocent, and the burden of proof rests with the person making the accusation (usually the state) to prove their guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
People accused of a civil “offence”, and that’s all that personal and private or domestic filesharing amounts to, are subject to a totally different burden of proof. The accuser merely needs to prove that they did what they are accused of doing on the balance of probabilities. The respondent merely needs to prove that they didn’t in response. The judge will balance the two arguments against each other and will decide who is most probably right based on the evidence presented to him.
And if a person refuses to communicate reasonably either before or at the hearing, then the judge will draw the presumption that the silent person has no defence to offer. It’s hard, but it’s fair.
If I wanted to contest the accusation, what sort of proof would I need to provide?
It very much depends upon your personal circumstances, although generally I would advise that you gather together as many independent witnesses or as much evidence as you can find.
For example, if a respondent (defendant) was claiming that he had opened up his wireless network on the grounds that BT recommended that people did so then it would be helpful to have a witness see how many others were using this connection, prepare a screen grab and sign a statement confirming that there were numerous other users of the PC’s wireless network.
In another example, if a respondent were to claim that he shared a communal internet connection with several others in the same household and was simply the person whose name appeared on the bill, then it would help if he could show rent books for the other tenants or perhaps a copy of the electoral register showing the names of others who lived at that address.
The Copyright Designs and Patents Act in S97 states: “Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy”. If an infringement arose because of an innocent error or an accidental oversight, then the plaintiff isn’t entitled to damages
The grounds for a successful defence are relatively fertile, dependant on the individual circumstances.
So to summarise, what is your advice to recipients of these letters?
My advice is not to panic and never to simply ignore these letters in the hope that the problem will go away on its’ own. Prepare as much of your case as you can in advance, and then speak either with your solicitor or the Citizens Advice Bureau, they give an excellent service for free and their number can be found in your local directory.
Many people have legal advice covered as part of their insurance, Barclays Bank amongst others offer this as part of their student package, and that will cover the cost of professional advice.
Very few intellectual property cases ever make it to court in the UK, and I would be extremely surprised if Davenport Lyons managed to win a defended action given their pre action conduct.
Your legal adviser may wish to see this link which details the consequences of anyone making a groundless threat of infringement such as these, and the prospects of suing the people making the threat for costs and damages.
Our counsel is a lawyer with a background in the media industry, recognised by WIPO and has a highly successful track record of defending both site owners and individuals. Whilst the answers given here do not constitute legal advice, they describe the general principles of defence against the sort of demands being circulated by Davenport Lyons. Our counsel regrets that he is unable to answer questions put to him about specific cases, and recommends that you use the information given as a basis for discussion with your own solicitor.
Finally, in a move that is likely to embarrass Davenport Lyons and prove that a lack of human interaction in these bulks legal cases leads to amateur mistakes, many people it accuses have received multiple threats through the mail, each carrying a demand to pay around £500 ($1000).
Many people have received multiple letters relating to a claimed seperate infringement on the same game, turning this ‘legal’ action into a complete and utter farce. To suggest than one individual uploaded the entire game to a single recipient (Logistep) many, many times in succession is ridiculous and is easily proven to be completely false.
Tommorow we hope to bring you interviews with some of the people who have received these letters to hear how they are coping, and we’ll be hearing from one shocked guy who received ten (yes, 10!) infringement notices for the same alleged offence.
Previously: P2P Traffic Is Booming, BitTorrent The Dominant Protocol
Next: The Pirate Bay Introduces Music Discovery Feature
72 Responses
You can have mine! :)
cbf reading that…
@ spagyi cheers r u one of that unlucky bastard who recived 10 then?
Awsome article, I love the way you write, and the ammount of information is incredible. Props <3
And @ the case, I don’t think they got shit as evidence, they’re just threatning 12year-olds into not DL’ing anymore.
Interesting. I grabbed my copy of Dirt from TPB.
And low and behold, my Canadian ass has not scene a hint of a letter or warning over this.
Who exactly are they going after? It isn’t clear in the post, but it seems that these guys are only going after European customers on this one?
In any event, great post. Nice to see some people taking this seriously and offering real advice (read: pirate bay, not exactly taking any of it seriously).
Most people just don’t understand, unless they literally have your harddrive or burnt copies, they really can’t prove much, and if you are smart, you can avoid going to court entirely.
Beyond that, even if you are caught ‘red handed’, as this post states, it’s still not actually a crime.
The burden is on you to prove that, even tho that’s the opposite of how the law works.
Take Dirt for example, they are sueing for anywheres from 100$ to 9000$. The game itself only freaking cost like 40$, so it’s pretty hard for them to prove you cost them 9 grand buy sharing a 40$ game.
And again, unless you are doing it for commercial and monetary gain, it’s not technically a crime (well, if you are in the US that statement doesn’t ring as true)
If you find yourself on the shit end of one of those letters, get aquainted with EFF.org
only people from the U.K. got these letters…
Nice to read another properly researched article instead of people just shouting their mouths off. Well done
It’s a small comfort to know, that at least in some countries, the law does not allow the corporations to act as they please.
To conclude, I’d like to say that the game (CMDirt) wasn’t that great in the first place, some reasons to start b..ing bout it, loser lawyers..
I’m sorry, I forgot to mention, I got my copy of dirt off filelist and after playing it for 10 min I deleted it.
Now, I understand if it was some masterpiece of a game, then yes, go ahead and sue people..but for this mediocre title? Come on, above this u cheap fox :)
Damn.. and I actually have a lot of original bought Codemasters games @ home.. what the hell am I gonna do with those now?? I have to hide them somewhere so I dont see their logo everytime I step into the room.. they’ve disgraced themselves in my eyes… Hunting teens on PirateBay? Pff… Blizzard pees on your logo Codemasters..
HI!!
http://suprbay.org/index.php
tpb forums.
lets chat about it.
makes good reading…hope it all goes away
the words fuck um come to mind
Oh shit, oh shit, I got DiRT from TPB. No letter yet but I’m shitting myself now…
thanks for that enigmax! very helpful, ive got 4 myself.
Since I’m located in Sweden and you’ll all know how it is over here I only read half the text. Hope that’s okey :P
???
>And low and behold, my Canadian ass
>has not scene a hint of a letter or
>warning over this.
Why would anyone try to sue a donkey? Let alone a Canadian one.
A friendly Hello from Germany!
Please forgive me my horrible english, did not use it a long time.
This is where Logistep was born and akted first. Since then, over the last 2 Years, we have about 5 Logging Companys and about 10 Layers sending out funny letters. The buisness is booming here… as the german law system is much more easy to use for this kind of money maschine, and the advocat lobby is very strong.
Surely more then 100.000 letters so far..
I do not know about the laws in sweden, but as you can see, whole Europe is ignoring their illegal behavior, wich has nothing to do with Anti-Piracy, it is all just about the money for the laywers and Logistep.
Meantime, the logging industrie is mainly searching for pr0ns, big market and people really get scared and pay immideatly, or would you like to tell your lawyer about “Grannys drunken and pissed” Movies?
I got myself a letter from Logistep about 2 Years ago, simply ignored it, nothing happend. Thats how most people behave. No Judgement, Logistep is simply not able to, no proves, and of course not interested in bringing someone to court. This would mean real work, the judge would never ever condemn to this much money they want, and if they loose (what surely will happen) the whole system is breaking down.
DO NOT LET THEM THREAT YOU! DO NOT PAY!
It is only about the money.
This is really dumb!
If these people are concerned about the letter and subsequent fines… then they should go out and BUY a copy of the offending download.
There’s a good chance they will find in on sale somewhere and once equiped with it they can tell the lawyer to FUCK OFF in big red letters.
All these people need to claim is that they were “evaluating” the software before they bought it, because game’s shops in the uk have a NO RETURNS policy.
There isn’t a court in the land that would prosecute them if they own a legal copy, because the stores would then be open to a lawsuit to challenge their returns policies.
End of worry.
>>”In order to discover the identities of those it accuses of infringement, Davenport had to make ISPs give up their customer’s personal details. It’s interesting that Davenport and Logistep are even still operating in this manner, given that Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice said that while it is a requirement for ISPs to divulge personal details in criminal cases, the law does not have the power to force them to disclose the same in a civil case.”>>
So why do ISP’s give these kind of people details in the first place. Unless it’s a criminal matter, isn’t that a violation of privacy in the first place?
[quote]“If these people are concerned about the letter and subsequent fines… then they should go out and BUY a copy of the offending download.
There’s a good chance they will find in on sale somewhere and once equiped with it they can tell the lawyer to FUCK OFF in big red letters.”[/quote]
Bullcrap, owning the game legalizes not sharing it via p2p with others.
The upload ist the problem.
[quote comment="227294"]>>”In order to discover the identities of those it accuses of infringement, Davenport had to make ISPs give up their customer’s personal details. It’s interesting that Davenport and Logistep are even still operating in this manner, given that Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice said that while it is a requirement for ISPs to divulge personal details in criminal cases, the law does not have the power to force them to disclose the same in a civil case.”>>
So why do ISP’s give these kind of people details in the first place. Unless it’s a criminal matter, isn’t that a violation of privacy in the first place?[/quote]
Check this forum:http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=39877&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=125
on page 6 you will find the letter I received frommy ISP
Sorry, how much did they ask in those letters $9,000 or £500?
thanks,
[quote]It seems that other European country’s legal systems have had enough of Logistep[/quote]
Unfortunately, not the legal system here in Germany. :(
We get those letters non-stop since 2005. Month after month new law firms and new self-appointed Anti-Piracy-Organizations appear ‘on stage’, many of them are working for the pr0n industry (not a joke).
We don’t get hundreds, we get thousand of those letters a month. No wonder the P2P scene is changing here. It’s not that all are taken to court, far from it! We only had about 20-30(?) cases yet. But those cases do happen, that seems to be enough to frighten people. I think, many of them pay, especially people caught sharing pr0n. Even A very profitable way to make money.
See my old commentary, too:
http://torrentfreak.com/fearless-pirates-dont-care-about-lawsuits-071013/#comment-186823
Thanks a lot enigmax !
Very good article, indeed !
[quote comment="227027"]In order to discover the identities of those it accuses of infringement, Davenport had to make ISPs give up their customer’s personal details.[/quote]
[quote comment="227027"]It’s interesting that Davenport and Logistep are even still operating in this manner, given that Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice said that while it is a requirement for ISPs to divulge personal details in criminal cases, the law does not have the power to force them to disclose the same in a civil case.[/quote]
Nope, this is NOT the lawyers fault; they will always chase after money, its what they do.
BLAME THE ISPs!!!!!
THE ISPs ARE COWARDS!!!!!
THE ISPs, _NOT_ THE LEGAL SYSTEM, ARE THE ONES WHO ARE SELLING US TO THE MAFIAA!!!!!
Every single (effectively, at least) takedown of a filesharing site was done because the ISP SOLD OUT!!! There have NOT been any legal victories!!!
Canada claims to have at least one safe ISP, fine; Europe, your ISPs are bending you over and stabbing you in the back. Per country – Germany, France, England – if you do not have access to a fair ISP that has balls, then get together and buy one!
Oh, and Sweden/TPB? I think your greatest weakness [okay, openly advocating theft:)] is going to be your ISP; kudos on it not caving in so far, but if unless you want Sweden to be the only ISP-safe haven, then fund / raise funds for designated safe ISPs in Germany etc.
Smile at a stranger today.
Lol, lol, I forgot to take your head(er) off those quotes from the main article; sorry!:)
It’s odvious Colin won’t be seeing any of this money :D….
too soon???
Oh no’s ..
They’ve harvested I.P’s without the concent of the owners of TPB trackers as per TPB policy.
I had gotten a letter once, it was forwarded to me from my isp, that was a very long time ago, then paranoia kicked in, havent heard a word since.
also who is the “safe” ISP in Canada?
” It’s odvious Colin won’t be seeing any of this money :D….
too soon???
”
oh god i lol’d
Ignore those fucking letters. Pretend it never arrived. Seriously.
If you waste your time and money on greedy lawyers, they have won. Going to a lawyer is proof you received the letter. And the lawyer is going to steer you in the direction that leads to you paying more and more legal fees to him.
A GOOD lawyer will often tell you it is sometimes more sensible to ignore ridiculous threat letters. This happens in other areas of law all the time (like real-estate, when a new owner threatens the old owner with litigation because they have a problem with the house).
Don’t ever respond to threat letters. The time to bother calling a lawyer is if you are actually being sued, which in 99% of cases never happens.
And as far as ‘default judgements’ go, they still have to prove you guilty. Just because you provide no defense doesn’t automatically mean the other side wins. In fact, the ‘industry’ just lost a case in the USA where they were seeking a default judgement. The judge affirmed the principle that the lack of defense is not proof of offense.
Don’t trust these fucking lawyers, they just want your money, and once you’re caught in their web, their whole slimey industry will milk you dry.
In Germany, if you completely ignore those threat letters, there is a risk of getting an “preliminary injunction”. This is a decision of the court, done in absence of the suspected person, to get preliminary legal protection.
If you get this one, you will have to pay a LOT OF money, lot more than demanded in those letters.
It is a new business model here in Germany. I get the impression, many rightholders don’t really want to fight piracy anymore, they just use P2P to make money out of it.
Cool, next CodeLamers game that comes out, I’ll be seeding it on TPB at UK cable speeds so all the leechers will disappear after minutes. thanks for the heads-up
Hi guys its my first post. I too have recived 6 of these colin mcrae letters.
I paid the £511 and signed to say I woundnt do it again. I didnt know what else to do as I spoke to 3 different solicitors none of whom would touch it or give me any legal advice. I coundnt afford to go to court so I felt it best to just pay up.
I agree also the game is shit anyway, theres no way I would buy it after trying it..
Hmmm.. Almost sounds like it was a sting, or purpose entrapment.
Like they seeded it themselves and just logged everyone downloading it.
I don’t wanna rain on anyone’s P2P parade or anything, but the smart ones have already moved away from P2P to direct download sites.
You connect to a proxy (non US or EU) download and upload to your hearts content, and you can never be caught.
There are hundreds of excellent sites out there and you can get what ever you want (music/movis/games/apps) with no need to sign up or join anywhere. (not telling you though – you need to hunt for them *wink*)
Peerguardian, blocking ip’s, ratios, lack of anonymity – screw all that sh*t.
To Nige: – you say that you got 6 letters, meaning 6 fines but you paid £511 which is only one fine.
did they say that you only need to pay that because others are assuming they have to pay a fine for each letter which in your case amounts to over £3000?
I never tried Dirt, and this just makes me not want to try it. Plus Colin McRae sounds like a homo name.
Hey guess what game Im gonna download next..
rofl suck it Davenfags, you just made even more people download the game.
To the rest of you companies, keep your mouth shut and you wont attract our attention, your in a mud pit so stop movin or you will sink even further.
to ski1
6 letters all related to the same game because i turned my pc on and off 6 times they had me on a different IP address each time all on different days.
When i rang them they said they would accept 1 fine of £511 as long as I sighned to say I woundn’t upload or download anything again..
thanks for that nige, at least i know now if i do decide to pay it wont be £2000!!!
I suspect they are pushing people as far as they can to see if they pay up. question is do you take that chance. Codemasters will probably make more money out of this than they will selling the lousey game which is worrying..
the whole thing stinks. whatever happened to privacy in your own home. human rights etc..
If they think by doing this people are gonna suddenly gonna buy everything from a shop, then they are bigger fools. It only takes one disc to be copied and away you go..
As for damaging profits of the owners !! Dont start me. its like movies, why pay one actor millions for a film, when a brain surgeon gets a faction of that to save lives…the greed entertainment industry breeds piracy..
Greetz from Portugal.
Very good article, very good advice. Don’t ignore the threat, document your rejection and try to think like a grown up.
For those who say that they will do nothing, do remember that in law they have 6 years to take you to court. They’re in no rush.
they are breaking TPB rules which clearly states the fine of mis-use… come on TPB, sue the bastards, PLEASE!
Nov 30, 2007 at 12:46 by Nige.Quote Nige.
Hi guys its my first post. I too have recived 6 of these colin mcrae letters.
I paid the £511 and signed to say I woundnt do it again. I didnt know what else to do as I spoke to 3 different solicitors none of whom would touch it or give me any legal advice. I coundnt afford to go to court so I felt it best to just pay up.
I agree also the game is shit anyway, theres no way I would buy it after trying it..
( theres no way I would buy it after trying it.. ) LOL. But you did pay for it. Yoy paid £511!!
People need to use anonymous bit torrent.
I don’t mean encrypted bit torrent.
The current BT protocol is too open.
We need a few people to use the anonymous alternatives like dargens (http://www.dargens.com/).
It is like BT, as fast but not easily tracable.
If more people used it then it would stop these scammers in their tracks.
WAWAWA
( theres no way I would buy it after trying it.. ) LOL. But you did pay for it. Yoy paid £511!![/quote]
The game isnt the only torrent i ever had over the years, probably had 4 times the value of the £511 I sent em. The point I was trying to make is that the game wasnt worth having.
[quote comment="227497"]I had gotten a letter once, it was forwarded to me from my isp, that was a very long time ago, then paranoia kicked in, havent heard a word since.
also who is the “safe” ISP in Canada?[/quote]
From what I’ve heard? Moxie Hosting;
Post # 5 on the article here:
http://torrentfreak.com/backdoor-to-banning-all-canadian-bittorrent-sites-071125/
And homesite here:
http://www.moxiehosting.com/
[quote comment="227320"]Check this forum:http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=39877&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=125
on page 6 you will find the letter I received frommy ISP[/quote]
http://community.plus.net/trafficmanagement/2007/11/28/file-sharing-letters/
PlusNet’s blog implies that there are many ways that your pc could be used without your knowledge!
ADMIT NOTHING!
The Very worse that can happen is that you do goto court and you have to pay whatever, if your broke then you can only pay a token payment per week.
ignore letter, move and change ISP, as simple as that !
I live in the uk.Have just received a letter from Davenport demanding almost £700 and a declaration to sign.They have enclose a so called spreadsheet proving the download that is in fact simply a typed sheet disclosing IP provider and file name.I did not download a computer game!so..any advice on what to do on response?
y the f@#k did you download it any way
its shit u should have downloaded his helicopter simulator much better but my copy keeps crashing. Tell daven to suck horse balls Don’t reply don’t send s@#t see if if he takes you to court i doubt it very much the more that send money the more success in this method the more its going to happen
F@#k me if he gets hold of Crysis the hole worlds going to court
I got one of the pinball letters.
What infuriated me was how dare they scare me that way. For weeks I could not sleep or eat and I was really stressed because I took it all very seriously even though I knew I had nothing to hide.
Eventually I realised I could not do a thing about it.
And as to signing a note about you being guilty? NEVER
To the people at Davenport – you are a horrible bunch of scamers.
You should pay for the stress this has brought to people who do not deserve to be treated this way.How would you feel if a big compay threatened to take away your house?Because you did imply this in your letter. You are a cruel bunch.
So steal a game, and you are ok. Try to defend your property, and you are a bad guy. Just admit anyone who totrrents a game is a thief and at least be honest about something.
got first letter from DL in november giving 14 days to respond. Ignored it and got the second letter 14 days ago stating i now had 7 days to respond. both letters went in the bin and i doubt i will receive anymore, ignore them IF and its a big IF you get to court thier lack of REAL EVIDENCE will ensure your case will be lost and see to it that this bullying tactic stops for good in the UK.
Right o lads.
We need to group together and total up to see how many of us there actually are.
I’m going to set up something online where we can all register for this as it basic bullying to try and get money out of you.
MSN off anyone would be great and then ill talk to you a bit a we will get this sorted in the mean time
DO NOT PAY THIS AND DO NOT WRITE OR CONTACT THEM THEY CAN USE THIS AS EVIDENCE, TO SAY THAT YOU ARE GUILTY.
Some email addresses would be nice so i can talk to you over msn or something.
Please lets sort this out, group together and not bow to these stupid threats.
Matt Lucas.
is there any forums which this is being discussed? links to direct pages would be great.
i would be happy to join you matt
Jon
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=39877&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=638b627536970446e6ada5975bd99fd6
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31051&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=b4dd569f8c322c195eafcf5e1ea6905f&start=100
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I am a Brit living in Germany and have just received a letter from Schutt,Waetke Rechtsanwalte, representing the antypiracy-Firma LOGISTEP. I am ALLEDGED to have downloaded [PC] Call of Juarez[RIP][Dopeman] on the 10.09.2007 at 08:53:58 and quoting an ip address.The funny thing is i was actualy at work at the time, From what i can work out a company called fIRMA TECHLAND is a firm based in POLAND AND THEY ARE TRYING TO EXTORT 450 EUR from me. My German is’nt good enough to understand this letter fully, If their are any German p2p users out there who have had the same problem and have any solutions please reply willing to trade E-MAIL ADDRESSES. thanks
Yes I have received a letter from Davenport Lyons. this letter said that I have been seeding a game called (Call of Juarez) I have never even heard of this game and would of never of downloaded or uploaded it as I don’t even play games. Can someone please tell me if I should responed to this letter?
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i ahve received my third letter from davenport lyons, just ignore it, the second letter dated in march said i have 14 days to pay or they will take me to court, i heard nothing until the third letter received 6 june 2008 saying they will take me to court if i did not pay within 7 days i am ignorning their letterthey are just bullies trying to extort money, my advice is to ignore them as when i got my first letter, i was going to see a solicitor and was going to pay them , but lucky i saw this website and read the comments saying i should ignore, this was the best advise, thanks
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Lafayette reptiles.spine subroutine!Churchill?Antonovics!Junes … Thanks!!!
Just recieved letter , they want 500 for uploading 07 race,back in november 07 why has it taken 8 months. they have a list of ips they are working through
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