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Lawyer Banned for Threatening File-Sharers

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-uppance-has-come dept.

S. Hare brings us a report from TorrentFreak about a lawyer working for a Swiss anti-piracy group who was recently given a 6-month ban for her attempts to intimidate file-sharers though letters threatening fines and court fees. Elizabeth Martin demanded 400 Euros each from "hundreds of thousands of file-sharers," and suggested that they would have to face large settlements if they did not comply. The Paris Bar Council took exception to this and instituted the ban. Martin worked for Logistep, a company who has had trouble following laws in the past. "The disciplinary board decided that 'By choosing to reproduce aggressive foreign methods, intended to force payments, the interested party also violated [the code] which specifies that the lawyer cannot unfairly represent a situation or seriousness of threat.' In addition, the lawyer also violated the code by cashing payments into a private account, not the usual dedicated litigation account, known as a 'Carpa'. Martin also refused to reveal how many payments had been received from file-sharers."

6 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:To illiterate poster below my normal threshold: by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Informative

    But seriously, while on the subject, what is with the Original Poster calling a company "who"? I admit that this is a pet peeve of mine, but that doesn't change the fact that it is just plain bad English. It is incorrect. Period.

    Linguists dropped prescriptivism a century ago, and English speakers are often proud of the fact that they have no body directing usage like e.g. the Academie Francaise. Your ranting about what is correct English isn't going to change anything and you'd have peace of mind if you finally got with the times.

  2. This was her first offense by Nicolas+MONNET · · Score: 4, Informative

    And besides, this is a suspended sentence, ie she will not be banned for 6 months this time, but would in the future if she commits more ethics violations.

  3. Typesetting isn't hard anymore by uuxququex · · Score: 1, Informative
    Doing fine typesetting is still a laborious task (yes, computers help, but you still have to painstakingly tweak their output).

    Don't use Microsoft Word for serious work then. Computer typesetting is a solved problem. Has been since the eighties.

  4. Re:Value by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

    In much writing things are still going to take a while. Peer review takes time, because peer reviewers have busy lives. Doing fine typesetting is still a laborious task (yes, computers help, but you still have to painstakingly tweak their output).

    All of that is absolutely NOTHING compared to the days when goods were carried by horse, typesetting involved blocks of metal, strips of lead, and a hammer, and a printing press' speed was measurable in seconds per page.

    At that time, marketing was primarily word of mouth and equally slow to produce print ads in entirely local papers (no such thing as buying a national ad). The time between an author completing a work and having it ready for printing was measured in years. Still more years would pass between publishing and mots potentially interested buyers hearing of a work's existance.

    At that time, in spite of the long lead time to market, 28 years was considered adequate time on a copyright.

    By contrast, these days, the time between an author completing a work and it being bulk printed and marketed to all potential buyers is measurable in months. In spite of that, we seem to think a copyright measured in lifetimes is needed.

    It's especially a travesty in software where a 28 year old program is of historical interest at best (more likely forgotten entirely).

  5. Re:To illiterate poster below my normal threshold: by mrvan · · Score: 3, Informative

    I agree that people should stop nitpicking on grammar or spelling errors in comments --- part of the community here is not a native speaker of English (including yours truly) and we will often get tense or prepositions wrong. Also, punctuation rules differ per language; using commas and apostrophes correctly is not trivial in your native tongue so have a bit of patience with your fellow slashgeek.

    For the editors I have no mercy, however: they are paid professionals and should get their spelling and grammar right. And avoid dupes! :-) They post an average of one article per hour, so surely they have time to proofread a paragraph and check links (and link to print versions) in that time...?

  6. Re:From the Summery... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Being Swiss, I can explain you that.

    Switzerland has a militia army, and every years, mens incorporated in the army have to go to the shooting gallery to do prove that they still can shot.
    We have ammunitions at home, yes, but in a sealed container that we are allowed to open only in case of war.

    We are usually called to those shootings around may until august (explaining the t-shirt the guy wears) and his weapon is a FASS 90 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_550

    So it's not unusual to cross mens with their guns on their back during summer.