My Mrs just phoned me and said a letter had arrived for her saying that IP adress blah blah blah has been found to have downloaded a Scooter record and she will be prosecuted unless she pays £500:shock:

Now allthough its addressed to her its me who has the internet as she doesnt even know how to switch a PC on.

And Scooter FFS who the hell would download that crap unless i did it for her daughter and cant remember.

Anybody else have dealings with these people?

Thanks

Steve

Could be a scam mate.....

 

.....bin it; then wait and see if anything else turns up in the post. Certainly don't part with £500.

 

Richard

if its from a solicitor do some research on them, see if they actually exist and didnt originate in some scum pit in nigeria, if you cant find anything then bin it.

send me £1200, i may be able to sort it with my caribean contacts, will put £300 000 in ya bank as a good will gesture lol

also its near on impossible to first find anyone who downloads in this country and its even harder to prosecute them!!

 

if you were being done you would have been raided by the police not some dodgy letter ;)

 

Mike

also its near on impossible to first find anyone who downloads in this country and its even harder to prosecute them!!

 

if you were being done you would have been raided by the police not some dodgy letter ;)

 

Mike

 

Thats what i said to the mrs allthough the date is november last year when the supposed incident took place.

She does say its an official looking letter and that if we pay £500 now we can settle out of court otherwise we will have to pay the court costs:(

I reckon its a scam....youd get emails from your isp warning you of dodgy dealings......and scooter are great when your trolleyed!

i got done by a law company acting on behave of atari in london, they fined me £500, i contacted virgin and they said they told them my ip address and the civial advise said it was all in order so i paid it lol

also its near on impossible to first find anyone who downloads in this country and its even harder to prosecute them!!

 

if you were being done you would have been raided by the police not some dodgy letter ;)

 

Mike

 

This is true! A chap who I used to work with had his house raided, and pcs taken away for illigally downloading stuff!

Scooter? PMSL! :rofl:

 

Think StellaZ likes that though, maybe he hacked into your computer? ;)

My monies on a scam mate. Isn't it the performing arts association or something that manages the royalties. I would be contacting them and asking if it's genuine.

 

Of course explain that you would never do such a thing:nelson:

Also you say it's you who has the internet (I'm assuming by that you pay the bill and it's in your name)

 

If this is the case how could they address it to your wife. They would address it to the registered person for that IP address with the service provider

Also you say it's you who has the internet (I'm assuming by that you pay the bill and it's in your name)

 

If this is the case how could they address it to your wife. They would address it to the registered person for that IP address with the service provider

 

No its in my Mrs name as i work abroad.

See if you can scan the letter and post it up mate, I'm sure between us we can establish if it's genuine. My monies still on a cam tho

See if you can scan the letter and post it up mate, I'm sure between us we can establish if it's genuine. My monies still on a cam tho

 

 

MM look what i found and the Google search mentions Scooter

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081119/0334182883.shtml

hang on - how can they tell the difference between whether you downloaded it illegally, or whether you paid for it and downloaded it from a genuine site???

MM look what i found and the Google search mentions Scooter

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081119/0334182883.shtml

 

Looks like they are making the material readily available for download on free sites, since it is the copyright holder that is making it available then they are in fact offering the product for free (failed to put a price tag on it)

 

This is certainly an attempt at entrapment. Send them a letter to that effect and see what happens.

 

they are fishing for an easy profit, as they know a % of peeps will cave in out of feer:tongue:

What i've never understood about these prosecutions is that, as far as i'm aware, they have to prove that it was you that committed the offense. Most people have a wireless setup these days with their wireless router connected to the cable/ADSL modem. This means that they can only trace the IP address as far as the router. If your neighbour/guest/guy outside with laptop had managed to get onto your network and used it illegally is it still your responsibility? If they say you should have secured the network then you can say that you used 128-bit WEP which is still in widespread use, but can be cracked now in seconds.

 

The other issue is how they obtained your IP address. Most big companies use an anti-file sharing program called Media-sentry which now has a fairly impressive catalog of false hits (including someone who didn't own a computer, just google it) and is becoming increasingly derided in legal cases.

 

Obviously i'm not a lawyer but i get the feeling that all these big media companies are trying to scare people into paying an out of court settlement instead of fighting it as the media companies might well lose. Same tactics with parking tickets.....

 

Dave

its a complete scam mate, bin the letter and forget about it, if your still concerned then phone up your local police station and ask their advice or possibly trading standard as its them who would instigate a piracy investigation

 

Mike

if its from a solicitor do some research on them, see if they actually exist and didnt originate in some scum pit in nigeria, if you cant find anything then bin it.

 

cant always be so nieve into typically thinking its a scam

 

i have a friends brother that works for one of these invistigative companies. He mentions most people think its a joke until they receive a summons of some sort.

 

Chances are if you are receiving that letter they may have been monitoring that IP address over time. The artist in question being downloaded from is not always the case and it usually just happens to be on the same server that other songs were downloaded from.

 

by all means research, but be warned

I still think that even if it's genuine, they are just looking for an easy £500. they prob know they would be on rocky ground to take it to court

i've been involved in this kind of work mate....we got paid out from some of the companies we caught infringing our copyright on the web....never went to court with any of them...finding the ip's was dead easy...i've seen a few big court cases over music files in the news...i recall metallica took out lots of prosecutions too...just be aware its becoming a big issue and lots of law firms are taking up free no-win no fee work for copyright holders

in retrospect...sit tight and see what develops...dont respond for now

cheers