Using a mod like this means that no offense of distribution could have been carried out. Indeed, as we pointed out in our earlier report, the stats from her client showed no evidence of uploading, despite an uptime of 924 days.

The lawyers who sent the cease and desist (and a demand for 700 euros) didn’t withdraw the claims after she protested her innocence, so she took advice, went to court and filed suit against the rightsholder.

Unfortunately the judge in the case has no idea about IT issues and wants to have an independent witness examine the software used by anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector. Experts don’t come cheap and this one is set to cost 5,000 euros.

This is believed to be the first time that a neutral expert witness has had the opportunity to examine the software of an anti-piracy company in Germany. So, together with filesharing lawyer Dr. Wachs, Verein gegen den Abmahnwahn e.V and Initiative Abmahnwahn-Dreipage, our friends at news site Gulli have started a donation drive to raise the funds.

Lawyer Dr. Wachs has kindly given the woman 3,000 euros towards the expert but a further 2,000 must be raised via donations. Hopefully this amount can be achieved as engaging the skills of the expert witness will provide a golden opportunity to see exactly how these systems operate and have their shortcoming revealed in court.

Anyone wishing to contribute can do so here (bank details at bottom of article)

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

Media Protector operates in a similar way to tracking company Digiprotect, who currently work with lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK. It connects to BitTorrent swarms, eD2k and other filesharing networks, and harvests IP addresses of those sharing copyright works without permission. Media Protector then works with lawyers to force ISPs to disclose the personal details of those allegedly sharing files, sending them letters ordering them to pay a ‘fine’ (out-of-court settlement) or face legal action.

“We are working today with a lot of international rights-holders and leading production companies — including Hustler, the world’s largest adult entertainment company — and have detected well over 200,000 copyright infringements in Germany alone,” Media Protector founder and Managing Director Rainer Strassmeir told Xbiz.

Strassmeir believes that aggressive anti-piracy enforcement is the key to embedding a type of fear in the illegal downloader. He claims it soon becomes known which content producers chase pirates, with those that do witnessing a corresponding decrease in illicit downloads. He also believes that the decrease in piracy leads to an increase in retail sales.

Anti-piracy company Digiprotect has been open about its aims – it says it helps clients “turn piracy into profit”, although the lawyers it works with in the UK deny that there is any profit motive, rather their actions are purely for anti-piracy purposes. Strassmeir isn’t embarrassed to say that he tries to generate profit from piracy either, as he states that his customers “enjoyed a new revenue stream by effectively monetizing copyright infringements.”

Last year, the evidence collected by Media Protector was called into doubt. A recipient of a 700 Euro compensation demand for unauthorized uploading was actually operating a client which was modified never to upload, thus making infringement impossible.

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

Despite operating a version of eMule modified to never upload (via a so-called ‘leecher mod’), a user of the eD2K network has received a claim for compensation of 700 euros. Anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector allegedly gathered the data in October 2007 and stated that the user had been caught uploading a movie and some adult material.

The accused has claimed that, because of the zero-upload modded client, it was impossible that anything was uploaded. The client itself had never been reset and displayed a operating time of 924 days and it had never distributed a file.

Of course, tracking companies such as Media Protector and Logistep are always super-confident of the accuracy of their systems, even though they are never confident enough to open them up to scrutiny. Lawyers are always quick to point out that the evidence is good enough for the courts to grant orders for the disclosure of user’s personal information, but it’s a one sided process and the defendant never gets the opportunity to contest before their identity is revealed.

In the interests of fairness and transparency, the sooner these companies have their systems opened up for scrutiny, the better. If the systems are proved accurate, then this strengthens the position of anti-piracy tracking companies and enhances their credibility, so one has to question why they are so reluctant to reveal their techniques. Maybe it’s because they are afraid that Cory Doctorow is on the right track?

Perhaps of more concern is why courts are so willing to accept this data as foolproof when seemingly no-one knows how it is collected. And when defendants are denied this information too, fairness seems a distant concept.

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