Illegal File Sharing

[TudorBlue]

I received a letter this morning from a law firm based in London. Im march 2009, I downloaded an album using utorrent. I have got to pay £300 or go to court. Fair enough, its my own fault. I dont normally use utorrent but6 on this occasion I did. I do or have downloaded quite a lot of stuff using Rapidshare, Megashares etc. Are these safe? Or am I done for? Any loopholes that I need to find out about guys?? Thanks, as always

 

[JKR Firefox]

Strange that they'd take over a year to come after you.

Are they a real law firm? Did they give you any contact info?

If they did, call or go in person to be sure they're the real deal.

As for loopholes, doubt there are any.

 

[EpicJungle]

Wow that sucks...

I think Rapidshare and those other sites are safe.. I've used them before..

 

[alidsl]

Oh shi- I've been downloading recently I'll have to stop for a bit

Also what album was it?

And I think tracking is a lot harder with upload site like rapidshare etc but I wouldn't risk it

 

[Blaze163]

Wait, people actually get caught?

Oh FUCK.

I'm in very deep smeg then.

As for potential solutions, remember that it probably costs more for them to take you to court than the case is worth. More often than not you can ignore stuff like this and it'll vanish of its own accord. I was supposed to be taken to court for non-payment of a 5 grand tuition fee bill. I just ignored it. Not heard anything from them in nearly a year.

 

[tk_saturn]

What company is it?

If it's ACS or Davenport i'd call their bluff http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum...cs-law-143.html

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/201...mands-40072976/

From what I gather, they are actually using as a money making scheme. Few people go to court and they make £££££

 

[Urza]

This would be one of the many reasons not to use bittorrent in lieu of superior file sharing solutions.

 

[Zetta_x]

Like said before, it may not be a legit letter and they have the burden of proof =P

 

[TudorBlue]

Oh shi- I've been downloading recently I'll have to stop for a bit

Also what album was it?

And I think tracking is a lot harder with upload site like rapidshare etc but I wouldn't risk it

Cascada: Evacuate The Dancefloor ffs. It was for my daughter. I feel like a c*nt

 

[Blood Fetish]

Did they mention the alleged infringement material in the letter, or did they leave it vague?

 

[TudorBlue]

What company is it?

If it's ACS or Davenport i'd call their bluff http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum...cs-law-143.html

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/201...mands-40072976/

From what I gather, they are actually using as a money making scheme. Few people go to court and they make £££££

Bingo! Thats it, ACS Law Solicitors. They have my ip adress, the time and date I downloaded the album aswell as the version of utorrent I used.

 

[Depravo]

What's your ISP? It would be interesting to know which ones give your details to these shysters.

 

[tk_saturn]

Do nothing, they will not take you to court. There are sending thousands of letters out, doesn't matter if you did it or not. No one has been taken to court over, they are using bullying tactics. Look what happened to Davenport Lyons.

It's recommended you do not even reply them, they have to prove you did it.

Go buy the album, your conscience will be clear.

Tons of threads on it http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/....html#msg723329

Take a look at the reply by EH in this thread http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/03/1...at-letters.html

This is actually the good thing about the Digital Economy bill, you get a warning.

 

[Speculant]

!!DELETE F***ING EVERYTHING!!

But seriously though, Rapidshare is the safest. Megaupload is a little less safe but still safer than Bittorrent.

If you use uTorrent (which is the best client), here is how to be safe: "Options > Prefrences > Bittorrent > Protocol Encryption" For "Outgoing", choose "Forced" and deselect "Allow incoming legacy connections". For maximum security, use a reliable but not well known proxy. Set it up under "Options > Preferences > Connection > Proxy Server".

I just use a mix of Rapidshare for the smaller stuff and uTorrent for the larger stuff. I buy all my music, movies, and games however so I can have highest quality backups (movies, music) and a legit serial code for playing games online (cracked servers are waaay too complicated to set up and play on).

 

[VmprHntrD]

Sounds like the scummy con-crap the RIAA in the states does and did much more nastily years ago. I'd suggest ignoring it and as suggested go and buy the stupid album as a backup. Also if you downloaded it and then you got a legal copy, sure it was stolen then, but they'd have to prove it, and as you own it now if you do buy it you got a legal license to 1 copy being played at that moment. Legal loopholes are fun.

Thing is they have to prove you stole it, and what you're saying is pretty sketchy as anyone could have been on said PC, with said torrent program, etc as they have no proof specifically YOU did it nor that you have the files or did have if they're gone now. It's a scam, that's why people used to before getting informed would settle a lot for piddly crap with the RIAA until a few got smart and went to court. A good many got away with nothing, a select few were made public embarassments and roasted alive for not knowing when to quit when they for once DID have proper proof. Also, I'd be more worried not of the download, but if you file shared while doing it to someone else as distribution is where they really get pissed off.

 

[Urza]

If you use uTorrent (which is the best client), here is how to be safe: "Options > Prefrences > Bittorrent > Protocol Encryption" For "Outgoing", choose "Forced" and deselect "Allow incoming legacy connections". For maximum security, use a reliable but not well known proxy. Set it up under "Options > Preferences > Connection > Proxy Server".

Neither of those "solutions" help in any way.

 

[Zerousen]

Oh shi- I've been downloading recently I'll have to stop for a bit

Also what album was it?

And I think tracking is a lot harder with upload site like rapidshare etc but I wouldn't risk it

Cascada: Evacuate The Dancefloor ffs. It was for my daughter. I feel like a c*nt

OMG I love that song

anyways, I use BitTorrent every so often for bulk downloading anime, but I have only been doing that just recently, I also have downloaded some PSP games, eheheh.
I better stick to [psp warez here].[***], and Firefox media downloading apps

 

[TudorBlue]

What's your ISP? It would be interesting to know which ones give your details to these shysters.

O2 but its comes under be unlimited

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

What's your ISP? It would be interesting to know which ones give your details to these shysters.

O2 but its comes under be unlimited

its actually the other way round, O2 own Be.

And whats more, the O2 Home Broadband department (i.e. Be Internet) have announced that they will not be following the DEBill guidelines.
so you really got off easy.

EDIT: now I think about it, this is pretty odd, O2 haven't done this to anybody before (at least, theres no documentation of this ever happening).
I'm not saying I don't believe you, I just don't think its very likely that this would actually happen.

Sure that it's O2 who are sending legal threats and not some independent group/whoever owns rights to the music?

EDIT2: I misread. You are very unfortunate to have fallen victim to a trap.
This legal firm has obviously been following the torrent's peerlist, and has logged all the IP's, and has then taken action against the people on the list.
Its a shady technique, and is precisely why I avoid sites like TPB etc...

EDIT3: Appears I'm late to the party. Those people are douchebags, and are just one of many similar groups (albiet the most noticable, due to the sheer volume of threats they send)

 

[TudorBlue]

If anyone wants a copy of the letter, I will gladly post copies out. Maybe someone else needs to look at thw whole letter, might jst help if you can see the whole picture.