board77

Way to get to the heart of the matter Gim

vincent,

I don't look here often recently and just saw this thread of yours.

Sunny has got it right, I think. This does not sound legitimate to me, from what you've said so far. The American Bar Association should have a national registry for Law firms ... and most law firms have websites these days. Have you at least confirmed the existence of the firm?

Lawsuits also have to be listed in the jurisdiction where they are filed ... I would think that a legitimate suit would have a docket number and that this would be given in the letter if you were really being sued. Also, if you were really being sued I think you would receive a notice from the courts.

Unfortunately my experience with this kind of suit is non-existent and it may be that the letter is prelude to a suit. I've done that before to others, used a letter from a lawyer to tell them to desist from something they were doing or my org. would have to sue them, but not for a suit that had already been filed. Something about it does not sound kosher to me.

Voronwe is out of the country right now, but Ellie or even tolkienpurist could tell you how to confirm whether a letter like that is legit or not. You really need some professional advice, and if it is not legit, definitely turn it over to the FBI. This would be a scary new twist on internet scams.

Jn

Can the payment of $1 a month be made while at the same time maintaining no acknowledgement of fault? Is there a preferred form of words? Demand a receipt for each payment and make plain that payments will be withheld if receipts aren't received.

Also would it be better for Vincent if this was in the Members' lounge?

Ok so as it stands now,
I refused to settle, I'll be damned if I'll pay for something I didn't do, I'm looking into getting a local lawyer who specializes in civil cases, I have a friend with a degree in criminal law, but not in civil, but he's looking into lawyers in the area for me, he spends a lot of time in court, so he's a little less frightened by it, and I prefer to have him pick a lawyer then me opening the phone book and picking at random. Frankly the longer this goes on the longer I think this law firm was just fishing for the settlement, after I refused to settle they said they'd be filing the lawsuit itself on the 20th, I have yet to hear back from them, and previously they were sending everything priority overnight mail, so they may have decided it wasn't worth fighting. I also contacted the state bar, the BBB, the newspapers, and the EFF http://www.eff.org/. and my roommate is blogging on his tech web boards, and they have been a lot of help, their talking about building a web site to advertise the case, and accept donations for legal fee's, thats is if it goes that far. But as of today we haven't been contacted by the law firm, I'm really beginning to think it was just a attempt to legally scam money out of me.

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Sunny has got it right, I think. This does not sound legitimate to me, from what you've said so far. The American Bar Association should have a national registry for Law firms ... and most law firms have web sites these days. Have you at least confirmed the existence of the firm?

And yeah I've confirmed this law firm exists, so that sucks.

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Lawsuits also have to be listed in the jurisdiction where they are filed ... I would think that a legitimate suit would have a docket number and that this would be given in the letter if you were really being sued. Also, if you were really being sued I think you would receive a notice from the courts.

With these Internet piracy cases its not quite so clear cut, they file against the ISP for the identity of the owner of the IP address, then they file against the people, so what I got was a letter from my ISP saying they got a subpoena for my ID from a law firm, I then contacted the law firm and explained they had the wrong guy, they then got my name, address, phone # etc, and have not sued us yet, they said they were going to do that on the 20th, but I haven't heard back from them since the 17th when I stated I was not settling.
http://www.subpoenadefense.org/

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It was probably a really shitty movie too!

I don't know I've never seen it, (lords of War) but I'm guessing it was.

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Well, there are a couple of lawyers on this board...Ellienor and Voronwe. Voronwe is here more often than Ellienor, and his whole practice revolves around protecting people's rights, so you could PM him, direct him to this thread.

Well I really don't want to impose on anyone, I really posted mostly because I wanted to vent, and you have been very helpful, and supportive for which I thank you. Hopefully this whole mess will just go away, wishful thinking I know, but I can wish.

I've never heard of Lords of War, but Lord of War was quite good, in the same sort of kicked-in-the-gut, slapped-upside-the-head way that Traffic and Munich were good (though it's not quite of the caliber of either of the two).

Sorry it is lord of war, not "lords", I'm told its a Nicolas Cage movie.

Last year a finnish Bit Torrent -site was busted, and the biggest uploaders were given mighty fees. It is said that piracy, at least in the grand scale, is quite dangerous these days, and should not be hobbied.

Your case, however, sounds unfair. 3,000$ for a single movie is an unbearable amount, and since you did not even commit the said 'crime', I am rooting for your success in the forth-coming law-suit.

Kick 'em in the nuts, sir!

All bit torrent sites have to do is mimic "The Pirate Bay" and their legal statements and they'll be airtight (until they change certain laws anyway).

Most bit torrent sites are perfectly cool, though. When they're asked by a company or a law-firm to take a torrent down, *most* will happily do so. That doesn't completely stop it, though. The people who are already on the .torrent remain, and if another site still has the file, more and more people can still get on. Good luck finding them all.

And even then, there's still IRC. Less user-friendly than bit torrent, but hella faster. And there's really no way to stop files from proliferating through IRC channels.

If I really like something, I still buy it. Some things are worth supporting by paying for them. Especially manga and anime, you know?

*frets*

So you can be sure Azureus isn't going to get busted?

*~Pips~*

Azureus and other clients can't get busted. They're just the clients. The only thing that they can "bust" is the websites that put up the .torrent files.

As far as I know, anyway. Some sites have been sued (sucessfully or not I'm not sure, but they have received official announcments of legal action and such).

Most of the time though, the makers of product X just request that the torrent be taken down and if the site is "cool" they will. Boxtorrents.com is an excellent example.

I use torrentspy quite often. I try and support the music and movie industry as much as possible but I get tired of paying $7 to rent a movie and while I was going to college I didn't have much money. Now that I've finished I'm looking for a job and still don't have much money...