Disguised as copyright trolls, the unregistered outfit is targeting file-sharers across the United States with copyright infringement claims and threats of criminal prosecution.

Victims of the scheme receive a letter in which they are notified about alleged copyright infringements that took place through their Internet connection. The letter is sent to their home address and lists an IP-address and the files that were downloaded without permission.

“We work with law enforcement agencies and strategic partners around the world to enforce copyright laws, and to help prosecute individuals and companies who violate these laws,” the group introduces itself in the letter.

To escape civil and criminal prosecution the account holder is asked to settle the issue for $495, or else. Others report slightly lower claims but the threats are the same. Pay up now or you might face criminal action and millions of dollars in fines.

“You may face serious potential criminal and/or civil charges filed against you. If you are arrested for felony criminal copyright infringement you will be fingerprinted, photographed, and held in jail until you are arraigned in court,” the letter reads.

“If you act promptly you will help avoid being named as a Defendant in a potential criminal and/or civil lawsuit that can result in a felony criminal conviction causing imprisonment, and/or fines of up to several million dollars,” it adds.

The company suggests that it works with law enforcement and represents a wide variety of copyright holders, including popular artists such as Skrillex and Cee Lo Green, but it appears that the company is just acting on its own.

According to information obtained by SJD the accusations are not made up. This means that the IP-addresses were indeed “caught” sharing the files listed in the letter. However, it is a mystery how the “Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency” obtained the home addresses of the subscribers.

Regular copyright trolls get the subscriber information through a subpoena they obtain from court, but there is no sign of any legal action tied to these claims.

This leads us to worrying possibility that the “Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency” may have contacts working at one or more Internet Providers. These would be able to look up the addresses of the account holders in question, bypassing the legal system.

As can be seen from the image below the company urges their victims to send money to a virtual office in Washington. However, the company itself doesn’t appear to be registered under the name it’s using.

Although the scale of the scam is unclear, several letter recipients have posted messages on the Internet in recent days. While some people appear to recognize it as a scam, there are probably many more who didn’t, and paid up.

As it turns out, however, all signs indicate that the “Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency” are the criminals here, possible facing several years jailtime for fraud, extortion and racketeering. That is, if they are caught and convicted.

Interestingly enough, the public attention seems to have frightened them, as a few hours ago they suddenly claimed to have ceased their operations.

“Effective immediately, the Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency has ceased operations. Please disregard any notices you received from us, and please do not send us any payments,” a message on their website reads.

While this is good news for the people who still have to pay up, the persons behind the scheme shouldn’t be able to get away with this so easily. We encourage everyone who received a letter to contact the police and their Internet provider, urging them to look into the matter.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The battle was complex, but essentially the company was told by the High Court that it could only pursue sharers of Ben Dover content, not those who were alleged to have shared content owned by third-party companies.

The case went to the Court of Appeal and despite intervention by the Open Rights Group, has now resulted in the best possible outcome for Golden Eye.

The short term implications concern the 9,000 IP addresses currently in Golden Eye’s possession. Previously the High Court ordered ISP O2 to hand over the identities of individuals associated with 2,845 of them, account holders whose connections were allegedly used to share Ben Dover movies.

But now, thanks to the Court of Appeal ruling, Golden Eye will now be able to obtain the identities behind another 6,155 IP addresses, those connected to the sharing of content owned by other studios.

“It was both illogical and inconsistent for the judge to deny the self-same relief to the other claimants merely because they have chosen to pursue their claims with the assistance of Golden Eye under arrangements which the judge had previously found to be both lawful and not part of a speculative invoicing scheme,” Lord Justice Patten ruled.

The implications of the ruling are serious. Golden Eye can now approach companies that previously haven’t had the will or means to obtain court orders against individuals they believe to have shared their products online, giving them easy access to a ready-made pay-up-or-else scheme in the UK.

In a nutshell, the Court of Appeal just sanctioned the sending of a tidal wave of settlement letters to UK Internet account holders, the proceeds of which will enrich Golden Eye to the tune of 75% of the takings and rightsholders to 25%.

And according to Golden Eye’s Julian Becker, things will kick off quickly. Not only will the letters connected to the first batch of 9,000 IP addresses go out in the New Year, but the company will now work on getting more rightsholders on board.

“I look forward to traveling to adult conferences in Los Angeles and Vegas in early January to offer Golden Eye’s services to other producers,” he told the BBC.

Individuals who are contacted by Golden Eye should read this article and write to TorrentFreak in complete confidence.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Copyright holders generally sue dozens, hundreds or sometimes even thousands of people at once, hoping to extract cash settlements from the alleged file-sharers.

With settlement amounts up to thousands of dollars the lawsuits are a multi-million dollar business, attracting a diverse group of rightsholders.

In the U.S. the scheme was pioneered by smaller film companies, followed by makers of adult entertainment, anime, books and music. And now we can add a software company to the list as the Canadian based reFX has sued 180 alleged BitTorrent users at a federal court in Missouri.

The company makes popular synthesizer software and is going after people who shared their flagship Nexus 2 product. In most aspects the lawsuit is similar to those we’ve seen before, with the Doe defendants being accused of several counts of copyright infringement.

As evidence reFX collected the IP-addresses of the file-sharers, and the company now hopes to get the identities of the subscribers linked to these accounts through a subpoena.

“Plaintiff believes that information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification of each John Doe defendant’s true name and permit the plaintiff to amend this complaint to state the same,” the complaint reads.

“Specifically, plaintiff intends to subpoena the ISPs that issues the John Doe defendant’s IP-addresses in order to learn the identity of the account holders for the IP-addresses.”

This action, to our knowledge, is the first lawsuit brought by a software company against BitTorrent users. But that’s not the only novelty – the list of those targeted for copyright infringement allegations is also unique.

Two of the defendants are students or employees of Webster University and the University of Central Missouri (pdf). Usually, these type of lawsuits are limited to subscriber accounts at major consumer Internet providers – companies and other organizations are usually left alone.

It will be interesting to see how the universities respond to the subpoenas, if they are granted.

reFX Software states in the complaint that they will continue to monitor the unauthorized downloads and add new IP-addresses to the lists as the case progresses. Whether the action will inspire other software makers to do the same remains to be seen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The copyright holders who start these cases generally provide nothing more than an IP-address as evidence. They then ask the courts to grant a subpoena which allows them to request the personal details of the alleged offenders from their Internet providers.

The plaintiffs in these cases, often described as copyright trolls, are mostly adult movie studios. Malibu Media is one of the most active studios, and this year alone they have filed 349 mass lawsuits, targeting thousands of alleged downloaders across the U.S.

This strategy has earned the adult studio millions of dollars in settlements, without going to trial once. However, this is going to change soon thanks to Pennsylvania District Court Judge Michael Baylson who delivered a landmark ruling late last week.

In a memorandum covering three mass-lawsuits, the Judge reviewed the motions of five anonymous defendants who protested the subpoena which ordered their Internet providers to reveal their identities. Judge Baylson summarizes one of the Doe defendant’s motions as follows.

“Among other things, the declaration asserts that Plaintiff has brought suit against numerous unnamed defendants simply to extort settlements, that the BitTorrent software does not work in the manner Plaintiff alleges, and that a mere subscriber to an ISP is not necessarily a copyright infringer, with explanations as to how computer-based technology would allow non-subscribers to access a particular IP address,” Baylson writes.

“In other words, according to the declaration, there is no reason to assume an ISP subscriber is the same person who may be using BitTorrent to download the alleged copyrighted material. Similar assertions are made in memoranda filed in support of the other motions.”

However, the Judge also notes that the copyright holder’s rights can’t be ignored. Both the plaintiffs and the defendants present their own version of the truth and Judge Baylson believes that a trial is needed to decide who’s right.

“The Court cannot decide substantive issues on these conflicting documents. Discovery and, ultimately, a trial are necessary to find the truth,” he writes.

For this reason Baylson has ordered a Bellwether trial, which often take place when many plaintiffs file proceedings under the same theory swamping courts with an enormous caseload. The five defendants who filed a motion will now go to trial, and the verdicts will be used to rule on similar proceedings in the future.

The Judge notes that the five defendants can enter into a joint defense agreement, and ask for other interested parties to join them. He also calls for a speedy trial to resolve the matter in a few months.

“In this case, the Court will require that the pleadings be completed promptly and will enter an order which provides for discovery to start without delay and be completed expeditiously so the case can proceed to final disposition on the merits, within six months,” Baylson writes.

The Bellwether trial will be the first time that actual evidence against alleged BitTorrent infringers is tested in court. This is relevant because the main piece of evidence the copyright holders have is an IP-address, which by itself doesn’t identify a person but merely a connection.

In a past RIAA court case experts described the evidence gathering techniques of other file-sharing services “as factually erroneous”, “unprofessional” and “borderline incompetent.” In addition, academics have shown that due to shoddy technique even a network printer can be accused of sharing copyrighted files on BitTorrent.

Sophisticated Jane Doe, a critic of the copyright troll cases, is optimistic that the defendants will emerge as winners of the trial.

“The beauty of a Bellwether trial design is both in its pace and in its binding power: finally, trolls’ evidence (or lack thereof) will be tested. You won’t be surprised to learn that I really doubt that trolls will present enough evidence to declare victory; that’s why I’m excited and full of expectations,” she writes.

Considering what’s at stake, it would be no surprise if parties such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are willing to join in. They are known to get involved in crucial copyright troll cases, siding with the defendants. We asked the group for a comment, but have yet to receive a response.

On the other side, Malibu Media may get help from other copyright holders who are engaged in mass-BitTorrent lawsuits. A ruling against the copyright holder may severely obstruct the thus far lucrative settlement business model, meaning that millions of dollars are at stake for these companies.

Without a doubt, the trial is expected to set an important precedent for the future of mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. One to watch for sure.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The exact figures aren’t clear, but several hundred thousands individuals have been pursued for cash settlements for file-sharing in the United States and around Europe the problem is even worse. Germany has been hit by the trolls particularly hard, and it is from there that a new horror story is developing.

In a statement on its website the Urmann law firm explains that a large number of the file-sharing cases it is involved in end in settlements, a situation that is “often more useful than going through the courts.”

However, the company says that if necessary it will go to court to get justice for its clients, but there are things it can do to persuade stubborn individuals to pay up instead of having a hearing.

Starting September 1st, Urmann says it will begin publishing the personal details of Internet account holders it claims have violated their clients’ copyrights. The exact number is unknown, but Urmann previously claimed to have the identities of 150,000 individuals.

According to comments made by the law firm to Der Spiegel, the bulk of the firm’s clients aren’t record label owners either – they’re sellers of German hardcore pornography.

But the worst is yet to come. According to comments an Urmann insider made to Wochenblatt, the law firm is planning to target the most vulnerable people first – those with IP addresses registered to churches, police stations and – quite unbelievably – the embassies of Arab countries.

Urmann insists that it is completely entitled to take this action because the law is on its side. The company is leaning on a 2007 Federal Constitutional Court ruling that deemed it legal for law firms to publish the names of their clients’ opponents in order to advertise their services. However, there is some debate if the ruling applies since it was targeted at commercial opponents, not regular citizens.

Bernd Schlömer of the German Pirate Party describes the law firm’s threats to undermine the privacy rights of individuals as “shocking” and says that Urmann’s actions could be construed as “legal coercion.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the loose-knit activist collective Anonymous are also unhappy and are hinting at action of their own.

“A law firm has announced that shortly it will publish a so-called enemies list on the web,” the group said in an announcement.

“Once the list of Urmann and colleagues is online, we will take care of it!”

Urmann courted controversy last year when it started an auction to sell the unpaid settlements of 70,000 alleged file-sharers to the highest bidder.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Nevertheless, and erroneous accusations aside, the vast majority of these projects operate within the law, which is more than can be said for a new scam currently hitting Sweden. Unsuspecting Internet users are receiving demands for almost two hundred euros in letters that claim they have been engaged in illegal downloading.

At this early stage it is not exactly clear how the scam operates, but it is believed that Internet users browsed a website set up by criminals which had the ability to gather information from their phones.

After visiting the site, victims reported receiving an SMS followed up by a mailed cash demand from Arcad World Corp., a company registered at a post office box in Stockholm.

“You have downloaded copyrighted porn. Soon you will receive a civil claim. We ask you to pay it so that your illegal activity will not be a police matter. According to Swedish law, it is your duty to find out if the movies can be downloaded or not,” the scammers explain.

Victims are then told to send amounts between 90 and 195 euros to an account held at the Valartis Bank in Liechtenstein.

When action against illegal downloading is mentioned in Sweden, the name that often springs to mind is the infamous Antipiratbyran. That image was only reinforced when the scammers included a link to an Antipiratbyran webpage in their scam mails. The group says it has absolutely nothing to do with the letters.

“We have been approached by some 100 people across the country, consumer groups and others who are wondering what this is all about,” says Sara Lindbäck, a copyright lawyer at Antipiratbyrån.

Antipiratbyran’s advice is for letter recipients to inform the police and certainly not pay. In an announcement last evening the police said they are aware of the scheme.

“This is a new type of scam where the sender wants to intimidate the recipient into paying money. Anyone who receives one of these requests should absolutely not pay any money but should instead contact the police,” said Niclas Linér, Detective in cybercrime group at the Police Authority in Västmanland.

Police say that a person resident in southern Sweden is suspected of fraud.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In order to deal with these complaints but also allow the cases to progress, the Court decided that it would allow limited discovery, but would also take measures to uphold the defendants’ rights.

To that end the Court said that while ISPs would still have to hand over the identities of two John Does, they would have to do so directly to the Court. Plaintiffs would then be able to access that information at a status conference attended by the Does, which would give them a chance to be heard and obtain counsel.

But as detailed in an order filed yesterday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York by Judge Gary R. Brown, things clearly didn’t go to plan. The order starts badly and only gets worse.

“Less than three months after addressing concerns about potentially abusive litigation tactics by plaintiffs in these actions, this Court is again confronted with indicia of improper conduct by plaintiffs’ counsel,” Judge Brown begins.

It turns out that despite the orders of the Court put in place to protect everyone’s rights, the studios simply ignored them and in May served two subpoenas on the ISP Cablevision.

“Notwithstanding this Court’s unambiguous order that the identities of two John Doe defendants should be produced only to the Court, it appears that plaintiffs’ counsel issued subpoenas directing the relevant Internet Service Provider to produce names and addresses of the John Doe defendants directly to plaintiffs’ counsel,” Judge Brown wrote.

Fortunately, Cablevision did manage to follow the instructions by sending the information to the Court in a sealed submission as required.

“This Court’s Order cataloged abuses tactics by plaintiffs in related actions against John Doe defendants, and expressed, in no uncertain terms, this Court’s concerns about the conduct of this litigation going forward, particularly in light of the serious questions about plaintiffs ability to properly identify defendants based solely upon their IP addresses,” Judge Brown wrote in yesterday’s order.

“As such, it is astonishing that counsel failed to observe the precautions established in the Order. On this record, it is difficult to ascertain whether this apparent failure was deliberate, or simply the result of gross inattention.”

Before deciding on any sanction, Judge Brown has now ordered the studios’ counsel to declare under oath exactly what has been going on in advance of a status conference to be held in September.

Separately, in an order filed late last month in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle details a development in a case between adult studio Bubble Gum Productions and Comcast.

After much back and forth concerning the unmasking of a Doe defendant, Judge Huvelle declared that Bubble Gum has filed at least one, and possibly two, motions to compel Comcast to comply with an invalid subpoena.

“Accordingly, it is further ordered that, by August 3, 2012, Bubble Gum shall show cause why sanctions should not issue against it for attempting to perpetrate a fraud upon the Court,” Judge Huvelle concludes.

Last month, lawyer Evan Stone was slammed for sending subpoenas to ISPs without the permission of the court.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Since there are so many of them these lawsuits are hardly newsworthy anymore, however, things do get interesting when defendants decide to fight back. One excellent example is the counter-suit filed by Jeff Fantalis last week.

In common with many others in similar situations, Fantalis was sued by a porn outfit (Malibu Media) who accused him of downloading and sharing one of their movies. After obtaining the personal information of alleged infringers through a subpoena, Malibu Media generally asks Internet account holders to settle their case for a few thousand dollars.

This tactic is quite effective, as settling is often cheaper than hiring a lawyer. On top of that, the prospect of being named in a lawsuit in which one is accused of downloading an explicit adult movie is something that people seek to avoid.

However, Fantalis – who says he never downloaded an adult movie in his life – has chosen to put up a fight and has submitted an elaborate counter-suit.

In dozens of pages the accused movie pirate explains how Malibu Media and other “copyright trolls” operate. Fantalis accuses these companies of harassment and extortion and also brings up the fact that the technologies that are used to collect IP-addresses are not fool proof.

Fantalis further notes that these copyright trolls show their true nature by not asking websites to remove links to their movies.

“If the plaintiff companies were truly concerned about protecting their copyrights and preserving profits thereon, one would expect to see such companies take certain actions once they had the IP-addresses and personal information obtained through their investigations and lawsuits,” he argues.

According to Fantalis, Malibu Media and others keep these links alive so they can collect data on more potential copyright infringers. In other words, they are fine with people pirating their movies, as that is their business model.

“However, [removal of links] is not the course of action pursued by these pornography companies. To the contrary, not only do they not remove their films from the Internet, they encourage the continued downloading of their work through the use of ‘honeypots’ in order to promote the income stream obtained through settlements of threatened lawsuits.”

After describing how these copyright trolls operate, Fantalis goes on to accuse Malibu Media of wrongdoing on several counts.

For defamation, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, abuse of process and invasion of privacy he asks the court for a million in damages each. In addition the accused BitTorrent pirate wants a public retraction and apology in a local newspaper ad, not smaller than a quarter page.

“…[The advertisement] shall specifically retract the claims of the Complaint, acknowledge that Plaintiff wrongfully brought this lawsuit against the Defendant, state that this lawsuit was groundless, acknowledge that the Defendant had not infringed in any manner against the plaintiff and that Defendant is innocent in this matter, and apologize to the Defendant…”

Finally, Fantalis asks the court to rule that Malibu Media’s movies aren’t protected by U.S. copyright law, as porn can’t be copyrighted. He backs up this claim with a line of reasoning we’ve seen before, namely, that explicit porn doesn’t fit the basic principle that copyright should promote “the progress of science” or “useful arts.”

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how the court responds to this counterclaim.

While there is no guarantee that there will be a ruling on any or all counts, the counter-suit has a wealth of information for other defendants and lawyers. As Jane Doe points out, the filing in itself contains the best explanation of the copyright trolls’ “extortion” scheme that exists to date.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But out of dozens of lawsuits, from those focusing on regular movies such as The Hurt Locker to others dabbling in the world of hardcore pornography, one stood out as being even more unsavoury than the rest.

World Digital Rights, Inc. v. John Does 1-80 was a suit brought on behalf of the indie metal label Nuclear Blast against individuals alleged to have downloaded ‘This Is Where It Ends’, an album by the band All Shall Perish. But not only did this one victimize alleged infringers, it also victimized the people the lawsuit claimed to protect – the band themselves.

The lawsuit was not only brought without the band’s permission, but also without their knowledge. In the days after the suit was filed, the band’s manager Ryan Downey fought a battle to defend the band’s reputation. The heavy metal image and ethos of the band was hardly compatible with a sleazy bullying campaign.

“The band wasn’t consulted whatsoever and none of us have ever heard of this company,” Downey told TorrentFreak.

Downey (and band members through him) spoke with TorrentFreak on a number of occasions, desperately trying to get to the bottom of what was happening to them. But despite being given assurances by Nuclear Blast that the case would be brought to a halt, it was in fact pressing ahead, with a judge eventually giving World Digital Rights authorization to unmask the alleged infringers through their ISPs.

Quickly, however, it became clear that something was amiss. After a Doe in the case hired a lawyer to defend against a demand for cash settlement, it was discovered that far from handling the case properly, World Digital Rights did not have the copyrights to the All Shall Perish album. In fact, none had been registered at the United States Copyright Office at all.

TorrentFreak informed Downey that the case was pressing ahead and through his emails back we could sense his anger. He approached Nuclear Blast yet again – and then somehow the balance must have tipped. Shortly after a document was filed at the Florida District Court. It contained the following text:

PLAINTIFF’S NOTICE OF VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Plaintiff, WORLD DIGITAL RIGHTS, by and through undersigned counsel, pursuant to Federal Rule of Procedure 41 (a)(1)(A)(i) files this Notice of Voluntary Dismissal and hereby dismisses the above style action against Defendants John Does 1-80.

There were no explanations and no further embellishment, but it’s there in black and white – the case has been pulled voluntarily.

This Is Where It Ends – hopefully at least…

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The case is special in two distinct ways. First, this is the only time that alleged sharers of music have been targeted in US copyright settlements suits since the RIAA ended its lawsuit campaign years ago.

Second, and most crucially, this campaign being carried out by Panama-based World Digital Rights on behalf of All Shall Perish’s label Nuclear Blast, was initiated without the band’s knowledge or permission and has been continued in the face of their protests.

TorrentFreak has stayed in touch with the band’s manager Ryan Downey who told us that on a number of occasions Nuclear Blast have given him assurances that the campaign had been called off.

But in May we learned that Judge Sheri Polster Chappell had granted World Digital Rights permission to obtain the identities of 80 alleged file-sharers from US ISPs. We now know that at least one – Cox Communications – received a request from World Digital Rights on May 21 to identify at least one individual.

In a letter dated June 20 Cox wrote to that customer noting the following:

In the interim the unnamed defendant appears to have sought legal advice and on July 5 his or her lawyer filed a motion to quash with the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida.

The motion states that World Digital Rights “…subjects John Doe 12 to the undue burden and expense of involvement in litigation that should never have proceeded in the first place.”

Interestingly enough, and especially considering the band’s objections to the action, the problem appears to be a question of who claims the copyright to their album. Under the Copyright Act, no civil action for infringement can be carried out until a copyright has been officially registered.

However, according to the motion to quash, World Digital Rights “..fails to establish a prima facie copyright claim because the Work on which Plaintiff claims copyright ownership is not registered with the Copyright Office.”

John Doe 12′s lawyer says that she called the United States Copyright Office and discovered that the album ‘This Is Where It Ends’ by All Shall Perish has not been registered as required.

“The Subpoena should be quashed because Plaintiff has failed to establish that this copyright infringement claim should actually be heard in this court,” Doe 12′s lawyer adds.

It seems absolutely incredible that this process is continuing without the permission of the band, so with that in mind and to be absolutely certain nothing has changed, TorrentFreak triple-checked with their manager, who responded in no uncertain terms.

“The band is obviously not involved in this bullshit as you know. I’m not going to keep repeating myself on that. And there’s nothing to contradict that. NOTHING,” Downey told us.

“This was done without the band’s knowledge or cooperation and has continued AGAINST their extremely vocal protests in private and in public. Last time I’ll answer that.”

This whole situation drives a juggernaut through the notion that copyright infringement actions are there to protect the artists and although we’re no legal experts, we were surprised that John Doe 12′s lawyer didn’t raise this issue with the Court. TorrentFreak wrote to her and asked for comment, but we received no response.

As possibly the most objectionable copyright troll lawsuit continuing in the United States today, a fitting end would be for it to collapse in the biggest and most public way possible. This is not what copyrights are for.

If any reader has received a letter from World Digital Rights, please write to us in total confidence at the usual address.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.