CYBERSPACE — A German entertainment company seems to have hit upon a novel way of increasing revenue: Threaten people with lawsuits unless they pay up for copyright infringement they swear they knew nothing about.Tales of woe have been circulating on Slyck.com and TorrentFreak for quite some time, but the British media began to take the matter seriously when a Hertfordshire couple in their 60s received a threatening letter from London law firm Davenport Lyons. The letter demanded £503 pounds on behalf of DigiProtect, a German company the firm said suffered revenue loss when the couple downloaded from a file-sharing website one of two gay porn videos it owns.
The problem? The couple doesn’t have internet access.
“We were offended by the title of the film [Army Fuckers],” the unnamed couple told The Guardian. “We don’t do porn — straight or gay — and we can’t do downloads. We have to ask our son even to do an iTunes purchase.”
Based on conversations with others in similar circumstances and the large number of complaints on Slyck and TorrentFreak, The Guardian estimated as many as 25,000 letters about the two films and several video games may have been sent by the London barristers. If all the recipients paid up, The Guardian noted, the take would equal more than £12.5 million.
One Southampton solicitor has taken up the cause of the allegedly unjustly accused.
“Owners of films, music and computer games obviously have to protect their rights and prevent illegal copying. Otherwise everyone would get all sorts of content for free,” Michael Coyle told The Guardian. “But many of these letters have been sent to people who have no idea what a download is. We’ve had straight pensioners complain, and a mother who had the shock of having to question her 14-year-old son about gay porn because he was the only apparent user of the internet connection that was registered to her.”
Coyle said he questions the amount of money the law firm is demanding.
“In one case, Davenport Lyons wanted £500 for a £20 game,” he said. “The alleged file-sharing would have cost only about £50. The rest is legal costs.”
He also thinks something is squirrelly with the methods used to identify the offending computers.
“All they do is find the internet connection, demand the service provider reveal the name and address, and then send out a letter demanding cash,” Coyle told The Guardian. “But the technology is flawed. It is easy to hijack a wireless router, especially in a built-up area or a block of flats, so it is never clear who used what.”
Coyle has been offering defense services to the accused for a flat £50 fee. He said he believes many of the letter recipients have paid the price demanded because they couldn’t afford to mount a significant legal defense in high court.
“My advice is to deny any such request,” he said.
For the most part, Davenport Lyons is mum about the subject.
“We cannot comment on individual cases,” the firm wrote in response to questions from The Guardian. “We represent clients who own valuable rights in copyright material and are legally entitled to protect and enforce such rights against any unlawful infringement. The material was not put on a file-sharing site by our clients.
“We write an initial letter to those suspected of illegal file sharing based on technical information received from our clients. Such procedure is required by court rules. We allow ample opportunity for the recipient to respond, and if they have done nothing wrong they have no reason to be concerned.”
Still, Coyle noted, in one case that went unchallenged DigiProtect was awarded a £16,000 default judgment for alleged copyright infringement of a video game.
