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Ask Slashdot: How Would You Handle A Bogus Copyright Infringement Notice?
Very long-time Slashdot reader Andy Smith writes:
Yesterday I received an email from my ISP telling me that I had illegally downloaded an animated film called Cubo and the Two Strings. I'd never heard of the film and hadn't downloaded it. The accusation came from a government-approved group called Get It Right From a Genuine Site. I contacted that group and was directed to their FAQ. Worryingly, there's no way to correct a false report. The entire FAQ is written from the position that either you, or someone on your network, definitely downloaded what you're accused of downloading.
Their advice to avoid any problems with your ISP is simply to not download anything illegally again. But if they can get it wrong once, then surely they can get it wrong again. How widespread is this problem? What safeguards are in place to ensure that people aren't falsely accused? Why has the government allowed this scheme to operate without the accused having some right to defend themselves?
After advising users to check their wifi password -- and confront all the network's users about whether they've downloaded Cubo and the Two Strings -- the site concludes simply that "If there is no further activity identified for an IP address associated with your account, you will NOT receive further Educational Emails." Six weeks ago the U.K. government reported that "The campaign has now reached 21% of the population and, whilst piracy levels remain constant, it has decreased significantly among those exposed to the campaign."
Have any other Slashdot users experienced problems with bogus copyright infringement notifications? And if so, how did you handle it?
Their advice to avoid any problems with your ISP is simply to not download anything illegally again. But if they can get it wrong once, then surely they can get it wrong again. How widespread is this problem? What safeguards are in place to ensure that people aren't falsely accused? Why has the government allowed this scheme to operate without the accused having some right to defend themselves?
After advising users to check their wifi password -- and confront all the network's users about whether they've downloaded Cubo and the Two Strings -- the site concludes simply that "If there is no further activity identified for an IP address associated with your account, you will NOT receive further Educational Emails." Six weeks ago the U.K. government reported that "The campaign has now reached 21% of the population and, whilst piracy levels remain constant, it has decreased significantly among those exposed to the campaign."
Have any other Slashdot users experienced problems with bogus copyright infringement notifications? And if so, how did you handle it?
Isn't that what Americans do first and then ask questions later?
At least then, they' have to give you their evidence.
You expect things like this to be logical?
Couldn't you sue the company for defamation since they are making damaging and false claims about your character?
I, also, had never heard of Cubo and the Two Strings but, now, I'm going to go pirate it to see what it's about.
In fact, a quick googling reveals that Cubo and the Two Strings doe, in fact, not exist. Therefore, you could not have downloaded it. Kubo and the Two Strings, on the other hand... well, it looks kind of lame; perhaps I won't pirate it after all.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The term "Educational Emails" gives the game away. Presumably those emails have no legal status, and are just intended to warn the recipient that someone thinks they have done something wrong.
I would suggest adding them to your spam blacklist.
If anyone wishes to argue that you have broken a law, let them produce evidence. Otherwise, let them shut up and mind their own business.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
You say "Cubo and the Two Strings"? I am watching it now, I downloaded it last I was visiting you, uncle.
I promise to never do it again.
-Your beloved nephew
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I'd ignore any notices sent to me, since they'd probably be from that idiot company in Quebec, CANIPRE. We have reasonable laws for infringement with caps for individual liability. This makes it very difficult for the US-style mass-contact scam/hustle schemes to succeed here.
The email will also provide links to help the recipient find legitimate sources of content
Anyone receiving these emails should reply and inquire about where to find the specific content you are downloading (if you did download anything)... to outline one of the worst parts of copyright which is discrimination.
Delete it and blacklist the sender.
in more technical terms, on the rare occasions my ISP forwards me these sorts of bullshit grams...
My response is tell my isp that accusing me of a felony crime without proof is slander, and that multiple US Federal Courts have ruled that an IP address downloading something does NOT equal a particular person downloading something.
I close my response by telling the idiots that if the Hollywood shit for brains lawyer at the other end has any REAL proof of me committing a crime, he's welcome to notify the sheriff's office or local DA. And, if I hear further shitty threats and accusations of slander from Hollywood shit for brains lawyer, I'll file complaints with the appropriate state bars.
Interestingly enough, they don't seem to bother me anymore.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Even if you think you can not pay the costs.
Get a lawyer.
Even if you think you have good advice or can read the law.
Get a lawyer.
You pay likely 10 times more in the end if you have none. And chances are: if you are "in the right" and have a lawyer, the other side pays the bills.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The RIAA sent me a threatening letter back in 2000 regarding alleged downloads using Napster. I'd never installed Napster nor ever downloaded any illegal music.
In response to their threatening letter, I demanded to know the name of the individual accusing me and to see the alleged evidence. When they refused, I sued them in Federal court under Title 42 section 1983 of the civil rights code. After all, I had been accused of a criminal act and was therefore entitled a) to confront my accuser and b) to see the evidence against me.
The violation of my civil rights cost them. Looking back I almost wish I hadn't settled out of court, because I might have been able to set a landmark precedent about the practice they still use today of sending threatening letters while at the same time refusing to provide the information people accused of a criminal act are entitled to.
First, actually download the movie since you are already getting blamed for it with no way to clear your name anyways.
Next, tell your ISP to kindly go fuck themselves and ask them to tell the anti-piracy group the same thing and get a new ISP.
$ echo 'INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/blacklist.rc' >> ~/.procmailrc
:0
/dev/null
$ echo '
* ^FROM.*(bogusDCMAsinc@hollywood\.com|bogusDCMAsinc@crappyISP\.com)
' >> ~/.procmail/blacklist.rc
Done
Someone hacked your wifi router and used your bandwidth to download the movie.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The May contingent keeps saying the UK is full of foreigners. Shouldin't it be written in dowzens if not hundreds of languages? Keep supporting those Tories. They really have a handle on things. Quashing LSE merger, Unilever, and now aiding the local media distributors. All Hail Rupert Murdoch the English-born media hero whose got the country thinking up is down.
I know the submission is from the UK, but I'd like to point out that this is why we cherish the 2nd Amendment in the USA. ;-)
Stream your movies online from a pirate site instead of torrenting them. And use a VPN.
Slightly off-topic, but: Over here in Holland, the latest scamming technique is for criminals to send generic 'illegal download copyright infringement notices' (without specifying any particular download) letters to people via snail mail, claiming to be from 'DutchFilmWorks (DFW)', which clearly is not the sender of the letters. However, the company does exist, and is one of the largest (independent) movie distributors in Holland, which helps to make it seem like legitimate notice. The letters claim the fine is 100,- euro per illegally downloaded movie, but that the fine can be prevented by paying 50,- euro within eight days to the bank account number of the criminals. How many people have fallen for the scam is currently unclear.
Wouldn't a false accusation in public record be libel?
An Ascii Middle Finger Email and BLOCK their shit...
And keep them busy. Call, and call, and call again. Clog them with calls.
It's time ISPs learn it's LESS hassle to deal with bogus claims than to wave them through.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have been in a similar same situation except that the film was a porno and I was accused of sharing it. Lawyers claiming to represent the owners wanted money from me.
You are in Scotland, so UK or Scottish law applies. Most of the people here are from different countries so their experiences and ideas have very little relevance to you.
fwiw I got a lawyer specialised in this area and they crafted an appropriate response. Eventually the "enemy's" lawyer sold the complaint to another legal practice, they sent another threatening letter but my lawyer told me any rights they had had expired so I could ignore them. There has been nothing from those parasites for a couple of years now. The original threats were six years ago.
My WLAN had a 63-character random WPA+ password and was blocking unknown MAC addresses back then, a bootable virus-scanner CD showed no trojans so I am sure the claim was bogus.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
What is this, from the ministry of truth?
Twinstiq, game news
Could you cite the case? If it went to Federal court, we should be able to look it up. It is public record, after all.
I think most of us would like to see the details.
with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Some of those laid-off Wells Fargo employees have found alternative employment.
Sorry, my wifi is open and that IP address is not me.
...I contacted that group and was directed to their FAQ. Worryingly, there's no way to correct a false report. The entire FAQ is written from the position that either you, or someone on your network, definitely downloaded what you're accused of downloading. ...
.
The goal for them is the collection of money from people, not the determination of actual guilt.
Write to your ISP making a formal complaint. Highlight that this is unsolicited spam advertising a film in which you have no interest, a libellous false accusation, a breach of your privacy and harassment.
Demand that they cease with immediate effect, request an apology and suggest politely that they improve their processes to prevent re-occurrence.
Ask them to confirm in writing that they have done so.
The ISP need to both recognise that this is damaging their business and exposing them to legal countermeasures, but also build the case log that they can use to demonstrate this to the government. Your letter will fulfil both aims.
1) Check whether it could possibly be traffic from your network. Do friends have access? Children? Poor Wi-Fi security? Open proxy server? 2) Subject access request (s7 Data Protection Act 1998) to BT, for the record which Get it Right sent to them. You want the IP address, port number and UTC timestamp, which enabled BT to do the matching to identify your account. It might cost you £10. 3) If you are willing to identify yourself to Get it Right (more so than you have done by posting the letter online, I suppose), a SAR to GiR, asking for the information which they hold on you, which led them to send the notice to BT. If they quibble about whether they hold your personal data, point out the case of Breyer, dealing with IP addresses and personal data (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=184668&doclang=EN&cid=1095511) 4) If you are sure that it was not you, once you've seen GiR's record, consider complaining to them about inaccurate processing of your personal data. Ask for rectification under the Data Protection Act. If they refuse, complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. They may not do anything but, the more complaints, the higher the likelihood. 5) You might even consider a small claims court action for the distress caused by their processing, if you can demonstrate inaccuracy. But I'd talk to a solicitor first at that point as, while the SCC generally shields from paying the other party's legal fees, that is at the discretion of the court. 6) Switch to an ISP which has not voluntarily entered into this scheme. 7) Ignore it, notwithstanding the frustration of its inaccuracy / inappropriateness. (The last one I saw was a speculative invoice for a pornographic film. My advice in that case was to simply ignore it. Nothing further was heard. (YMMV etc.))
Those "tracking companies" cant track crap. you can easily spoof your IP in a torrent and that is what happened to you, your IP was randomly chosen by someone running a modified torrent program.
Can it happen again? yep.
Can you do anything about it? Nope.
Should you worry about it? nope.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If they hold incorrect information about you (such as this bogus claim) you can demand they correct or delete it under the data protection act. That applies to the ISP and the group making the claim. I appreciate that doesn't answer the question of how you do that, but sending a few emails to their respective legal departments should get a response. If you don't get any joy you can take them to the office of the information commissioner, they have all sorts of powers to punish people who don't comply with the data protection act.
What safeguards are in place to ensure that people aren't falsely accused?
Why would the film industry or the government be interested in having such safeguards? Are false accusation inconveniencing them in some way?
Why has the government allowed this scheme to operate without the accused having some right to defend themselves?
Well, firstly, there is no evidence that you aren't able to defend yourself. If they actually make an accusation which has some weight (i.e. might actually result in a penalty) then you could probably get the case to a court where you could in principle (and probably at great expense) defend yourself. But otherwise my response is much as before. Haven't you noticed a general trend in the law in the UK of making it harder and harder for people to defend themselves (e.g. reduced access to legal aid and the use of civil action to cover criminal activity so that guilt only needs the balance of probability).
No evidence? No case.
First, I should point out that the letter says the submitter was "sharing" (uploading) the material via a file sharing network. The submitter said "downloaded", but it's the uploading part of torrent, gnutella, etc that is a bigger concern.
The submitter isn't in the US, but people in the US who receive an incorrect notice forwarded by an ISP (including a web host) should respond by writing back a statement that the the received notice is incorrect. This is called a "counter-notice" under the DMCA and basically an ISP must treat the counter-notice as true.
To oversimplify a bit, the DMCA basically says that:
The ISP should cut off the upload / distribution of the material (possibly by cutting off internet access) UNLESS
The accused sends back a "counter-notice" saying "no, I didn't do that".
Once they receive a counter-notice, the ISP is no longer involved and if the copyright holder wants to pursue it further they have to sue in federal court.
The counter-notice needs to include certain information, so using a template makes sense.
https://www.google.com/search?...
The system is set up so that these groups don't learn who you are unless you contact them. They now know who to sue.
Suck a bag of dicks.
A lawer doesn't contact you via an unreliable medium like email. Wait for a corresponding letter.
Draft a threatening letter to the agency:
--
To: Get it Right ETC ETC
RE: Illegal Download
Subject: Cease and Desist Notification
Dear (Fill in the blank),
This letter constitutes a cease and desist notification for wrongful accusations of copyright violation. Further misuse of copyright violation claims will result in a discussion with (government approving agency that you referenced) to revoke support for your work as a misrepresentation of government interests.
This letter further serves as formal notification of intent to file suit for defamatory libel, either through gross negligence or malicious action. To prevent this suit, please respond to this certified letter with written acknowledgement and consent to cease and desist wrongful accusations.
--
Spice it up as you like.
I say this as I post from hotel WIFI, the poster is either lying, or the ISP is doing stealth proxying/NAT on the public facing IP. Those are the only possibilities. A third possibility of "reporting agency made a mistake" is not likely at all without a lot of careless shortcuts.
For example, in sending a DMCA, the longer the list of items, the more likely something will get transposed. So it might not be Cubo that the poster downloaded, but something else, and the IP address happened to be on the same subnet assigned to that modem or router.
If the ISP is doing stealth proxying/NAT, then the IP address will likely rotate every so often, and the poster just happened to be the one that has it when the reporting agency filed it. This is super-common with Wireless ISP/mobile carriers, where every new connection will come from a new IP address.
However I'm fairly confident that the poster is just lying, and wanting to alert the nerd media that this thing is happening and another technology solution is invoked (use a VPN)
If the campaign has reached 21% of the people, and piracy has dropped among everyone the campaign reached, how can the overall piracy level not have changed? Is the campaign SOLELY targeting/reaching people who don't pirate at all?
These companies often send these, "warnings," without any evidence or legal standing to do anything further on the issue. In fact, the warning message, if it is delivered to an unnamed subscriber, is often used as bait to identify the user behind that IP address so they can be further harassed. When a company like this contacts you, take care not to do anything that reveals your identity or other hidden information to them inadvertently.
In the US, ISPs aren't supposed to deliver infringement notices without your name, but many do anyway, which allows for this fishing expedition.
Now that you have contacted them, they can use your name to sue you, seek subpoenas/discovery, etc. Now you might want to involve a lawyer.
Demand a static IP address from your ISP. I work for a small ISP who employed a reckless infrastructure manager. Internet time sync was set incorrectly on several servers. When we received infringement complaints, our IP assignment logs were useless. That didn't stop them from sending the notices to 90-year-olds, or other customers who were obviously not downloading infringing material.
Most of those "emails" are just automated scripts that send thousand of emails without any effort and surely with many false positives.
Why do have the ISPs and their customers have to lose time handling them, and being the ones that are guilty until proven innocence, and doing the work of debugging the situation.
I propose that they are fined $5000 USD per false positive. Let them do the work of sorting out their own mess.
I have not actually bothered trying these but I hear that some VPN services work really well. VPN unlimited, PureVPN are advertised by slashdot. My buddy was once contacted by his ISP about some copyright notice. So he uses "Private Internet Access."
Unless the notification came registered mail, I'd totally ignore it and go on about my business. I certainly would not post it on the Web and provide proof that I'd received such a thing.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
had an issue like this ince. they kept coming at me, so i got nasty, tallied the emails, phone calls and snail mail letters. called the local PD as it was a harrassment case, contacted my attorney and nailed em to the wall. won a case, got 250K out of em and not only an open court apology but a written one as well. you can be sure that if you go that route, A.) you need to have all yer ducks in a row, B) rock solid forensics behind you and C.) on hell of a set of stones on ya to even go there
ignore it like it was spam
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If you know that you didn't download it and you know nobody else did on your network, then you personally already have a reason to believe that the accusation is a blind one, coming from somebody who is hoping that the recipient will be ignorant enough to think that they have been caught doing something wrong. If the email is directly from the accuser, you can ignore it... it is baseless and not worth responding to.
If, however, the email is from your ISP, then it may be prudent to give the ISP sufficient basis to doubt the credibility of the accusation as well. Most notable in this regard is that the alleged movie you downloaded is not even spelled correctly, making the apparent claim that this accusation may be coming from some kind of official avenue at least somewhat suspect. Assure your ISP that you did not download any illegal content, and express your concern to your ISP that you suspect that this allegation is coming from an organization that has no authority to be issuing such notices in the first place, and that they may be hoping that if they send out enough of these kinds of notices randomly, they may get lucky and stumble across somebody who is wanting to quickly reach some kind of quiet out-of-court settlement.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Contact them and inform them that they are holding incorrect information and you want it corrected under the data protection act and the new data confirmed. If they refuse to do so, or provide no contact details for data protection complaints, contact the Data Protection Registrar. https://ico.org.uk/for-organis...
You may also have a case under the UK's unsolicited email rules: https://www.gov.uk/marketing-a...
When your ISP acts against you or a troll acts against you, knowing you are probably not the one on your network or hotspot that might or did download some real or non-real data, is that not malicious prosecution or malicious persecution? Please consider treble damages in counter suit filing.
Assuming the copyright police are doing their job correctly, there must be evidence of your wrongdoing and they will have a copy of it. But don't they already own the copyright? And if so, is sharing the file - allegedly - still a copyright offense? And if so, isn't anybody who bought the DVD likewise liable for copyright infringement? Let's assume they have the copy you are alleged to have shared. In court you have a right to full disclosure which includes a copy of all the evidence against you, and therefore the Cubo file itself, so you should ask for that up front. If they don't have or are unwilling to provide it you can assume they have no case and are fishing for victims, and that might itself be a crime in your state. If they hand over the goods then grab some popcorn and check it out. You win either way.
$
I don't use my ISP mail account at all because if I switched ISPs, I'd have tell loads of people my new e-mail address (which is why most people bring along their mobile number when they switch mobile providers). The only e-mail I use is either my work e-mail or Gmail, which is why these e-mail-only notifications - presumably to your ISP mail account - probably won't be read by a lot of people. Also, these warnings seem to be toothless - no legal action is taken even after receiving many warnings.
It's interesting that they only mention P2P, whereas streaming and file download sites are becoming increasing popular. BTW, the FAQ linked to spelled computer programs as "programmes", which is incorrect, even in the UK. It's sneaky how they say "an IP address is similar to a street address or telephone number in that it is used to uniquely identify an entity" - most people might think this means it identifies an individual, but all it does is identify a location (and with wi-fi possibly involved that might be a radius around the location).
The notice was to reach Mr Tuttle, but a bug directed it to Mr Buttle instead, that is the problem.
It is very like they (ISP or other 3rd party) don't know who downloaded what thing.
HOWEVER, if you do anything like a reply, you are now on THEIR LIST. Regardless of you did it or not, replying confirm your email and potentially cause you to be phished for further spam and virus.
The best action is to DO NO ACTION on their behalf. Just mark it as spam and continue your life. Unless your ISP disconnected your internet connection, you should not get yourself phished.
Also if they've disconnected your internet, now you do have a position to sue them. It's a win-win for you by keeping your cards until the end.
From the 'Educational' Letter
"...the campaign's job is to support the UK's creative industries.."
The offending allegedly shared content, Kubo and the Two Strings, produced by Laika Entertainment, LLC, an American stop-motion animation studio..
Glad to see that, despite their somewhat 'brattish' behaviour over the past couple of hundred years, we're still got our 'black sheep' colony's interests at heart....
With a web site, a person who wants the file (or part of the file) sends a request via tcp and the computer that has the requested data the responds by sending it.
With BitTorrent, a person who wants the file (or part of the file) sends a request via tcp and the computer that has the the requested data responds by sending it.
See if you can spot the difference between the two statements above by reading them carefully.
The sending of the (copyright protected) file is the same in either case, and that's the part that runs afoul of copyright law. What's different is only how you *advertise* the availability of the content. A web site might post a web address in a forum. A BitTorrent client posts their address in a tracker. Hosting a file via http or via torrent is still hosting the file either way. I don't think that anywhere in the DMCA you'll find a distinction between tcp port 80 and tcp port 6881.
I have some servers in some racks, connected to some ISPs. With these I provide web hosting services. Some servers are owned by company and shared between clients, some are owned by my company and leased to specific clients, and some are owned by the clients. When we get a DMCA notice, it doesn't matter if it's a client who leases the server from us, a client who owns the server, or a client on a shared server. Regardless, since the material is coming from our IP space, we have to handle it under a certain section of the DMCA, or else lose our safe harbor.
I also have a stack of devices connected to a different ISP. They are not in our IP space. They are in Time Warner's IP space, because they are in my house. Network-wise, they are in Time Warner's network. If these machines unlawfully serve up copyrighted material from Time Warner's network, that fits the same section of the DMCA as my hosting customers serving up such content on my network. If I have a www server on TWC's network, their network is hosting that material just as much as I host my client's sites. If I have a BitTorrent machine offering up the same content, that's no different than offering it up via http.
The DMCA is a bit long at 60 pages, but it's not too complex to read and I find it interesting. I read several drafts as it was being worked on. The slightly tricky part is, as you hinted, keeping the different entities straight. A different type of entity than those discussed above is a pure *transit* provider, where the material does not originate from the IP space. Those entities have no control over the endpoints since they are in some other ISP's network.
That's a good point. If the complaint itself doesn't already have your name on it, you may not want to give them your name.
Partially that *may* depend on what you can determine about your ISP's policies. What will the ISP do if you don't respond? Also the any demands in the letter.
With a flamethrower, and extreme prejudice.
What - you expect Jews to actually do manual labour? Don't you know that's what their 'cattle' (goyim) are here for? Jews only do non-manual labour, like make shit films, create 'The Oscars' where a bunch of Jews decide which JEW-made film is 'the best', and sue people for allegedly copying their 'wonderful' films illegally...
Save it, in case you ever get sued for downloading, you now have evidence that they send out notices for downloading movies the person accused hasn't even heard about.
When I got one of these I bought VPN access for a site that doesn't keep logs - now my router goes online from any one of a thousand different access points around the globe.
Too many politicians being paid off - after all when did it become the Government's responsibility to protect one industry??? Answer - NEVER. Yet, how much Taxpayer's money goes into this? As I always say - follow the money...
I work at a large research university that easily receives thousands of these complaints per month. While some reports are legitimate (we don't restrict traffic, must less P2P traffic, as a general rule), some reports have identified impossible situations. Examples include reports about "dark" space (IP addresses allocated to the university but for which routing isn't implemented) and ones where activity can't be correlated with the times indicated (e.g., "activity occurred at X time" but we see no network traffic for several hours before or after that time). Since the complainant, under US law (the DMCA), is asserting "under penalty of perjury" that their data is correct, I can only assume that their methodology is severely flawed or they're perjuring themselves.
My understanding is that "burden of proof" standards differ between the US and UK, so it might be worth seeing a lawyer^H^H^H^H^H^Hsolicitor (barrister?) for additional assistance.
Send them a Cease and Desist letter.
Or ignore it. Your call.