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."

Comments

Actual Source

[Dangerous_Minds]

If anyone is interested, here's the link to the actual story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Re:Probably a witch too!

[LinuxIsGarbage]

For those not familiar with the "notice and notice" scheme, the ISP is required to forward the notice to the subscriber, but does not identify the subscriber to the copyright holder without a court order.

So these notices can be safely discarded, as it's not worth the Copyright holder's time to pursue a court order for a relatively low maximum cap ($5,000). This low cap also prevents the absurd cases seen in the states where grandmas are taken to court for $2,000,000 for a couple Lady Gaga tracks. These notices "seem to be effective" in reducing piracy, so for now it prevents more draconian measures.

However the copyright holders try to trick subscribers with threatening language in the notice to voluntarily identify themselves, and give them money.

Notice-and-Notice

[corychristison]

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.

Sounds like extortion to me

[misnohmer]

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.

She should pay it then take Canipre to court

[future assassin]

for extortion. This is the same Canipre that has no problems pirating other peoples works https://www.techdirt.com/artic...