Being SUED for DOWNLOADING / UPLOADING

Use a seedbox next time

Just claim that you used an unsecured wireless router at your home and that one of your neighbors must have leached your
internet connection and downloaded something. It's quite a valid defense, which would then leave it up to them to prove that
it was indeed you who downloaded/shared the files. Then tell them to buzz off

many possible layers of protection:

private trackers (never use public trackers)
peerblock
protocol encryption
disable peer discover/peer exchange
use a vpn or proxy
set upload speed to 1 and then stop uploading after it's finished downloading

since it's usually the low-hanging fruit that gets sued, implement just a few of these and you're all set. (i use them all of course )

if you don't bother with any of these, you're pretty much playing russian roulette every time you download something

write back and tell em to **** off

I had a company in Florida send me a C&D and an invoice for $1500 for a picture on a website I own that was professionally built by an Ad company. Had been up for 5 years and they then claimed it was theirs. Asked them 3 times for proof of their copyright after getting nastier and nastier emails. They finally just stopped all contact after I told them to go after the ad company but they would want to see proof of their claim as well.

Picture is still up on the website btw.

i would not worry too much. It's going to be hard as hell to prove anything on you.
Philgood

I suggest you seek a lawyer in your area who knows about cyber and copyright laws and ask him how to defend your side. If this is gonna cost you more than what you have to pay up then i suggest you send them back a letter explaining a valid reason why you weren't responsible for the copyrighted content(trojan, hacking).

one can also claim that they run an unsecured wifi router, and / or a secured one (maybe running WEP?) was compromised and used for unknown activities

Keep in mind, that they set it up so that the $1500 is almost a no brainier - hiring a lawyer, dealing with the situation, etc. often is going to cost much more than that, and I'm not sure if Germany has the equivalent of frivolous lawsuits that the US does (which is a whole extra step).

The other thing that can happen if you take it to court in some countries (not sure of germany) is that the judge can rule a higher (or lower) amount of damages than the company is claiming.

Best of luck!

In the US here, but this is why I only use torrents for legal media. I agree with others that suggested using newsgroups and DDL sites.

Move to India dude, cyber laws are a lot more relaxed here

Germany and Austria have the most fked up laws regarding Internet

thats crazy. if that happened to me, im not sure what id do since im broke. lol.

spookers said:

Hi folks!

I'm living in the Vaterland (Germany) and just got a detailed letter telling me I'm having my skinny a sued for downloading/ uploading movies.

The name of the solicitors is Waldorf - Anybody else had this pleasure?

I welcome your comments

Click to expand...

Hi there, how did your sue thing turn up?
Im in the same bad situation, and im still wondering what to do.

Thanks

One way for them to not be able to catch you is to purchase a mobile broadband service,and pay in cash for it,and cash for the prepaid debit card. This might only work well in Romania where you can use 48GB a month of bandwidth with orange for only 25 euros a month.

Just say that it wasn't you who was doing it.

Then switch over to newsgroups or at least stop uploading. Uploading is what gets your caught.

Hope you don't go to jail!

This can be handled as easy as saying someone used your wlan without your permission and you cant be taken responsible for that.

And please say that your wlan was secured with key (eventough you did not and infact you dont even have a wlan)!!! if it was open, they can say that it is your fault of having "illegal hotspot" or something stupid as that. tell them to go suck a lemon

Here in my country, it is novadays legal to use others wlan if it is not secured properly and responsibility is on the owner of used wlan.

just buy an acount form rapidshare or any other 1 click hoster and dont use stupid torrents like everybody else in germany (i am german)

Just deny knowing anything about it, and maintain that. Don't make up bullshit stories about your router being hacked. Just deny knowing anything about it and pretend you're a clueless fuck. Don't sign anything they send you. Don't tell em anything aside from "I don't know".

By stating someone must of hacked your internet conncetion, you are then admitting something may have been uploaded or downloaded with your connection without copyright ownership by you.

As such you write back with a little humilatity and ask them for full details of what it was, when it was, and how exactly they believe you have potentially allowed this to occur!

Importantly after asking this also ask which company are they representing in this case in relation to the copywrite ownership and ask for proof of them acting for said party, and have in fact spoken to the copywrite owners for them to act on their behalf to go after you for any losses they feel they have lost.

Also then ask what basis do they evaulate the loss at that figure, as surely goign to the cinema, or renting a dvd, or buying the dvd or book or whatever it was would only cost a few euros/pounds/dollers etc.. and as such the coywrite owner in fact then only gets a small percentage of that figure and as such their losses would only be a few pennies, cents, etc... and not 000's of euros,pounds,dollars.

Upon them providing all these details you will then fully investigate their claims and try to identify for them whether it was done by mistakeby you, or member of your family, or someone who may have accessed your modem,router to share your internet connection, but assure them based on what minimal information they have provided so far you cannot accurately recall one way or the other on this issue until fuler information is provided.

They have to prove it was you and what their losses are, so ball is always in your court, upto near court action starts, but if that is the case, get rid of your pc, and storage devices and get new ones, this way they will have no proof it was you who did it at all!

As stated as an individual you are only downloading once therefore so not worth 000's if it was due to you uploading then ask them for proof of it and how many times also it had been downloaded by people and as such how they worked out the figure they claim to have lost, and if they are asking you to cover all those losses then you want it in writing all IP addresses who downloaded and the owners of those IP addresses so you can claim from them for illegally downloading something that you may have stored for your own usage! and ask for confirmation that they will not be pursueing those people who downloaded your upload, as the copywriter cannot have double bubble compensation by claiming from you and then from those who downloaded form you, if they are asking for more than a few pounds,euros,dollars etc...

Hope this helps