A lawyer who sent out hundreds of thousands of threatening letters demanding that alleged file-sharers pay 400 euros, has been banned from operating for 6 months. Elizabeth Martin, who had been working with Swiss anti-piracy outfit, Logistep, was condemned by the Paris Bar Council.

For anti-piracy company, Logistep, life is becoming more and more difficult by the day. They have been deemed to be operating illegally in Italy and have been slammed over privacy issues in the home country, Switzerland. Now, according to a report - and to add further insult to this growing pile of misery - a lawyer they’ve been working with in France has just found herself in an awful lot of trouble.

Lawyer Elizabeth Martin had been demanding 400 Euros from hundreds of thousands of file-sharers who Logistep say had been infringing the rights of software company Techland, on their game ‘Call of Juarez’.

In her letters she warned alleged file-sharers that should it be necessary to take anyone to court, the costs would be substantial. File-sharers were also led to believe that should they be found guilty, they would not only be responsible for their own costs, but those of the other side - with an indication that the decision against them would mount to “hundreds of thousands of euros”.

Of course, none of these letters are complete without some threats and intimidation. Elizabeth Martin - just like the UK’s Davenport Lyons - finishes up with with a threat totally disproportionate to any petty copyright offense. “If you are not able to pay the damages ordered by the court, our client will seek to gain the amount by the sale of your goods”.

This wording is very similar to other letters received all across Europe, including those received from UK lawyers Davenport Lyons, who are also working with Logistep in exactly the same manner. Their version is “In the event that you were not able to pay whatever sums the court may direct, our client would have no option but to take steps to enforce the debt against your property.”

Unfortunately for Elizabeth Martin, it’s not just the general public who are disgusted by her actions. She has been the subject of a Conseil de l’Ordre du Barreau de Paris disciplinary investigation - and subsequent condemnation - by none other than her own peers. How embarrassing.

The disciplinary board decided that “By choosing to reproduce aggressive foreign methods, intended to force payments, the interested party also violated [the code] which specifies that the lawyer cannot unfairly represent a situation or seriousness of threat.”

In addition, the lawyer also violated the code by cashing payments into a private account, not the usual dedicated litigation account, known as a ‘Carpa’. Martin also refused to reveal how many payments had been received from file-sharers.

For these serious breaches, Elizabeth Martin was ordered by the disciplinary board to suspend her activities as a lawyer for 6 months. Furthermore, she was banned from belonging to the National Council of the Bars (CNB) and other such professional associations for a period of 10 years.

Thanks to Ganza

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Lawyer Who Threatened File-Sharers is Banned For 6 months

For most people, Sweden and BitTorrent equals The Pirate Bay. There is more though, Headweb, a new online movie store now offers over 500 authorized and DRM-free movies, which can be downloaded via BitTorrent. True to the BitTorrent philosophy, sharing is rewarded.

At the moment Swedish customers will have to use the official Headweb download manager in order to download files, but support for regular BitTorrent clients might be added later.

The downloaded movies can be played with any media player, and are free of DRM. On top of that, the download manager comes with a built in DVD-burner so you can burn the movies onto a disk and play them with any standalone DVD-player.

One of the interesting things about the service is that it rewards people who share their purchases. That is, people get credits for sharing the downloaded files with other Headweb users.

Peter Alvarsson of Headweb told TorrentFreak: “We believe it’s fair to pay for our users’ time and resources and we give credits back to those that upload to other users. The ratio is 1 credit per 10mb which makes it possible to get a free movie after some 50 GB upload.

“We’ve seen that some users are really good at predicting “hot” movies and earn a lot of credits by keeping their clients running after the download has finished,” Peter added. A win-win situation really, the sharing mechanism saves Headweb bandwidth and server resources, and the users get free downloads.

All movies offered by Headweb are DRM-free, which is great, and quite unique for a movie download service. Not surprisingly, they had a hard time convincing the movie studios to offer their content without access restrictions.

“It has taken us nearly 2 years to convince movie studios that DRM-free downloads are the future,” says Peter “We’re not there yet with everyone but we are getting closer. More studios now start to realize that DRM isn’t consumer friendly and that it has to go.”

Several surveys have shown that a lot of people are willing to pay to download movies as long a there is enough content available, and if the files are high quality and thus DRM-free.

Headweb’s users seem to confirm these findings. “We’ve received lot of feedback from people telling us that they would switch to support legal services completely, if only the services had the same selection,” Peter told TorrentFreak.

In the near future, Headweb will be working on more new features, groundbreaking innovations and more content. em toThey are confident that this will enable them to compete with The Pirate Bay.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Legal and DRM-free Movie Torrents from Sweden

After getting an “unbelievably rude letter” from the British Phonographic Industry which demanded that ISPs disconnect file-sharers from the internet, the UK’s third largest ISP, Talk Talk, is in fighting mood. “Talk Talk rejects music industry threats and refuses to become internet police” says their statement.

The BPI has been writing to all the major ISPs just lately, on the subject of unauthorized file-sharing. The BPI wants ISPs to work with them to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the internet. Trouble is, like most music industry bodies, the BPI think that muscle flexing and posturing will get them the results they demand. Not so.

When Rory Cellan-Jones of the BBC went to see Charles Dunstone, CEO of Talk Talk owners Carphone Warehouse, he didn’t find a happy man. Speaking of the BPI, Dunstone said: “They’ve sent us the most unbelievably rude letter” . True to form, the demands from the BPI carried a threat - comply in 14 days or face legal action, something which has not been well received by one of the UK’s richest men. “Talk Talk rejects music industry threats and refuses to become internet police” said a statement.

Dunstone says he won’t tell his customers what they can and can’t do and believes that the BPI is attempting to force him to pay for their failure to adapt to the digital revolution. “The music industry has consistently failed to adapt to changes in technology and now seeks to foist their problems on someone else,” said Dunstone. “Rather than threatening us, the BPI’s time would be better spent facing up to the reality of our times and adapting its business model accordingly.”

Of course, the BPI aren’t just going to leave it at that. Hitting back with a statement of its own it said: “Talk Talk either seek to misrepresent our position or just doesn’t get it.”

The BPI says that it doesn’t want Talk Talk to become the internet police, rather it wants the ISP to act on evidence it supplies about file-sharers. “It’s not true that we are threatening them or asking them to become the internet police” said the BPI. “In fact, what we are looking for is a progressive partnership that will ultimately create new services for their customers. But clearly they must begin to address problems of illegal downloading on their networks.”

Dunstone says he will fight any attempts to force him to cut his customers off from the internet. “I cannot foresee any circumstances in which we would voluntarily disconnect a customer’s account on the basis of a third party alleging a wrongdoing.” he said.

Labeling them as “unreasonable and unworkable”, Talk Talk has responded in writing to the BPI, rejecting their proposals in full.

So, well done to Charles Dunstone - this should further increase your profile and boost Talk Talk’s popularity somewhat. Now, if you could please stop throttling P2P traffic, that would be wonderful. Get in touch - you can break the news here on TorrentFreak…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

ISP Will Protect File-Sharers From Music Industry Disconnection Threat

Virgin Media, the ISP accused of doing a deal with the British Phonographic Industry to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the internet, has denied the reports. Calling such measures “draconian”, Virgin went on to say they raise both privacy and legal issues.

Last week it was reported by The Telegraph that UK ISP Virgin Media had done a deal with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the internet. Now, according to a Computer Active report, Virgin Media is denying it has reached an agreement.

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “There is no pilot in place. There are no details to confirm as we haven’t come to any sort of agreement with the BPI. The BPI wants the Government and ISPs to adopt the three-strikes system, we don’t want to go down to that level as it raises questions about privacy and funding.”

Under the suggested proposals, those caught sharing unauthorized files would be disconnected from the internet, should they fail to heed warnings to stop. Virgin is right to be cautious about privacy issues. Anti-piracy outfit Logistep ran headlong into operating illegally in Italy recently, when it was ruled that they illegally spied on ̢P users.

When quizzed, the BPI said it was unable to talk about its discussions with ISPs: “We can’t talk about the pilot and can’t give out details but we have outlined plans with Virgin and do have a dialogue with them. But there is no confirmation of a pilot.”

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Virgin Media Denies Doing a Deal to Disconnect Pirates