Disturbing report on "The Register"
 

Anti-pirates hit Danish P2P users with huge bills
By Kasper Larsen
Posted: 26/11/2002 at 00:23 GMT


The Danish Anti Pirat Gruppen (Anti Piracy Group) has issued invoices of up to $14,000 apiece to approximately 150 users of KaZaA and eDonkey for illegally downloading copyright material.

APG monitored the file sharing networks for available files with Danish IP addresses - and went to court to get the users' personal details from their ISPs, armed with screen shots of, for example, the KaZaA window showing the files on the user's hard-drive. The courts obliged and ordered the ISPs to deliver the personal details of the incriminated users. Then the bills were in the post ... landing on the mats of the unfortunate downloaders over the last few days.

The users are charged about $16 per CD and about $60 per full length movie. If they pay now - and delete the illegal content from their hard drives - then the amount is cut in half and they avoid going to court. Those who don't pay up are to be sued.

Question is: if the APG has only the file names from KaZaA or eDonkey - how can it make sure that they really are illegal files and not only "similar named files" or hoax files? Can APG prove that is the work of a certain user in a household - or will it go for the entire family?

We'll keep you posted ... ®

Kasper Larsen is the founder of Klarisma.com, a specialist in data mining, statistics and optimizing the development of advanced Web user interfaces.


(Ref: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28286.html)

For a while ppl in Europe thought they were exempt from these kinds of tactics but uh uh...it's one world after all.

It certainly is one world of p2p, and I am afraid we will see many similar attacks against the users of big open p2p networks in the near future. The copyright nazis are digging their own grave with this kind of actions but they will still be dangerous for a good while.

- tg ;)

This strikes me all too easily as bullyboy threats
If they were so sure of their ground they wouldn’t hesitate in prosecution as the ultimate deterrent so why the deal over charges It's because they have no real proof and are relying on the fear factor to panic users into wiping their hard drives

The easiest defence is for everyone in the household to deny and blame each other, without a specific suspect their screwed. You can't prosecute several people on the pretext that one of them committed a crime


This only goes to prove that there isn't a level to which they will not stoop in order to intimidate the public p2p is exploding and has to win by shear weight of numbers in the end

Hopefully this IS the final thrashing of a terminally wounded beast and the end of any global monopoly can't come too soon.

Don't get me wrong I'm not against the industry per say it's the nature of their current business tactics that is so abhorrent to me

A good post, Zardoz, and I agree with your conclusions. There is still a place for music industry but not for this kind of monopoly that stubbornly refuses to listen to the wishes of their customers but harasses them instead.

Welcome to Napsterites! :beer:

- tg ;)

Not exactly! they will just charge the owner of the PC if nobody speaks up. This isn't the U.S. legal system where you can blame it on your house cat for legal defense:RS: