Slashdot Mirror
86-Year Old Grandma Accused of Pirating a Zombie Game (torrentfreak.com)
An 86-year-old woman named Christine McMillan from Ontario, Canada has been accused of downloading a zombie game she's never heard of. She faces $5,000 in potential damages. From a report on TorrentFreak (condensed): McMillan is one of the hundreds of thousands of people who've been accused of copyright infringement under Canada's "notice and notice" regime. Due to a change to Canada's copyright law early last year, ISPs are now required to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers. In the letter received from anti-piracy group Canipre, she's threatened with thousands of dollars in damages, if she doesn't comply. "They didn't tell me how much I owed, they only told me that if I didn't comply, I would be liable for a fine of up to $5,000 and I could pay immediately by entering my credit card number," McMillan told Go Public. At first, McMillan thought she was dealing with spammers but Cogeco, her Internet provider, confirmed that the email with the settlement offer was legitimate. The power of the settlement scheme lies in the uncertainty people face. McMillan is obviously not happy with the notice-and-notice legislation which she brands as "foolish."
BURN HER!
But, she was dealing with scammers
if she plays the game
The woman question --and this event-- are simply misunderstood by the public at this point. The purpose of copyright law and pre-emptive, out-of-court, undocumented and largely unaccounted settlements is to punish the very prevalent threat of geriatrics who pirate legitimate software from hard working wholesome developers. The unexpected quirk here is that this woman has accidentally disclosed what is largely understood to be nothing short of a protection payment.
Good people go to bed earlier.
just wait for them to run up the legal bill 5K may be cheap vs the cost to defend her self. Even if they what they have is very weak proof the cost to prove that in court is high.
Typical Canadians. They need to move to a more civilized country.
In almost every case, these letters are pure bluff. Best ignored.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If anyone is interested, here's the link to the actual story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Daily read for tech news: Freezenet.ca
Considering a court battle would likely cost whoever sent that letter more than the maximum allowed by law (5k), it's just bluff. Scare people into paying when they essentially have no proof other than an IP address, which can easily be spoofed.
Not in Canada. We have a maximum damages dealie. She won't be facing millions for sharing a song like in the US.
This law will die or face significant overhaul as more of these stories hit the press. New of grandma charged thousands for supposedly downloading a $10 product for teens. Parents of young children charged thousands for their six-year-old downloading what they thought was a free game or movie.
Few things anger the public more than faceless corporations using the legal system to batter the elderly and the young. These stores will continue to appear --- and rightly belong --- in the news media headlines.
With luck, the courts of public opinion will trigger overhaul or reversal of the law.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
What about the lawyer fees? she can try to go her own but how will that work in court on your own?
The law only states the ISP must forward the notices. The ISP are not to hand over customer details or any personal information unless an actual lawsuit is filed and the information is subpoenaed.
Many Canadians do not understand they have zero obligation to respond, and that by responding is how they get your contact information. All they have is a timestamp and an IP address, and that's all they'll ever have if you never respond.
The Federal Government already tightened up the rules once about what the copyright holders can send in their notices. It seems it needs to be looked into again.
She'll get the benefit of the a doubt due to her age and gender.
But a 30-year-old man accused of the same crime would NOT get the benefit of the doubt.
Once my wife started kicking me because I was saying stupid crap (as usual). I jokingly shouted "husband abuse!" She replied, "You weigh almost double what I do, what jury would believe you?"
(And with all the zombied PC's floating around, this pirate accusation problem will spread.)
Table-ized A.I.
Reading the actual notice (http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3199120-Cogeco-Settlement-Letter-Blurred.html) it sounds like plain extortion. Personally I would go to the local provincial or federal authorities, and if they say it's illegal, demand that they press charges for extortion. If on the other hand they say it's legal, I'd consult with a lawyer how anyone can submit such settlement proposals, then offer an online service for anyone to submit such settlement proposals to everyone. ISP are required by law to forward them so this should make for a fun DoS attack. Everyone offering to settle with everyone for any potential copyright notices ought to jam the system up fairly quickly. After all, you never know when people may want to violate copyrights of a cat video someone made, so just in case, collect $5,000 so if and when they do you won't sue them.
Deleted it.
... C-A-N-P-I-R-E
I'm sure there's a lawyer in Canada who will give her the advice she needs to defend this herself, drag it through the court, and get $5K worth of fun out of it.
Or else ignore then, then sue them for defamation for implying she has engaged in a criminal act.
for extortion. This is the same Canipre that has no problems pirating other peoples works https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Until she is behind bars.
shakedown
noun
shakedown \shk-daun\
: the act of taking something (such as money) from someone by using threats or deception
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's still spam even when the government does it. This is no more moral than a Nigerian Prince scam.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I have received a notice-and-notice message from my ISP. Not for anything I downloaded so maybe there was a mix-up or maybe the copyright holder was just fishing. The notice sounds all very official and scary. Basically, pay us $X to clear up this matter or you may be on the hook for thousands. I think the max fine for copyright infringement in Canada is $5,000-10,000-ish for non-commercial use.
I ignored the notice and didn't hear anything else about it. Probably the company wanted to scare people into responding so they can weasel money out of people. Probably works in some cases, or at least scares infringers into not downloading movies/games as much.
What about the lawyer fees? she can try to go her own but how will that work in court on your own?
Because of the low likely return on a personal infringement case, the likely cost to the potential defendant is a few hundred bucks in legal fees. The *maximum* penalty is $5k, which means the likely award would be far far less, probably around the same is an hour consult to draft a response.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Costs awarded in Canada are normally just a fraction of the actual costs, and in some major jurisdictions are required to be reasonable, including taking into account the amount sought.
I'm not aware of a single notice resulting in an actual lawsuit against an individual defendant since the notice-and-notice system went into effect, other than one bizarre attempt a reverse class action lawsuit that seems unlikely to go anywhere.
Canipre is a known copyright troll. They have no interest in suing anyone, it's much more profitable to trick people into paying unnecessary settlements.
...for others a dating game...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because of the low likely return on a personal infringement case, the likely cost to the potential defendant is a few hundred bucks in legal fees. The *maximum* penalty is $5k, which means the likely award would be far far less, probably around the same is an hour consult to draft a response.
Fuck that. I'm not giving business to a blood sucking lawyer for such a low risk. They don't have the subscriber's information, and likely won't attempt to press charges unless they see a pirate bay being run out of someone's house. I rather risk paying the copyright holder than a lawyer that doesn't do anything.
I've had several notices from the same copyright holder (not the one in the article, but a TV production company). I had a different infringing IP each time, so they can't even pretend to link me. Straight to the trash the notices went.
Wow, are you telling me that when you give the reins for extortion over to a private and unscrupulous hive of money-grubbing extortionists, they are going to use them exactly as everyone predicted? It's almost as if everyone not part of the copyright lobby was right when they said this is what's going to happen...
(This might be a non-sequiteur, but also fuck you, Trudeau)
You do realize that this was in Canada and no one here has ever been taken to court over this. It's a scare tactic nothing more.
Folks, this AC is most likely a shill from the likes of rightscorp trying to get you to volunteer information to the scumbags.
The shysters send out letters knowing it's mathematically impossible to get to 1% of the (barratry) cases they just sent letters regarding before the statute of limitations runs out.
It's really just the old send a fake cleaning bill to out of state restaurants scam. You only need about 1% chumps for it to pay off nicely.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There's a women in her 70s in my World of Warcraft raiding group. She's also Canadian. I've known multiple women in their 60s who play as well. What's another decade?
How has no one mentioned Grandma Lilly ( Grandma's Boy ). She rocked the dogshit out of that demon game... Maybe she got the itch for games.
It wasn't sent certified mail. They have no idea it arrived.
You're missing a very important point: Under CANADIAN law, the maximum fine for all of these downloading offenses combined is 5000$, provided she's not downloading these files for commercial infringement. She CANNOT be forced by a court to pay more than 5000$ for all the allegations no matter what happens in court!
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A copyright holder can instead elect to protect his/her copyright under section 38.1, which allows for "a sum of not less than $100 or more than $5,000 as the court considers just." for all non-commercial infringement, and $500 up to $20,000 for each commercial infringement.[30]"
This is an excellent law: It protects real Canadians from the flood of toxic lawsuits the USA citizens are suffering.
Canada had to put it in to keep the USA from implementing punitive trade barriers, but in the USA they never put a cap on it so people can get screwed over big time by huge lawsuit judgements. In Canada the 5000$ cap means that no copyright owner will ever go to court to attack a person with no commercial infringement since the 5000$ won't even cover the lawyer costs to file the suit. So these nastygrams can be safely ignored.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
Maybe some good saint steps up and murders the guys who sent the legal threat?
Every time stories like this come up, with a named perpetrator, it seems righteously karmic that they be subjected to relentless IP problems of mysterious origin. Unfortunately, it seems that Karma lacks admin access to switches and routers around the perps.
Wonder if anyone here could help with that?
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
I mean, to call it "silly", is perhaps right there with the biggest understatements of all time.
PD: captcha naughty ;-D
What about the lawyer fees?
Class action legal firms will sometimes take these cases on a "no win, no pay" basis if there are enough representatives in the class to make it worth their while. It's almost certainly not just her.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
They won't release Zombie Apocalypse 37 until she is behind bars.
But what they hate worse than pirates is bad publicity when a grandma talks to the newspapers. I practically guarantee that they'll claim it was a mistake and fix the problem for her. That is, fix the problem for her but no one else. Public shaming works better than the lawsuit.
Unless that bill repealed all fees on physical media - passed to "pay" for "piracy" - then Canadians are getting DVDA'ed by the corporations.
In what world in metro 2033 a zombie game? Goddamn noobs.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I think better than a a specific monetary cap is how it is in the UK. The cap is *ACTUAL* losses for none commercial infringement. Generally this is going to be way lower than $5000. So downloading an album won't even attract the cover price in damages. It would have to be something like wholesale price minus manufacturing costs, something close to the profit plus royalties. It's why, despite it being illegal in the UK to rip your own CD into MP3's nobody has ever been or ever will be prosecuted for it.
It's why, despite it being illegal in the UK to rip your own CD into MP3's nobody has ever been or ever will be prosecuted for it.
That's actually a debatable point. Section 28a of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states:
"Copyright of a ... musical ... work ... is not infringed by the making of a temporary copy which is transient or incidental, which is an integral and essential part of a technological process and the sole purpose of which is to enable ... b) a lawful use of the work; and which has no independent economic significance."
In other words, if you want to listen to a piece of music that you have legally purchased, on CD, on your phone you may make a temporary copy in order to do so. However, I should add, IANAL.
Strangely, while I was sure it was actually legal to make back-up copies of legally purchased musical works as well, after a brief glance through the Act I can only find this provision in relation to 'computer programs', though I was mildy amused by the section (50a) which states: "(3) Where an act is permitted under this section, it is irrelevant whether or not there exists any term or condition in an agreement which purports to prohibit or restrict the act."
In other words a EULA cannot prohibit you making a copy of software, for the purposes of back-up.
Actually, they love the bad publicity.
"Those monsters will even sue a sweet old grandma, if we get a letter we'd better just pay it rather than risk going to court against them."
She isn't being sued by the game developers, she's being sued by an anti-piracy group.
Ha ha, I once got one of these letters (living in Wisconsin). I lived in an apartment and left my wifi unlocked (on purpose). Someone must have downloaded a movie because I got a letter chiding me for downloading I Love You, Man. I chortled! I threw away the letter after enjoying a fantasy where they sued me and I got to testify about how I hate movies, don't watch movies, especially low-brow dumb movies, and would never ever ever spend two hours watching I Love You, Man. My hard drive sure as hell wouldn't show that movie anywhere on it.
Bah humbug, they didn't sue me.
In Soviet Canada, software pirates YOU! ...