Whenever a company asserts “Pay up… or else” I always choose the “or else”.

It’s extremely easy in Germany to receive the internet subscriber’s ID assigned to an IP adress. The law scam firms just have to submit a list of (thousands of) harvested IP/date combos to a court of law. If the court approves the lists, internet providers are then forced by law to give out the details. If they have logs. Unfortunately, most keep logs for at least a few days, the law firms then quickly send a “quick freeze” demand to the provider that forces them to keep those logs.

The problem is
a) our courts who simply are drowned in those IP lists and just wave them thru without ever questioning their accuracy
b) the law that gives every right holder the power to demand “internet subscriber IDs by IP” just by claiming “he stole my intelectual property”. The “proof” usually comes in a signed legal document provided by the IP harvesting company. It is usually signed by some random employee (usually never to be seen ever again).

Also historical reasons why it’s so rampant in Germany. It was “invented” here by Digiprotect and it’s founder Moses Pelham (infamous “turn piracy into profit”). Well, someone had to be the first…

They are selling potential extortion victims to whoever is sleazy enough to go down the ACS:LAW route.