Automated shakedown racket sends legal threats, demands cash
The process is simple. Their software monitors BitTorrent swarms and other filesharing networks and records the IP-addresses of those people who share the work of their clients. It then automatically sends an email to the ISP linked to the IP-address with a request to forward it to the associated customer...Automated Legal Threats Turn Piracy Into Profit (via Digg)In their email they write that "it may be beneficial to settle this matter without the need of costly and time-consuming litigation."
If you don't settle they are "prepared to pursue every available remedy including damages, recovery of attorney's fees, costs and any and all other claims that may be available to it in a lawsuit filed against you." To make it even more scary, they point out that ISPs might cut your Internet connection if you don't comply.
In the FAQ on the VPA website it is noted that consulting a lawyers is an option, but it would be a rather silly thing to do since it will cost more than the settlement itself. "It is likely that the cost incurred to retain a lawyer will exceed the settlement amount offered." [Ed: it's cheaper to pay us than it is to ask a professional whether to pay us].
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hmmm, wonder how long Nexicon can stay in business under a never ending DDOS attack?
A similar scheme has been running for a while now in the UK, about 10000 people have recieved letters demanding ~£500 each for sharing hardcore pornography.
The evidence is purely a single IP address supposedly captured in a torrent or ed2k swarm - laughable.
Unfortunately it has been continuing for 2 years and noone has yet put a stop to it.
Torrentfreak has run previous articles on this (see anything containing ACS Law or Davenport Lyons). Other reporting is so far sparse, although support sites have been popping up.
What's worse, piracy or racketeering?
lawyers
The real question is, how long have they been doing this?
The good grammar and spelling are dead giveaways that this wasn't written by an actual human law clerk. So clearly it's a boilerplate form-letter for the extortionist protection racket that is IP law.
Of course, at this point the correct strategy is ignoring the bait and waiting for the overlords to incur actual legal expenses before responding to *anything*
ddos slowloris attack will take care of these parasites
This could be the primary driver behind the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. If one imagines this practice becomes ubiquitous, there will be development of automated legal threat response systems, and as a result of the escalation, true AI might be born...
It's all very Accelerando, this, isn't it? But it did leave me thinking:
Although people might wind up scammed in the mean time, an increase in this sort of ligitous spam might finally convince ISPs to abandon their three-strikes plans.
As they fail to differentiate robo-threats from more personalised thuggery, if they continue their cowardly assumptions of guilt on the part of their user base, they'll realise that they might have to ban the majority of their customers.
Then maybe they'll decide we're innocent until proven guilty more substantively than by a stock letter from some grumpy gangsters.
If it's cheaper for us to pay them than to ask a profession if we should pay them, then it must also be cheaper for them to not get paid than to pay a professional to force us to pay them.
Well, unless legal costs are awarded, in which case both arguments are mute.
The RIAA will soon be suing them for infringement regarding their business model.
Dang, no wonder it's been so hard to find bootleg Zappa pornography.
This is the Nigerian scam of 2009, soon filtered out completely by your ISP's spam filter.
Also, that whirring sound? Frank Zappa spinning in his grave at a disturbing 8729 rpm.
re #5
If you settle out of court you will pay less than the cost of lawers, on either side.
If they take you to court, they will sue you for *much* more than the cost of the lawers.
Anyone remember the old Judge Dread story featuring a guy whose business was "biller"? He just sent out invoices that said, "For billing services, $100" -- and some of the time, companies paid up.
Same thing.
Looks like we're going to see more and more of this "legitimate spam" in the future -- the profit margins are good, and no-one is really moving to stop it.
What's to stop anyone else from setting up a phony cpmpany, hiring a mall laywer and doing the same thing, only targetting Canadian legislators, industry lobbyists, that Swedish judge and other laywers hosted by ISPs who are notorious for not checking the facts of lawyergrams they receive?
"We're protecting the rights holders. We're not just doing this to line our pockets with money from a single mother on welfare who has no idea what her child is doing on the computer. Honest."
Gail Zappa is a.........
This is why it's better to have a legal system where you have to pay the other sides costs if you lose the case. It stops lowers the number of vexatious claims and means innocent people aren't left out of pocket.
@#5 - MOOT, the word is MOOT, not "mute"...
/Sorry, major pet peeve and people do it all the is meetings at work
A good counter-scam would be to create bittorrent streams that look to their algorithms like copyright violations but aren't. Then counter-sue them for DMCA abuse.
Unfortunately, they don't do it right. The people sending these messages do not look up the designated DMCA contact for an organization--instead, they use WHOIS information.
As far as I'm concerned (and IANAL), this makes it an invalid DMCA notice.
Unfortunately, this is just the automated version of what some attorneys are already doing on a much smaller scale. The letter is correct in that paying WILL BE cheaper than defending a lawsuit. The little guys are once again left holding the bag.
The good news is that courts are starting to get "hip" to this game, and perhaps the masses will see some relief over the next few years. The law moves slow, but it does move. That is the history of American jurisprudence.
It can't happen here
It can't happen here
I'm telling you, my dear
That it can't happen here
Because I been checkin' it out, baby
I checked it out a couple a times, hmmmmmmmm
And I'm telling you
It can't happen here
Oh darling, it's important that you believe me
(Bop bop bop bop)
That it can't happen here
Who could imagine that they would freak out somewhere in Kansas...
Kansas Kansas tototototodo
Kansas Kansas tototototodo
Kansas Kansas
Who could imagine that they would freak out in Minnesota...
Mimimimimimimi Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
Who could imagine...
Who could imagine
That they would freak out in Washington, D.C.
D.C. D.C. D.C. D.C. D.C.
It can't happen here
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
It can't happen here
It can't happen here
Everybody's safe and it can't happen here
No freaks for us
It can't happen here
Everybody's clean and it can't happen here
No, no, it won't happen here
I'm telling you it can't
It won't happen here
(Bop bop didi bop didi bop bop bop)
Plastic folks, you know
It won't happen here
You're safe, mama
You're safe, baby
You just cook a TV dinner
And you make it
(Bop bop bop)
No no no no
Oh, we're gonna get a TV dinner and cook it up
Go get a TV dinner and cook it up
Cook it up
Oh, and it won't happen here
(No no no no no no no no no no no
Man you guys are really safe
Everything's cool).
Who could imagine
Who could imagine
That they would freak out in the suburbs
I remember (tu-tu)
I remember (tu-tu)
I remember (tu-tu)
They had a swimming pool
I remember (tu-tu)
I remember (tu-tu)
They had a swimming pool
I remember (tu-tu)
I remember (tu-tu)
They had a swimming pool.
And they thought it couldn't happen here
(duh duh duh duh duh)
They knew it couldn't happen here
They were so sure it couldn't happen here
But...
Suzie...
Yes yes yes--I've always felt that
Yes I agree man, it really makes it...yeah...
It's a real THING, man
And it really makes it
(Makes it)
-Used without permission.
Tee Hee, great Zappa allusion. Though a musical hero of mine he and now Gail are brutal business persons. Ask Bruce Bickford. In fact really do, he's an amazing artist and deserves way more recognition than he gets.
This is such an abusive practice, and yet it's completely legal. If you actually are given the authority to file lawsuits on somebody else's behalf, you're welcome to send out notices and filings for completely frivolous suits, and even take people to court. No one says you'll win, of course, but you're welcome to charge them anyway.
On the other hand, these notices are nothing more than extortion. The perpetrators aren't really going to file a lawsuit, nor do they have any sort of case that they could win. They work the same way that the Nigerian scammers do -- they send out thousands of messages at once (at an unsubstantial per-message cost) and hope that some small percentage falls and sends them back some money. Even a single person sending them $500 in shut-up money makes the scheme worth trying.
Does our legal system differentiate between legitimate claims and unsubstantiated legal threats? Is it actually a crime to threaten somebody with a lawsuit that you have no intent on following through with? How do we discourage this type of extortion without discouraging people from making legitimate claims?
pleasepleasePLEASE somebody figure out how to spoof this thing so it starts trolling the FBI, the Justice Department, the White House, whoever handles wire fraud, the relevant Bar Association, local P.D., the T.S.A. (not that they have jurisdiction but they might put these guys on one of their lists) etc...
Welcome to the 21st century - where trying to screw the citizen is so common it's worth automating. Maybe if their shenanigans target someone who matters, a response might be forthcoming.
This is why it's better to have a legal system where you have to pay the other sides costs if you lose the case. It stops lowers the number of vexatious claims and means innocent people aren't left out of pocket.
The trouble with this is that it makes it prohibitivelty expensive to sue corporations. Sue Apple for IP infringement and you can be sure they'll spend a million bucks defending themselves with high-powered lawyers. Even if you're completely and obviously in the right, would you sue if winning meant $100k and losing meant $1m?
There's something like this going on on ebay and other sites where people sell secondhand designer goods. Admittedly a very high proportion of the designer cruft sold online is fake, but occasionally someone really is trying to sell Grandma's authentic Tiffany bracelet. Tiffany & Co. (among others) has a law firm send out automated demand letters to almost anyone selling Tiffany branded items, claiming the items are fake and demanding $450 in hush money to make a potential lawsuit go away. No request for proof of authenticity or process for disputing the claim, just a demand for cash.
When I first encountered this, I thought it was a 419 type scam; surely Tiffany has better things for its lawyers to do? It seems however to be a real method for owners of designer copyrights to squeeze a bit out of the secondary market. Of course, the purveyors of knockoffs and fakes will just pack up and go elsewhere with little impact on their bottom line.
I imagine Frank would love the fact that vegetables everywhere have all his CDs, a huge supply of blanks, and the sudden desire to start dropping random copies on seats in train stations, on the bus, at the mall, and generally wherever people congregate. The label will say "this greedware brought to you by Nexicon, the terrorist extortion company tied to international kiddie porn."
love the comment about the RIAA!
Nexicon is offering legal advice in their FAQ - telling people what is and what is not the law. It is a shakedown, pure and simple.