Computers & Electronics

Got served paper from IP trolls for bit torrent copyright

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  • Mar 27th, 2024 2:22 pm
Newbie
Dec 21, 2016
40 posts
62 upvotes

Got served paper from IP trolls for bit torrent copyright

I am posting this in hope that there are other people out there in the same situation as me. I share a house with some tenants and we all pool our internet together under my name. We got some EUA in the past year and I have let the tenant know as well as change the wifi password (at the time) incase it wasn't them. I have email to proved this and that I am sharing my internet. Fast forward to today, I receive the paper from Colossal Movie Productions, LLC vs Doe #1 et al from AIrd & Berlis. I definitely did not download or heard of the movie Cell, (the Work). However, there is a chance one of the tenants has downloaded it. I can't seek professional legal advice as they are close now until Monday or Tuesday.
However I will like to gathered more info. and based on my research, Aird & Berlis has file many motion of this in the past. See https://www.ippractice.ca/litigation-st ... -for-2017/
Aside from seeking professional counsel, ss the worst case situation for me is the $5000 penalty? What other advice can RFD give me?
Much appreciated.
http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.gc.ca/fca ... o=T-909-17

Please read this link for a quick summary of all the movies listed for in the lawsuit got-served-paper-ip-trolls-bit-torrent- ... #p29650360
Last edited by SmallBusiness1234 on Nov 6th, 2018 10:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
Thread Summary
What happened? Did you get fined?
2672 replies
Deal Fanatic
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Mar 31, 2017
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you mean an email forwarded from ISP? In that case ignore it, and don't go to any links from that email. If it's a formal court summoning, with a demanded court appearance then you need a lawyer.

it's time for you to transfer the isp account over to a different tenant - why are you assuming all the risk? It's dumb. I wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place.
Newbie
Dec 21, 2016
40 posts
62 upvotes
It is not a court summon but a Statement of Claim mail they mail to me. I think after this is all over, I will just split off the internet from them.
Deal Expert
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Mar 23, 2009
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Did you respond to an email previously?

And now you have or will be getting an actual paper letter?
Newbie
Dec 21, 2016
40 posts
62 upvotes
EugW wrote: Did you respond to an email previously?

And now you have or will be getting an actual paper letter?
Haven't respond to any email and got the actual paper.
Deal Fanatic
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Jul 2, 2001
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SmallBusiness1234 wrote: Haven't respond to any email and got the actual paper.
In the mail? So they have your physical address? From where?
.
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Mar 31, 2017
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now I'm a bit more worried. Yes, how did they get your mailing address? But still, they cannot coerce money from you. They have to go through the courts and enforce it.

I would not contact them, and you should ignore it. Only if it's a court summons should you follow up with a lawyer.

I would suggest putting a VPN onto the router at this point, unless you can enforce the tenants to stop this crap. I would go as far as getting your own internet connection from now on and cancelling the current account and get the tenants to get their own.
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Mar 6, 2002
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badOne wrote: now I'm a bit more worried. Yes, how did they get your mailing address? But still, they cannot coerce money from you. They have to go through the courts and enforce it.

I would not contact them, and you should ignore it. Only if it's a court summons should you follow up with a lawyer.

I would suggest putting a VPN onto the router at this point, unless you can enforce the tenants to stop this crap. I would go as far as getting your own internet connection from now on and cancelling the current account and get the tenants to get their own.
If you look at another case https://www.ippractice.ca/file-browser/?fileno=T-909-17
You can see Rogers and other ISP are releasing some of these info to the law firm

"Rogers to disclose within 30 days of this order names and addresses of as set out in Scheule 1 hereto.... Filed on 26-MAR-2018 copies sent to parties entered in J. & O. Book, volume 1364 page(s) 76 - """81 Interlocutory Decision"
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Nov 12, 2011
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Niagara-on-the-Lake
Does the letter list your IP or state your name? I've never heard of someone getting a physical letter... Maybe a phishing attempt?
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Think of the Childre…
Could be the Prince of Nigeria.

WOULD SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
Newbie
Dec 21, 2016
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Typhoonz wrote: Does the letter list your IP or state your name? I've never heard of someone getting a physical letter... Maybe a phishing attempt?
It does state my name and address along with a schedule listing all the john doe ip address. I was part of 98 other people / ip addresses. Official link of the case can be found here http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.gc.ca/fca ... o=T-909-17

Order dated 26-MAR-2018 rendered by Kevin Aalto, Prothonotary Matter considered without personal appearance The Court's decision is with regard to Letter from plaintiff (affidavit of Christine Miroslavich affirmed 12-MAR-2018) dated 14-MAR-2018 Result: Rogers to disclose within 30 days of this order names and addresses of as set out in Scheule 1 hereto.... Filed on 26-MAR-2018 copies sent to parties entered in J. & O. Book, volume 1364 page(s) 76 - 81 Interlocutory Decision

You can see Rogers has disclose the order names and addresses.
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Aug 22, 2011
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Interesting...good luck OP!
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Niagara-on-the-Lake
Probably best to get a lawyer now.
Deal Guru
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Mar 12, 2005
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Lawyer's are expensive, and it's finable offense. Anywhere from $100 to $5000. It's never been done before. I don't think they've ever made it to court. Usually they're trolling to payment out of court.

The envelope it came in. Does it look like it was sent by the copyright troll or your ISP? Still wondering how the troll got your info, as even your letter says their seeking a court order to get your isp to reveal it. I'm wondering if Roger's forwarded you the letter. It's what there supposed to do when they receive a letter.

Your tenants need less on not using public torrent sites without protection.
Deal Addict
Jul 3, 2017
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Beware of wrong advice on this topic.

I think almost everybody has finally got it straight that when your ISP (e.g., Rogers) forwards you an email copyright violation notice from a complainant, you should ignore it and not respond in any way. The complainant has only your IP address, and your ISP is not required to give them any personal information about you, only to forward the notice. Any threats the complainant makes at this stage are toothless. In Canada it costs complainants nothing to send out thousands of notices this way, so they do. The law says that ISPs are required to forward them and bear any costs associated with that activity (which of course are passed along to all of us). However, note that your ISP is required by law to keep records of your IP address for at least 6 months, and for 12 months if they receive notice of a lawsuit being filed against you. Given some processing time, you are probably safe from being sued for past activities after about 8 months if you haven't heard anything.

If the complainant decides to take the next step against you, they will file a lawsuit against one or more "John or Jane Does with the following IP addresses...", and ask for a court order to force your ISP to disclose your personal information. Your ISP must comply by law, and they do not need to tell you anything. That has now happened in a handful of cases, such as the one referenced above. You will then get a letter sent to you personally by the court rep to tell you that you are being sued for copyright infringement, and giving the details of your alleged offense(s). Often the complainant will also send you another an offer to settle - higher than when you were anonymous, but less than the legal maximum. If you do not respond to the court, then the complainant will apply for a summary judgement against you, which the court will award, and a collection agency will start hounding you to pay the fine. The complainant can apply to the court to seize your assets or garnishee your wages to force you to pay.

If you decide to fight it, your next step is to send a response to the court stating you are not guilty of the offense alleged, and you will be filing a defence. You don't have to give the details of your defence up front. It could be that you have proof that you didn't have that IP address at the time, and either your ISP or the complainant is mistaken. It could be that you have solid evidence that it wasn't you who did the deed, and you aren't sure who it was. It remains to be seen if courts will deem the account holder to be liable if an individual cannot be identified (e.g., if an unknown visitor to your house might have done it). Nobody knows yet what sort of defence will be successful, but keep in mind that this is civil court, so they only have to establish your guilt on the balance of probability, not beyond a reasonable doubt. Silly defences like "unknown hackers might have hijacked my system" won't do it. Nobody knows yet what sort of fines judges will set. It could be closer to $100 for a simple first time offense, or closer to $5000 if there are multiple offenses and there is no defence.
Last edited by Exp315 on Mar 30th, 2018 11:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
Deal Addict
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Nov 12, 2011
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Exp315 wrote: Beware of wrong advice on this topic.

I think almost everybody has finally got it straight that when your ISP (e.g., Rogers) forwards you an email copyright violation notice from a complainant, you should ignore it and not respond in any way. The complainant has only your IP address, and your ISP is not required to give them any personal information about you, only to forward the notice. Any threats the complainant makes at this stage are toothless. In Canada it costs complainants nothing to send out thousands of notices this way, so they do. The law says that ISPs are required to forward them and bear any costs associated with that activity (which of course are passed along to all of us). However, note that your ISP is required by law to keep records of your IP address for at least 6 months, and for 12 months if they receive notice of a lawsuit being filed against you. Given some processing time, you are probably safe from being sued for past activities after about 8 months if you haven't heard anything.

If the complainant decides to take the next step against you, they will file a lawsuit against one or more "John or Jane Does with the following IP addresses...", and ask for a court order to force your ISP to disclose your personal information. Your ISP must comply by law, and they do not need to tell you anything. That has now happened in a handful of cases, such as the one referenced above. You will then get a letter sent to you personally by the court rep to tell you that you are being sued for copyright infringement, and giving the details of your offense(s). Often the complainant will also send you another an offer to settle - higher than when you were anonymous, but less than the legal maximum. If you do not respond to the court, then the complainant will apply for a summary judgement against you, which the court will award, and a collection agency will start hounding you to pay the fine.

If you decide to fight it, your next step is to send a response to the court stating you are not guilty of the offense alleged, and you will be filing a defence. You don't have to give the details of your defence up front. It could be that you have proof that you didn't have that IP address at the time, and either your ISP or the complainant is mistaken. It could be that you have solid evidence that it wasn't you who did the deed, and you aren't sure who it was. It remains to be seen if courts will deem the account holder to be liable if an individual cannot be identified (e.g., if an unknown visitor to your house might have done it). Nobody knows yet what sort of defence will be successful, but keep in mind that this is civil court, so they only have to establish your guilt on the balance of probability, not beyond a reasonable doubt. Silly defences like "unknown hackers might have hijacked my system" won't do it. Nobody knows yet what sort of fines judges will set. It could be closer to $100 for a simple first time offense, or closer to $5000 if there are multiple offenses and there is no defence.
+1.

Have any of the cases like the above ever been resolved? What was the outcome?
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badOne wrote: you mean an email forwarded from ISP? In that case ignore it, and don't go to any links from that email. If it's a formal court summoning, with a demanded court appearance then you need a lawyer.

it's time for you to transfer the isp account over to a different tenant - why are you assuming all the risk? It's dumb. I wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place.
This would be the only advice that OP has to act upon.
(All other advises are summed up to "do-nothing-on-letter")

There is no way you can stop free torrent-ing by
talking, asking, begging...
So, there are at least 3 options:

1. best one -- stop sharing and ask tenants to get there own internet.
May be with partial compensation, whatever you can workout.

2. block p2p traffic on router --- there some menu options on some routers.

3. block p2p traffic on router by blocking (blacklisting) torrent tracking sites.

I have no personal experience with last two options but
there is a lot of relevant info in internet.
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Dec 24, 2007
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This is outdated as the ISPs lost their case regarding disclosing names to the copyright trolls. This is the next step as they have obtained the names from the ISPs and now pumping out the Court papers to bag as much money as they can without spending much. It's a license to print money as they engage in entrapment tactics to seed the torrents with their files.

Under Copyright law there is a limit how much they can get as damages but it is all new territory in Canada. You can look to experience in the US fighting back against these trolls without getting a lawyer, but you have to respond to the Statement of Claim otherwise they win by default.
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May 8, 2007
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From reviews and information on RT, IMDB, Wikipedia it looks like this movie "Cell" (2016) was garbage, gets very bad reviews, box office only $800K, with "name" actors John Cusack, Samuel Jackson, & Stacy Keach the production cost must have been at least $20M++. So they are trying to get back a fraction of the lost cash from torrenters. I wonder how much the law firm gets to keep? One of their previous movie clients was Voltage Pictures (infamous for crappy movies and copyright trolling).

Rotten Tomatoes: "Critics Consensus: Shoddily crafted and devoid of suspense, Cell squanders a capable cast and Stephen King's once-prescient source material on a bland rehash of zombie cliches."

Cell is available on Netflix Canada, they have a huge inventory of low quality action flicks.

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