solicitors letter - downloading/uploading copyrighted game

[micky-quayle]

just recieved a letter from a london solicitors informing me that because i downloaded a pinball game that was copyrighted on p2p and then made it available for upload i either have to pay £349 or be taken to the high court. anyone else ever had such a situation.
i think i really have no option but to pay. ntl (now virgin) have given them all the info they need due to a high court order(and charged £49 to give the info to the solicitors)
point is i have not downloaded this game, i do however have a wireless network which at the time was not passworded.
what i want to know is am i responsible for everything on my ip number or not.

and yes i have checked its an authentic solicitors (davenport lyons), so not a con job by the looks of it.

the other thing which bothers me is with it being a civil matter guilt only has to be proved on the balance of probabilities not as in a criminal case beyond resonable doubt. don't know what to do for the best if i fight it and lose, with it being the high court the financial implications for me would be mega.

[SAJ]

Thats bad crack that mate, I bet you it was a shock to the system. I've downloaded many games not via p2p but bit torrent. Which programme were you useing to download it? Limewire????

I've heard of a few people being prosecuted and its a no win situation. Sounds to me as if its been a bit of 'rat-trap', just a method to try and cut down on piracy.

[mark]

might not be as bad as it sounds.

Ask them for their evidence. you want the full connection logs from your isp that claims the P2P connection on the day you were supposed to be downloading, and for the the day the claim is being made only (log files have hundreds of millions of lines of data, betcha they can't pull yours out)

you also need a statement of fact that the IP address they claim was being used had been issued to you on that day (they claim ntl have given them this - bet they haven't!)

Ask them to state what the software was

you also want the traceroute log, which establishes all the network connections (hops) that were made between you and any others that were part of that p2p connection ('peers')

you could also demand log statements from all the network hops that were made to validate the connections were secured

I reckon they are trying it on, are just phishing. for them to push a prosecution is a tough one and has very little precedence in this country. Bet they are hoping enough people just cough up uneccessarily


In the very very worse case, if its game, go and buy a copy, even second hand. you then have a licence for it. doesn't matter from where or when, as long as you can show the original media. I fthey can prove a p2p connection, you were merely making an online backup, which is perfectly legitimate

seen a few of these over the last year, they usually run away if they get challenged or you sound like you know what you are taling about

[daren]

thats good advice mark well done mate

[micky-quayle]

heres a copy of the letter i'm planning to send via recorded delivery tomorrow, any sensible input would be greatly appreciated as i'm not really up on this kind of situation !

Davenport Lyons
30, Old Burlington Street
London
W1S 3NL

Ref: NCIP/TOP.7.1/Virgin Media (formerly known as NTL)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing with regard to your letter dated 22 March 2007. I have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the Dream Pinbal 3D game mentioned in the letter, my computer is not used in any way for games. I don’t see how you can ask me to sign an undertaking and pay for something I have not done.

How this game has been linked with my IP address I haven’t got a clue, the only possible thing I can think of is that someone in the vicinity has been using my wireless network connection without my knowledge. This connection was (unknown to me) unsecured, I am now passwording it to prevent any further incidents, if indeed that is what happened. There is no way I can be held responsible if a third party has downloaded/uploaded the game unknown to me using my wireless network in much the same way if someone jumped in my car and drove of when unattended I could not be held responsible for any traffic violations commited by that person.

I require you to set out the legal basis of the claim you are making, specifying all statutory provisions relied upon and citing any relevant case law. Please also supply me with a copy of any expert's report proving that my IP address was the source of any such material, include any correspondence from my ISP.

I would kindly ask if you could make these facts known to Topware Interactive Inc. and ask that they review the case.

Yours faithfully



M.Quayle.

[micky-quayle]

been advised to drop the large paragraph about the wireless network, and save that for further correspondence.

[bigh]

If, as you say Mickey you have never had the game on your computer, offer them the hard drive to check. Apparently there are software programs that can find anything if they know what to look for !!

[lasthope]

me

thats me f***** is this not what pc are used for every one i know dl from torrent sites???

[micky-quayle]

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE

just been in touch with virgin media(formally NTL) and asked them to check if they had handed information to davenport lyons and charged £49 for doing so.

they have just phoned me back and after consulting their legal department confirmed they had no knowlege whatsoever of this matter and had no record of any court order. also no record obviously of davenport lyons being charged £49 for info given out. they say it seems to be a very elaborate hoax.

they have given me an address to write to where they will confirm in writing that no information has been given out.

THE PLOT THICKENS !!!!!!

[red rock]

everything you have done is stored on you hardrive, when you delete something it does not just go away.the poilce etc can find out what you have been doing and looking at from the day you got the pc. so just tell them to check it that should shut them up

[micky-quayle]

everything you have done is stored on you hardrive, when you delete something it does not just go away.the poilce etc can find out what you have been doing and looking at from the day you got the pc. so just tell them to check it that should shut them up

unfortunately can't do that my hard drive went tits up at xmas so had to get a new one.

hopefully if what virgin media told me today is true (i know they have also informed someone else who got this letter the same and also another person in the same situation but with bt as their isp)

if this is a scam is the most convincing i've come across, i'd almost resigned myself to having to pay eventually, couldn't go to high court and risk all those costs, at least now i seem to have information as amunition.

[Norman]

unless you defrag ! then it`s gone for ever ....... cut to pieces

[red rock]

unless you defrag ! then it`s gone for ever ....... cut to pieces

defraging your hardrive doe not get rid of your old file etc how do you think the police lift stuff of perverts pcs. you dont think its that simple. if you want to say hide the fact you have been on the torrent sites for the odd film or a bit of music, programmes like cyberscrub or evidence eliminator work in them case but if the right people want to find what you are up to they have the gear

[mark]

err... yes and no

defrag will move stuff around and will overwrite any 'deleted' stuff, and is as effective as the "i haven't been looking at porn' sorry I mean evidence eliminator programs!

best way is to overwrite the blank space with zero's, norton can do this or there's plenty of shareware around that does it.

you hard disk is like a load of 'pigeon holes' and a clip board which says whats is in which pigeon hole. deleting a file just scrubs it from the list, it doesn't remove it from the 'pigeon hole'

so you need to overwrite whats in all the pigeon hole sthat are marked as empty according to the list. but you need to do it at least 8 or 9 times. there are cases where the residual magnetic information has been recoverd from a disk even though it had been overwritten several times. OK we're talking CIA level espionage, but it can be done. All magnetic media leaves a 'shadow' of what used to be there, so overwrite it loads of times should mask the shadow

I always suspected this was a bogus try it on Micky, If I were you I'd pass it to trading standards

for fecks sake it time I got a proper job!!

[micky-quayle]

err... yes and no

defrag will move stuff around and will overwrite any 'deleted' stuff, and is as effective as the "i haven't been looking at porn' sorry I mean evidence eliminator programs!

best way is to overwrite the blank space with zero's, norton can do this or there's plenty of shareware around that does it.

you hard disk is like a load of 'pigeon holes' and a clip board which says whats is in which pigeon hole. deleting a file just scrubs it from the list, it doesn't remove it from the 'pigeon hole'

so you need to overwrite whats in all the pigeon hole sthat are marked as empty according to the list. but you need to do it at least 8 or 9 times. there are cases where the residual magnetic information has been recoverd from a disk even though it had been overwritten several times. OK we're talking CIA level espionage, but it can be done. All magnetic media leaves a 'shadow' of what used to be there, so overwrite it loads of times should mask the shadow

I always suspected this was a bogus try it on Micky, If I were you I'd pass it to trading standards

for fecks sake it time I got a proper job!!

still not 100% convinced this is a scam yet, this is a large reputable firm of solicitors, i just don't understand whats going on, if it were a little known of small solicitors i could understand but davenport lyons ! something just doesn't sit right, but not sure what, only time will tell. i will post updates as and when i have further correspondance.