Letter regarding downloading peer to peer software

sillygoose

my understanding of these letters is that the accusation isn't of downloading copyright material but of hosting it. Presumably you originally got the offending item by downloading it but thats not what they are after. I havn't used P2P or Torrents in many years as too dangerous to your security IMHO, but if you have something on your PC in the folder that the P2P software uses others can then download from you. Some P2P may even put some copyright material on your drive as part of the distribution system for others.

You become a distributor of nicked software. These companies claim to be simply downloading stuff back off you via P2P, checking its copyright stuff and then they have you as they can see it came from your IP. They then contact your ISP and use court order to get them to say who was assigned that IP at that time. Then you get a letter, the sum is to 'compensate' the copyright owner for loss of royalty for all the copies that may have come off your computer to other people. (in lieu of settling it in court)

I am not passing any comment on the rights or wrongs of all this, just my understanding of what is fast becoming a new lucrative business for solicitors. This letter may actually be legal.

Most ISP's provide a proxy server, can you get it to work through that? then tons of people would have the same IP so would be very hard to prove who was down/up loading.

bonzer

Did the letter actually quote the claimed IP and if so did you check it was actually her IP? You'd assume if it was a scam they wouldn't be able to quote the (correct) IP because the scammers probably wouldn't have a method of connecting it with her physical address unless they were particularly sophisticated. They'd just get addresses randomly off the electoral roll or somewhere and then start spraying out letters saying "Your IP was seen doing..." or maybe they'd give a fake IP because many people don't know what their IP is or how to find out.

Definitely wouldn't respond to the letter either way whether it was genuine or not.

deejayen

Your IP changes every time you Log-On UNLESS you have a static IP [which I have]-- Any letter which is not from the ISP who supplies your service is a scam -- the only people who give out your address to genuine services is your ISP and they will notify you in advance if you are "breaking the terms of service" NOT ask for money -- Dave

DCodd

A couple of years ago there was a spate of Companies set up that used to send "speculative invoices" to unsuspecting small companies and individuals. The invoices were for services provided and came with a letter asking for you to re-new your contract. 1 in 10 were slipped through the net before people realised that they never had the services in the first place, but as they had signed and returned the "re-newal" the money was difficult to recover. This has now been made illegal and is why Gettys and PRS send letters with a settlement figure for their beleived copyright infringements. However regardless of the rights or wrongs of the PRS and Gettys claims, they will always contatc you via telephone etc to try an settle their claims as they are legitimate companies.

I would advise the op to hold on to the letter and wait for further contact, if contacted again I would ask the following:

When, where and how was the alledged infringement (inc exact time)
Who holds the copyright
By what right do they chase the alledged infringment fee on behalf of the copyright holder
Their Company Registration Number
The names of the Company directors
And how they have calculated this figure.

If they are legit they will have absolutely no compalint with you asking, if they make excuses or refuse then call the police and insist thatbthey ask these people to stop harrasing you (the Police have a legal duty to do this but you may have to press them)

aliEnRIK

The ISPs are still operating a '3 strikes' rule. So basically ~ they slap your hand twice THEN theyll cut you off. They do NOT ask for money, and if anyone has enquired about your ip details to the ISP the ISP will still let you know.

So its gotta be a scam unless theres more to this story?

SplanK

aliEnRIK wrote: »

The ISPs are still operating a '3 strikes' rule. So basically ~ they slap your hand twice THEN theyll cut you off. They do NOT ask for money, and if anyone has enquired about your ip details to the ISP the ISP will still let you know.

So its gotta be a scam unless theres more to this story?

Not all ISP's are doing this... Vigin are - however there are many others like TalkTalk and Be that will review it as case by case

aliEnRIK

SplanK wrote: »

Not all ISP's are doing this... Vigin are - however there are many others like TalkTalk and Be that will review it as case by case

well yes. I was talking generally as theyre the worst

Percy1983

Even in worse case and someone did take you to court they would ahve a very hard time proving anything.

Does sound like a scam anyway so ignore it.

thescouselander

deejayen wrote: »

Your IP changes every time you Log-On UNLESS you have a static IP [which I have]-- Any letter which is not from the ISP who supplies your service is a scam -- the only people who give out your address to genuine services is your ISP and they will notify you in advance if you are "breaking the terms of service" NOT ask for money -- Dave

This is true but if you are using a router that is on perminantly you can have the same IP for months.

Even so, if the letter states an IP address its worth doing a quick Who Is query to make sure its an address within the range assigned to your ISP. If the owner appears to be nothing to do with your ISP that would indicate the letter is fake.

tweeter

I suppose you could use Tor for your downloads then your IP would change all the time. It can be a bit slow at times unfortunately.

I'd be more inclined to use Linux for torrents, but I'm sure I'll soon be put straight as we have some really good techies on here.