While Rightscorp seeks small settlements of a few dollars per alleged offense, other companies really do earn their copyright troll label with demands for thousands of dollars/euros per infringed item. US citizens have parted with millions of dollars in recent years but spare a thought for the people of Germany, who were introduced to this model in the middle of the last decade.

Information supplied to TorrentFreak by Christian Solmecke of the Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, shows that plenty of well-known companies are involved in the German settlement market. Record companies EMI, Sony and Warner, US porn trolls Malibu Media, plus big movie companies including Universal and Twentieth Century Fox were all active last year.

New figures made available by IGGDAW, an interest group that works with targets of predatory rightsholders, reveal that the business has shown little sign of let up during the past 12 months.

During 2013, a total of 108,975 threat letters were sent out to Internet users, a modest decrease of 1.3% over the number sent in 2012. As can be seen in the chart below, the number is thankfully just a fraction of the huge numbers sent in 2009 and 2010.

While the number of threats sent is slightly down, rightsholders and law firms involved are both on the rise. A total of 446 rightsholders employed 72 law firms to send out letters in 2013, versus 422 and 65 respectively in 2012.

Content-wise, the greatest number of settlement requests were sent out for regular movies (‘spielfilm’) with 43.9% of the total. Adult movies (‘porno’) trailed quite a way behind in second place with 24.2%. Music tracks came a close third with 22.8% of the total.

For yet another year the all-important settlement numbers make for bleak reading. In 2012 the average amount demanded from letter recipients was 796.87 euros ($1,094), an amount that increased to 829.11 euros ($1,140)in 2013.

Multiply that by the number of threats sent (108,975) and we reach a figure in excess of 90.3 million euros, or around $124 million. How many people actually settle remains unclear but German law is geared up to put pressure on Internet users to pay up.

So where now for Germany?

It was hoped that new legislation (Improper Business Practices Act) introduced last October would assist by imposing transparency requirements on law firms sending out letters and capping the amounts they can claim. But according to Christian Solmecke, the law firms involved have adjusted accordingly.

“The new rules do not go far enough. The position in which internet users find themselves is hardly any better than that in which they were in before the legislation came into force,” he concludes.

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

This notion, if it were true, would make their lives very simple. By holding the Internet subscriber responsible, infringement ‘fines’ could be sent to households safe in the knowledge that the person’s name they have on file could not escape liability.

Fortunately this is not the case in most Western legal systems which generally require the actual infringer to be held responsible, unless the bill payer was complicit in some way. While the system in Germany is tougher than most, with bill payers often being held responsible for everyone in their household (both children and adults), a new legal ruling published yesterday changes the playing field.

The ruling was published by the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof / BGH), the supreme court in all matters of civil and criminal law. It concludes a matter dating back to 2006 brought by several leading recording labels against an account holder said to have shared a total of 3,749 songs online.

The labels sent a letter to the man, a serving police officer who shared a home with his spouse and stepson, alleging infringement and talking about an amount of 400,000 euros in damages but offering a settlement value of around 3,400 euros.

The account holder and target of the settlement demand refused to pay on the basis he had not carried out any infringements. However, speaking with the police, his 20-year-old stepson admitting he had downloaded the music.

The case proceeded to the district court which ruled in the labels’ favor. It held that the account holder was responsible for the infringements carried out by the 20-year-old on the basis that when he gave his stepson Internet access he should have “educated” him on the issue of illegal file-sharing and forbidden him from engaging in it, even though he had no reason to believe any was being carried out. The court ordered the defendant to pay the labels 2,841 euros.

After traversing the legal system the Federal Court of Justice has now quashed the ‘guilty’ verdict and totally dismissed the action. The judgment published yesterday held that when an account holder allows adult family members to use his or her Internet connection, those adults are responsible for their own actions when online and do not have to be ‘educated’ by the person paying the bill.

If, however, the account holder is made aware that infringements may have been carried out (after receiving a warning letter for example), he or she is then obliged to take measures to ensure that further infringements are prevented.

“Since the Court of Appeal found no evidence that the account holder knew that his adult stepson had abused the Internet for illegal participation in file-sharing networks, he is not liable [for his stepson's actions],” the judgment reads.

Lawyer Christian Solmecke of the Wilde Beuger Solmecke lawfirm describes the Court’s decision as an important landmark ruling, but feels opportunities were missed and questions remain.

“This is without doubt a very important decision in file sharing. However, there remains a large uncertainty that affects industry and business owners,” Solmecke says.

“The decision of the Supreme Court is good and right. Too bad, however, that the Supreme Court [has not covered the] complicated issues of evidence in the file sharing process. These are highly controversial and required a clear case,” he concludes.

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

The latest scandal to hit Internet users involves users of streaming video site RedTube. Traditionally those simply viewing content on YouTube-like sites have been considered immune to rightsholder threats, but early December thousands of RedTube users received letters demanding 250 euros to make lawsuits go away.

The controversial episode is turning into somewhat of a scandal, not least concerning the mystery of how the lawfirm involved, U & C acting on behalf of a Swiss company called The Archive AG, obtained users’ IP address. RedTube insists it has handed no information to third parties.

With U & C warning that its first wave of 10,000+ letters is just the beginning, RedTube has been fighting back and now has good news for its customers. The adult video site has obtained a temporary injunction against The Archive AG from the Regional Court of Hamburg, meaning that no more letters demanding payment may be sent out.

“This decision is a victory not only for the users of Redtube, but for every person who visits streaming websites,” says Alex Taylor, vice president of RedTube. “It is a clear message that the use of personal information and invasions of privacy for purely financial interests will not be tolerated.”

The injunction is the second major blow for The Archive AG in less than a week. A few days ago the Cologne Regional Court issued a statement which acknowledged that it probably should not have ordered the release of Internet users’ personal details. A full decision is expected during the coming days.

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

Often referred to as copyright trolls, these companies place themselves in file-sharing networks and masquerade as regular users, but instead they’re collecting evidence of infringement. This evidence is then used to obtain the identities of alleged file-sharers in order to obtain cash settlements from them. It’s a messy and controversial game.

One of the hardest troll-hit countries is Germany but in the last few days came a surprise to shock even the most experienced lawyers in the field. Seemingly out of nowhere, many thousands of Internet users received letters from German lawfirm U & C apparently acting on behalf of a Swiss company called The Archive AG.

Up to a point their claims appear to be fairly standard stuff, unsurprisingly involving adult content with titles including Dream Trip, Hot Stories, Amanda’s Secrets, Miriam’s Adventures and Glamour Showgirls. For the user’s apparent transgressions The Archive AG asks for a payment of 149.50 euros for lawyer fees, 15.50 euros in damages and sundry other costs amounting to 250 euros. Some individuals are reporting receiving multiple demands.

However, the real shocker becomes apparent when one discovers where the alleged infringements are said to have taken place. Not a torrent site or other venue where user IP addresses are publicly available but on streaming video site RedTube, the 105th most popular site in the world. While RedTube specializes in adult content, its functionality is not dissimilar to that of YouTube.

The scale of this settlement operation becomes apparent when reading reports from Wilde Beuger Solmecke, a law firm that specializes in defending Internet users from the threats of copyright trolls.

“We assume that over 10,000 warning letters have been sent by the firm U + C,” the lawfirm explain, adding that at least 1,000 individuals had already called their offices for advice.

So how did the lawfirm acquire the identities of so many individuals? That question has become the subject of many theories, from IP address-grabbing adverts to malware, to a huge lawsuit forcing RedTube to comply.

That last theory was being pursued yesterday by German publication Die Welt, who ran a report claiming that the Cologne Regional Court had been involved in a request to hand over the data of individuals who had simply viewed the videos in question. One theory is that the Court may have mistaken RedTube for some kind of P2P file-sharing network where infringers also upload.

But even that theory was being questioned by RedTube themselves last evening. Speaking with XBiz, RedTube denied that anything had been handed over.

“Our security measures and user privacy has always been a top priority for RedTube,” said RedTube Vice President Alex Taylor.

“RedTube pursues stringent privacy requirements and maintains the highest industry standards of privacy protection to secure not only their assets and properties, but to provide comprehensive protection of their customers’ data when visiting a RedTube-owned site.”

But while that statement says a lot about the site’s privacy policy, it says little to nothing about what happens when the site is presented with a court order. Not complying with a request from a court with jurisdiction over RedTube or perhaps its technology partners trumps the company’s privacy policy all day long.

In any event, lawyer Christian Solmecke feels that if the claims are indeed against users that have merely streamed content, no offense has been committed.

“From our perspective, users have committed no crime here. Unlike the case involving [illegal streaming portal] Kino.to, the films published on RedTube are not manifestly unlawful (in the sense of copyright),” Solmecke said.

“Even so, when watching the films on your own computer this is a legal private copy in accordance with copyright law. Add to that the only copy ever made here is a few seconds of buffering in volatile buffer memory of the computer. Such copies are in my opinion in accordance with copyright law.”

Officials at RedTube-owner MindGeek say that an “in-depth investigation” is now underway into the “serious allegations that have surfaced in the media recently.” Given the sheer numbers of cash settlements that have been sent out and the nature of the alleged offenses, this matter is certainly not over yet.

If this does indeed turn out to be a cut and dried case against Internet users who have merely viewed streaming content, the fear is that while this affects RedTube users today it could easily affect YouTube viewers tomorrow. Definitely one to watch.

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

These “trolling” ventures are more mainstream than in other countries and have even attracted the attention of the major Hollywood studios.

20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros Entertainment, for example, are actively patrolling the Internet for people who download their work without permission. When someone is caught sharing their work, they can expect a settlement request of a few hundred euros in the mail.

Some of these letters have landed on the doorsteps of U.S. soldiers and civilians in the military community in Wiesbaden. This is not a big surprise, as these file-sharing networks and pirate sites are often the only way to enjoy recent U.S. movies and TV-shows.

To inform people about the threat of legal action, the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps at the Wiesbaden base prepared an advisory document.

“It has become very popular to download music, films, and TV series in the privacy of the home,” the brief starts, quickly adding that unauthorized copying is against the law.

“Downloading copyright protected material whilst making it available to the public via peer-to-peer file sharing software is an offence in Germany and the user can also be held liable for damages to the copyright holder under German Copyright laws.”

The brief continues with an overview of how file-sharers are caught, and advises people to secure their wireless networks to prevent others from downloading copyrighted material over their connection.

Those who receive a settlement letter are advised to take it seriously. The cases that have gone to court thus far suggest that unless it’s a false accusation people only have limited resources to fight back.

“So what should you do if you received a demand letter from a law firm alleging an illegal download? Don’t ignore it, because mostly it can be assumed that the issued notice letter is basically legally sufficient.”

Most settlement letters demand a few hundred euros in damages and legal fees. U.S. soldiers and civilians who are targeted are not encouraged to pay up directly, but should consult a lawyer first.

“It is advisable not to communicate with the law firm and also not to sign any document, or to make any payments before consulting with an attorney,” the brief notes.

How many U.S. soldiers and citizens have been targeted remains unknown, but the document would not have been drafted on the basis of an isolated incident. Ironically, it appears that “the war on piracy” is one of the most serious threats U.S. soldiers face in Germany today.

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

Back in June the software became embroiled in court proceedings over a specific feature present in an unofficial beta of JDownloader2 which enabled the downloading of RTMPE video streams on top of existing RTMP. It wasn’t created by AppWork themselves but was a contribution from an open source developer who had worked on the project before.

Since the plug-in handled encrypted streams the Hamburg Regional Court decided that this represented a circumvention of an “effective technological measure” under Section 95a of Germany’s Copyright Act. As a result the Court issued a preliminary injunction against JDownloader2 and threatened its makers, Appwork, with a 250,000 euro fine for “production, distribution and possession” of an ‘illegal’ piece of software.

Appwork found out about the functionality of the plug-in months before the court case and had already disabled it, but the judgment had the potential to have a chilling effect on open source development.

“Are developers really liable if another developer in the community commits code that might be protected somewhere in a software patent? How are Open Source communities supposed to check? What if a program that is included in another Open Source program makes an update that adds illegal functionality?” the company told TorrentFreak at the time.

To find out, Appwork filed an appeal and this week the project received the decision of the court. It was bad news not only for the company but also the open source community in general.

“In the eyes of the judges, our company ‘made the open source contributions our own’ mostly by having a copyright sign in the info dialogue,” Appworks’ Alex informs TorrentFreak.

“Therefore we are liable and must actively screen every code contribution and/or have protective mechanisms in place against someone committing something that might be illegal.”

Alex says that the decision is “worrisome” for the open source community and has the potential to deter people from getting involved in such projects when they discover they must take responsibility for the work of others.

“It doesn’t matter if the project owner did not do anything (i.e. write any line of code) or even if the project owner knows about anything illegal being committed,” Alex says.

“In our case, even when we didn’t even know about the functionality, which was part of an open source binary one of our open source developers used (rtmpdump), we were held liable anyway. Not from the moment on that we got notified about it, but even before,” he explains.

“This means that if any company or individual wants to use an open (or closed) source binary (commercial or not), they are liable for it if it contains any illegal functions. This practically means they are obligated to check every single line of code, which is almost impossible for smaller projects.”

Appwork are looking into the details of the judgment and are currently considering their options for appeal.

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

As a result, copyright holders have started hundreds of thousands of lawsuits against alleged pirates, demanding settlements ranging from a few hundred to thousands of euros.

In Germany these “trolling” ventures have attracted the attention of the major Hollywood studios. 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros Entertainment are actively patrolling the Internet for people who download their work without permission.

The studios use similar monitoring tools as they do in the United States, where file-sharers are approached outside of court with a slap on the wrist or a $20 fine. In Germany, however, the stakes are much higher.

For example, 20th Century Fox is sending alleged file-sharers a 726 euro ($980) bill for downloading a single episode of the TV-series Homeland. For several months the Hollywood studio has been tracking unauthorized downloads of Homeland’s second season, which has yet to air in Germany.

While these downloads are unmistakably unauthorized, it is ironic that these lawsuits target the TV-show’s most engaged fans. In Germany, Homeland’s second season starts airing on TV next week, a full year after the U.S. premiere.

The show has been available on iTunes where a subtitled version of the season costs 26.99 (SD) or 31.99 euro (HD).

Still, the Hollywood studios regularly single out these “delayed” TV releases for their legal efforts. According to Christian Solmecke, a German IT lawyer who has defended hundreds of file-sharers, these shows are regularly targeted.

“The sharing of English-speaking TV series is particularly popular in Germany as these releases are often delayed. As a result, warning letters are regularly received for such copyright infringements,” Solmecke told TorrentFreak.

Unlike in the United States, Internet subscribers have no option to protest a copyright holders’ request to hand over their personal details. Paired with the fact that German ISPs can only store IP-address information for a week, this leads to a situation where personal details of accused subscribers are handed over pretty much automatically.

For the letter TorrentFreak received, the court signed off on handing over the subscriber data within a day of the IP-address being tracked. This is a worrying development according to legal experts and privacy advocates. The low retention periods for IP-addresses are meant to protect the privacy of users, but the opposite may be true in this case.

“I find it shocking when an IP-address is processed by the court on the same day as the infringement takes place,” Solmecke tells TorrentFreak.

“After all, judges should examine each claim on a case-by-case basis. In practice, however, the process is completely automatic and despite this obligation, it is unlikely that the judges properly scrutinize each individual case.”

The Hollywood movie studios, and dozens of copyright holders with them, are more pleased with how the system works. They are literally cashing in on these BitTorrent pirates to the tune of millions of euros every year.

Previously we pointed out that many major music labels and game publishers including CD Projekt have also been involved in the German settlement scheme. After public outcry, mainly targeted at the questionable reliability of the evidence, the latter retired its legal crusade against pirates.

“We value our fans, our supporters, and our community too highly to take the chance that we might ever falsely accuse even one individual,” CD Projekt’s Marcin Iwinski said at the time.

Whether 20th Century Fox and others respect their ‘fans’ just as much is doubtful.

Update: clarified that Homeland season 2 has been available on iTunes.

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

Hundreds of thousands of Internet account holders have been targeted with so-called pay-up-or-else letters over the past few years and although there are no official figures available, settlements paid run into scores of millions of dollars.

In part this huge drive has been fueled by the law. Once a rightsholder captures an IP address and traces this back through an ISP to an Internet bill payer, that person is often considered responsible for what happens on his or her connection.

“Since 2008 the rights-owners have had the right to request the name and address of a connection holder connected to a certain IP-Address at a certain time, in case there was a copyright infringement committed from this connection,” Wilde Beuger Solmecke lawyer Otto Freiherr Grote told TorrentFreak.

With most ISPs storing user data as a matter of course, tracking connection owners has become very simple indeed. However, not all ISPs retain the data necessary to connect an IP address with an end user, so when required to hand over personal details to trolls and other rightsholders, problems arise.

“Some access providers (Vodafone for example) don’t provide this information in Germany. They often argue that they don’t save dynamic IP-addresses at all,” Grote adds.

This awkward position with some ISPs has left rightsholders with a dead end on claims and file-sharers with somewhat of a safe haven.

“It’s as good as impossible for the rights-owners to sue any file-sharing clients of these providers,” Grote notes.

In response a film company, an anti-piracy company and an adult film producer took Vodafone to court to force the ISP to store data on file-sharers in order for it to be handed over at a later date. They were met with success, with the regional court in Düsseldorf ruling that Vodafone must retain the data.

But following a successful appeal, the earlier setback for the ISPs and their subscribers proved only temporary.

“The Higher regional Court has now annulled these decisions,” Grote explains. “The Court constitutes that there is no obligation to save the data.”

The OLG Düsseldorf ruled that ISPs do have to provide data to rightsholders, but only if they stored it in the first instance.

The question now is whether in the light of the ruling ISPs will reconsider their logging policies. Troll lawsuits are proving a plague on Internet account holders in Germany and the possibility of never becoming the subject of one will be an attractive proposition for those looking to switch ISPs in the future.

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

However, a ruling handed down yesterday by Germany’s highest court appears to be an exception to the rule, and one that could prove a considerable hindrance to regular rightsholders trying to protect their copyrights and trolls aiming to generate cash from settlements.

The story dates back to January 2007 when rights holders noticed 1,147 audio tracks being shared on file-sharing networks from a single IP address. Evidence in hand the record companies who monitored the infringements made a complaint to the prosecutor who traced the IP address back to a married couple.

A search of the couple’s residence was subsequently authorized and in August 2007 the computer connected to the infringements was seized and found to contain two pieces of file-sharing software, Bearshare and Morpheus. Importantly, the couple were not the owners of the computer, it belonged to their 13-year-old son.

Despite the evidence the parents of the teenager refused to pay damages to the rightsholders and the case ended up in court.

The plaintiffs insisted that the couple had fallen short in their parental supervision responsibilities. The district court agreed and ordered the couple to pay 200 euros damages per track on a sample of 15 tracks to a total of 3,000 euros. Other costs of 2,380 euros pushed the grand total to 5,380 euros.

Refusing to accept the decision the couple launched an appeal but that failed on the basis that they had failed to take technical measures to stop their son installing file-sharing software and had not adequately monitored his online activities.

Yesterday, the Federal Court – Germany’s highest court – overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal and dismissed the case.

The Court ruled that the parents had met their parental obligations when they informed their child of “basic do’s and don’ts” including that file-sharing copyrighted content online is illegal.

Furthermore, the Court ruled that the parents were not required to monitor their child’s online activities nor install special software to restrict his online behavior. This would only be required should the parents have “reasonable grounds” to presume that their child would engage in infringing activities online.

It will be interesting to see how this latest ruling affects demands for cash settlements from Internet account holders. Will a defense of “my child did it but I told him that it was illegal” prove enough to defuse a case? Time will tell.

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

At 09:10 during a cold January morning in 2010, the defendant in the case says she was tucked up in bed. A movie copyright holder, however, insists the retired single woman was illegally sharing files on the Internet.

The settlement letter sent to the woman by the copyright holder stated clearly that on January 4th she’d been using the eDonkey network to share a violent film about hooligans. For this offense she must pay compensation of around 650 euros or face court, they said.

Like so many claims of this nature, the accusation was problematic. Although she previously subscribed to a 2-year Internet and telephone package, six months earlier the woman had sold her computer and didn’t even maintain an email address. After refuting the allegations of the rightsholder, the case went to court.

The Munich District Court handled the case, and heard evidence that not only is the woman computerless, she lives alone and doesn’t possess a wireless router either. How the alleged offense could have been carried out even by a third party remains a mystery.

Nevertheless, none of the above protestations were of interest to the court. Despite the fact that the copyright holder and/or their tracking company could have made errors, or that the woman’s ISP could have identified her account incorrectly, none of these avenues were examined.

“Normally the copyright holder has to prove who did the copyright infringement. As this is hard for him – because he has no chance to look into thousand houses – the courts in Germany alleviate this burden of proof,” explains Christian Solmecke, a lawyer with Wilde Beuger Solmecke, the law firm that defended the woman.

Solmecke told TorrentFreak that initially all a copyright holder has to do is show that a protected work has been traded via a specific IP-address, then the accused has to prove their innocence.

“In the next step the defendant has to prove, that neither he nor anyone else who had access to his internet account did the copyright infringement. In my opinion our client has proved that fact. If you have no computer and no W-LAN, there has to be a failure in the backtracking of the IP-address,” he added.

The bottom line in Germany is that account holders are responsible for everything that happens on their account and if they can’t prove their innocence, they are found guilty. The woman must now pay just over 650 euros in damages to the copyright holder.

There can be little doubt that German law is tipped heavily in the favor of rightsholders. Little surprise then that Germany is without doubt the worst place in the world for pay-up-or-else-schemes. So how often are people wrongly accused?

“Every second person tells me, that he or she appears to be wrongfully accused,” says Solmecke. “Some of them lie even to their lawyer but most of them tell the truth. From my point of view, there has to be a big mistake in some of the different backtracking-systems.”

So for now the formula for rightsholders seems incredibly simple.

IP address. Accusation. Profit.

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