Ares Connect

A German teenager who has been waiting for five years to find out his fate after being caught sharing two songs on a file sharing site has finally been put out of his misery.

The young man was 16 years old when he took advantage of his father’s internet connection to share two music files via a file sharing site. The rightsholders mounted a case against him and demanded 600 Euros in damages for infringements in copyright. The case has been dragged through the German legal system for five years, but the Court finally published its decision this week.

In what could be a landmark decision, although the Court upheld the complaint against the German teenager, it rejected all of the claims against his father on the basis that he neither carried out the file sharing nor authorised it. As a result, the Court fined the young man a paltry 30 Euros per track on the basis they were old and unpopular, and only made available for a very short time.

This decision could well affect future claims by rightsholders seeking massive damages against alleged file sharers as it looks likely that even new tracks will not be worth a huge amount in fines.

After five years of legal wrangling, a German court has finally reached a decision over the fate of a young German who took the decision to share two music tracks on a file sharing site when he was a teenager.

Way back when he was 16 years old, the boy used his father’s internet connection to upload and share the songs, but unfortunately for him, the rightsholders were monitoring illegal file sharing and he was caught out. The rightsholders took him to court and demanded damages of 300 Euros per track.

Following an unbelievable five years of being dragged through the German legal system, the Court decided to reject claims against the teenager’s father and he was cleared of all liability for damages. The complaint against the young man was upheld, but since the two music tracks were old and it could not be proven that they were made available for very long, the Court ruled that only 30 Euros per song was payable in damages.

The Court’s decision will put a great deal of pressure on future astronomical damages claims made against alleged file sharers and it seems likely that even new hits will only be worth a small amount per infringement.

Thousands of unfortunate file sharers have recently been hit by a new scam seeking to take advantage of the unscrupulous methods used to great success by law firms such as ACS:Law.

Scammers have been sending out thousands of emails asking for cash in return for dropping an alleged file sharing lawsuit. On the face of it, the emails appear to be entirely legitimate. They refer to a known German law firm and claim to be acting on behalf of a well-known copyrights holder, Videorama GmBH, and they also cite various pieces of relevant law to great effect. The unfortunate recipient is warned that if they do not pay the 100 Euro fine, the alleged charges against them will be escalated and they could face all kinds of terrible consequences.

To anyone who is not in the know, the emails would at first glance be truly scary, but as in the case of the ACS:Law letters, there is absolutely no substance to the claims. Thankfully, the police are now investigating the scam and the domain associated with the emails has been shut down, but it seems likely that this will not be the last we hear of this particular scam.

After unwary customers were sent millions of letters demanding cash in return for dropping alleged file sharing law suits, scammers have apparently now jumped on the band wagon and decided to claim their share of the cash pot.

Emails, sent very much in the style of letters used by the notorious ACS:Law, all accuse the recipient of illegally using their internet connection to share files. At first glance, the emails appear to come from a legitimate German law firm representing a known copyright holder, and for those who are unfamiliar with all the recent publicity surrounding the likes of ACS:Law, the emails will probably seem entirely genuine. The emails even cite various German laws and a recent case involving a man who was forced to pay a fine after his son downloaded music files.

And just like the ACS:Law letters, the recipient is encouraged to pay a “fine” in return for making the “law suit” go away.

Since the scam has come to light, police have opened an investigation and the domain used by the scammers to convince file sharers that the emails are legitimate has been shut down. Hopefully, now that the scam has been brought to the public’s attention, these nefarious emails will dupe nobody else.

A court bid by the four top players in the music industry failed on Monday and the controversial “3 strikes” rule has been tossed out of the window. The record companies had been trying to establish a legal precedent that forces Internet Service Providers to cut of Internet connections to those who have already been given three warnings about file sharing activity.

The court case follows an appeal by Ireland’s largest Internet Service provider, UPC, after it was hit by an injunction forcing it to block access to The Pirate Bay—a well known filesharing website currently fighting a court battle of its own.

After much consideration, the judge has now ruled that any law that threatens customers with disconnection of their Internet connection following three warnings, it not enforceable. This landmark ruling it not only seen as a victory for the ISP, it also strikes a blow against the anti piracy movement. It could also have repercussions in the UK since the Digital Economy Act is trying to use similar methods of tracking and warning customers who download files from Internet file sharing sites.

Representatives from the record companies at the heart of the court case have already expressed their disappointment at the ruling.

Despite attempts by four of the world’s largest record companies to establish a legal precedent that penalises illegal file sharers, their Irish high court bid failed on Monday and the controversial “three strikes” rule has been thrown out. Unsurprisingly, representatives for the music industry have denounced the move as a “setback for the Irish music business”.

Striking a blow against the anti piracy movement, the Irish Judge at the centre of the case ruled that laws enabling anyone who was found to have illegally downloaded files from the Internet to be disconnected after three warnings were not enforceable in Ireland.

The ruling came after UPC, Ireland’s third largest broadband provider, took the decision to appeal against an injunction to force it to block access to the notorious filesharing website, The Pirate Bay—currently fighting court battles of its own. The ISP deemed this judgement as a victory for its 150,000 customers who have been shown to take advantage of filesharing websites.

The ruling by the Irish courts could also complicate matters in the UK, as the equally controversial Digital Economy Act is trying to use similar methods to identify and subsequently customers who download files from the Internet.

The new music file sharing application known as Mulve first appeared in early September and within a very short space of time, news of it spread like wildfire across the Internet, leading to the site crashing as more than 30,000 visitors hit the site in one day.

However, although the site soon came back online again following some upgrades, within days it had once again disappeared. Unfortunately, this disappearance was rather more ominous and the prognosis was not so good. It now turns out that UK police have arrested the Mulve site operators following legal action by RIAA lawyers.

At the moment, it has not been publicly revealed what exactly the Mulve operators are being accused of, but most industry experts are seeing this latest development as ridiculous. The Mulve site only acted as a search engine. It simply allowed users to search for music tracks hosted on servers owned by Russia’s largest social networking site. It could be argued that Apple iTunes does exactly the same thing, which suggests that any potential conviction is likely to be shaky at best, so we can therefore look forward to further embarrassment for the anti-piracy contingent.

A new music file sharing application known as Mulve recently appeared on the Internet to rave reviews, but this week, the site unexpectedly vanished into the ether following legal action by lawyers working for the RIAA.

Mulve first came to the attention of file sharers back in September and early reports were very positive. The application was designed to enable users to search for music tracks from a database of more than 10 million files, all of which were located on servers owned by Russia’s largest social networking site. Unsurprisingly, Mulve soon attracted lots of users and within a short time the site had crashed due to unprecedented demand.

Once the site owners has sorted out a few issues, it came back online, but it soon disappeared again under more ominous circumstances. Reports are now emerging that police in the UK have arrested the Mulve operators, although the grounds for arrest have yet to be revealed.

Most rational folks are seeing this latest development as absolutely ludicrous. Mulve did not host music on its servers—it only acted as a search engine in much the same was as Apple iTunes does, which suggests that grounds for conviction are shaky at best.

ACS:Law has been in headlines a great deal of late, mainly for its dubious methods of targeting file sharers with bullying letters. The company has made millions by threatening people with lawsuits for alleged illegal downloads of copyright protected films.

However, this time, the company hit the headlines for a very different reason. As a result of a co-ordinated DDoS attack on its website, ACS:Law not only saw its website go down in a matter of minutes, it also managed to release a huge amount of confidential data on to the internet through a botched attempt to bring the website back online. The DDoS attack known as ‘Operation Payback’ not only crashed the ACS:Law website, it caused the entire company database of confidential emails and client contact details to be released by hackers on to the infamous file sharing website, The Pirate Bay.

In the aftermath of the attack, this information has been decoded and gleefully copied in juicy snippets all over the Internet. But not only is principle lawyer and owner of ACS:Law now a laughing stock, he is also facing an investigation by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) following the breach of confidential data in direct contravention of the Data Protection Act. This is on top of the investigation into his professional conduct.

ACS:Law has been the butt of acrimonious headlines in the last week following an attack by anonymous users of various Internet forums. The operation was designed to take down the company’s website as an act of revenge for the much hated ACS:Law methods of extracting money from mostly innocent people on trumped up file-sharing law suits. The DDoS attack was christened ‘Operation Payback-revenge is sweet’.

If losing his website was not bad enough, Andrew Crossley, principle lawyer and head of ACS:Law, faced further embarrassment when, through an amazing act of incompetence, the website was restored following the cyber attack and the entire database of company emails and client contact details was inadvertently leaked.

Hackers have since posted many of the juicy details in various forums all over the web and critics have taken great delight picking over the remains of Andrew Crossley’s business. To make matters worse, as well as facing an investigation into his tactics of sending out thousands of letters to alleged file sharers, he is now facing a huge backlash over the data leak as it represents a breach of the Data Protection act. Since the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is now looking into the matter, Mr Crossley could well end up on the wrong side of expensive legal action—the irony of which will not be lost on his many victims.