Thread: Pay or else piracy sue. In need of advice.

Ok, I never think that I would make a thread (I don't really have much to contribute.), but I'm in some bad s**t right now. As the thread's name suggested, I'm getting sued for piracy. I feel like the lighting just hit my wallet. F***ing unfortunate.

So here's the story. The entertainment industry is trying to get its money back from pirates by using the pay or else scare tactic, forcing an unfortunate or uneducated pirates to pay hundreds to thousands for early settlement to avoid a costly lawsuit. I am among the unfortunates (actually, I the uneducated. I never bother to use VPN or peer guardian to make myself safe.) The funny part is from all things I pirated I got sue over porn -_- . Thinking right now, it's understandable that porn industry would want a lot of money from pirates, but...porn that I barely watch...really? fml.



The settlement offer is $3,400 and will expire at the end of this month. Is there anyway for me not to pay the settlement and avoid the lawsuit? or do I have to accept my fate and stupidity. I started to do some research on this and learned that most lawsuits never go to court; still, I don't know anything about law so I don't want to make any risky move. I would be very grateful if anyone can give me some advice.

TL DR; If you use torrent, make some effort to protect yourself or you're gonna get f***ed like me. Any law advice would be grateful.
If I post this in a wrong forum, I apologize.

Depending upon your location the advice will be different. If you live in a country that is more likely to prosecute you for piracy then I would suggest you get real proper legal advice.

However I'd do some googling using the search terms of the names of the defendants in the action and the lawyers. See what others experiences are and possibly join a forum that is more consumer advice related.
Here in the UK there was a spate of these, the lawyers have all been discredited for doing it and consumer watchdogs and the Law society has ongoing investigations into their conduct. When people did stand up to them it turned out they were clueless and didn't have a real legal leg to stand on and the cases were dismissed, before that though thousands of consumers did cough up.

Well that sucks. I don't know what to tell you. Presumably you live in the U.S. where this type of 'extortion' (settlement demand letter) is common. Aside from being a very litigious country period, this type of demand letter from the entertainment industry is a growth industry. It is very lucrative because many people accede to paying a few thousand dollars to settle rather than risk that the matter ultimately proceeds to court, where it could potentially end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You really need legal advice and I am not a lawyer. Without going through the legal process, you probably have no idea if they have much evidence or a strong case against you. Or how likely they are to actually test the waters in court. But here is the gist of it. Most of these suits do not go to court. People settle, suits fail to get certified, people ignore the letters, Even ones that go to trial sometimes get thrown out or otherwise fail to succeed. But you are at this point gambling. Odds are that you won't end up with a judgement again you. If you ignore the settlement letter, this may well go no where. But a percentage of these do end up in court. And the entertainment industry does win some of them. if it goes that way and you do end up with a settlement against you, the cost could be devastating. Paying now would hurt, but would be your safest option. Ignore it and you'll probably be OK. Just realize that the potential downside is huge.

Whatever you decide to do, don't let yourself get into this situation again. Any future torrenting should be done with forced encryption, private trackers only and through a seedbox. A lot of people believe that paying $15 - $20 a month for a basic seedbox is extravagant. In retrospect, I imagine that it would now look like a bargain to you. I would even go one step further and say that you should access your seedbox with a VPN. so that the tracker only sees your seedbox and your seedbox only sees the VPN proxy. And preferably paid through a provider or reseller who doesn't collect details like your driver's license number. Paranoid? Perhaps.

Good luck






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no good deed goes unpunished

If you are in Europe my advice would be not to pay, elsewhere I don't know.

Anywhere though the way this works, is they send out 10,000 letters, perhaps half pay up to make it go away, of the half that don't they will select a handful to take to court to use as an example for future shake downs. They cannot afford to take each individual cases to court, so if you don't pay, there is still only a small chance you could end up in court, but if you do it could end up costing you a lot more.

Wouldn't paying be an admission of guilt? I'd do as others have suggested and seek professional legal advice on this.

Good luck man.

I'd say its probably a bluff on their part and if you just do nothing it will go away, but I'd definately be doing loads of reserch into this if I were you. I would not seek any professional help which costs money though, there should be enough info out there for free to make a more informed decision.

$3400 to them is peanuts, have they even confirmed without a doubt that you recieved the letter? Have they confirmed without a doubt that you have been pirating? Have they 100% established that only you use your internet connection? Was the person who lived in your house before you a pirate? How long have you lived there? Is your connection wired or wireless? If wireless, is your connection encrypted? If its encrypted, with which encryption? How may other properies can recieve your wireless signal, and therefore possibly be using your connection to pirate porn for themselves? If you don't have a wireless router how do they know this? These questions are simply endless and they have to prove them all to a jury if it goes to court, and all for $3400? For each and every person they go after? Not worth their effort persuing it but deffo worth them writing you a letter in the hope you bottle it straight away and pay up!

And out of court settlements are never regarded by the legal world as an admission of guilt, it happens all the time without consequences. Of course to the general public it may well be seen as an admission of guilt but unless you have a public image to worry about it won't be a problem!

If you go to court you will probably lose, because you did actually do it, and keep in mind this is a civil case, so the burden of proof is different to a criminal case. If you argue that someone hijacked your wireless connection, the onus will be on you to prove that, not for the plaintiff to prove that did not happen.

The previous poster is right that they will not pursue all the cases into court, but they may well take a few of them into court, to make an example, in which case you could be looking at a much larger number.

If I was in your shoes, I think the chance of them taking me to court would be so slim, that I would not pay up, but you need to be aware that it is a risk.

I would do some research on the law firm that sent the letter, and their client. Have they done this before, and what % of cases did they pursue all the way into court. What was the outcome of the cases they did take to court.

Seek professional advice on this!!! I cannot say it clearer. Call a lawyer.

Originally Posted by Ensizon

Wouldn't paying be an admission of guilt? I'd do as others have suggested and seek professional legal advice on this.

Good luck man.

Just to second what Rooster said above: a settlement is not an admission of guilt, it won't impact your criminal record, etc.

disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not claim to be a legal expert, take this advice at your own risk.