Davenport Lyons going against file sharers

Ulfhedjinn said:
Most people say it's best to ignore the letter unless it's from the court.
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I dunno, looking over at the Slyck forums they seem pretty divided on if you should contact them. I guess it depends if you want to be hassled constantly or not. Some of the people who have ignored them are still getting demands from letters that started back in the middle of 2007.
 
This is from guardian

Piracy battle: principle or promotion?
Lawsuit is UK's biggest anti-piracy move to date.
July 14, 2008 12:26 PM

The first major British battle against computer game piracy is in the docks, according to MCV. Over 100 UK game file sharers, individuals who upload copyright protected materials to p2p networks, are expected to be taken to court by TopWare Interactive, a small development house based in Nevada, USA. This move comes after a successful prosecution of four file-sharers earlier in the month, when the distribution of TopWare's Dream Pinball 3D cost the hapless pirates approximately £690 each.

Unsurprisingly, anti-piracy units are singing like songbirds. The first successful, large-scale sting operation is underway, and this means a strong message is being sent out to would-be UK file sharers.

Yet the affected company is neither a major player, nor is it a UK-based company, and the game at the centre of the hearing is hardly a AAA title. Why is a US-based small fish successful when the legions of top-whack British game producers aren't? A quick peek at an online sharing service shows that other AAA British-developed games are easily accessible; surely Codemasters (for example) has the clout and the cash to track down and prosecute people who've shared Flashpoint or Colin McRae Rally?

Around the blogosphere, there jibes suggesting that TopWare's motive for taking this case to court is actually a publicity stunt. Perhaps the real story is the other way around, and we should be looking at why the large UK companies haven't been successful at cracking down on piracy themselves.
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Oh the irony of people that dishonestly rip off other peoples work moaning that the companies going after them are unreasonable now they've been caught out? ;)

Dolph said:
As for the morality, it's no worse than piracy, it's both chancing your arm on the basis that you won't get caught out or punished ;)
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Nail, hit, head...!
 
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The worst thing imo is that the IP account holder is reponsible for the illegal downloads, can you just imagine all the student houses, where many people could download anything and the person with his name on the bill would be prosecuted, this is uttery rubbish.
 
LOL @ all the keyboard warriors fighting injustice against the gaming industry from their moral high ground.

Funny thread 5* :D
 
OzyOly said:
But it's still wrong. Illegal = wrong mmkay?
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Did you know that according to Apple's own trademark guidelines, not giving a trademark attribution notice when displaying an Apple logo on a non commercial website (like you've done with your sig) can be considered copyright infringment?

Illegal = wrong mmkay


(I'd like to point out however that I don't think either side is 'wrong'. If you download stuff illegally, fine... just be prepared to pay the price if you're caught)
 
Some more research on DL. Main focus on Logistep.

http://techdirt.com/blog.php?company=davenport+lyons
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080318/074818571.shtml
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080129/021823106.shtml
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/25/Antipiracy-group-tactics-violate-Swiss-law_1.html
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=39877&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=d99a13ec32cc51824deb43cef08a1c1f&start=800
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-company-spied-on-thousands-of-p2p-users-080317/
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14785
http://www.itworld.com/antipiracy-tactics-violate-swiss-law-080125
http://www.pcworld.com/article/141857/switzerland_objects_to_antipiracy_groups_tactics.html

I can't seem to find anything about how/if the Swiss data protection official actually went to court against Logistep and what might have become of that. Anyway, what they are doing is illegal, out of the following reason (as I understand the above):

In order to 'spy' on IP addresses etc. you have to have a criminal case first. In any case you need to inform the accused on what you are doing and how that data will be used.
DL file a crimal case first, get the IP and especially your name, then file a civil case, never proceeding the criminal case.

(plus they don't allow auditing at Logistep, so you can always deny their irrefutable proof)

They can't do that in France and Italy any more, the judges ruled clearly against them/their methods. As far as I know the final decision is due in Germany soon, and it doesn't look good at all for DL.

Now the problem is this: since in civil cases there is only a 51% 'believability' necessary to find you guilty in Britain they might actually win these (all I am saying there is a chance)! So in order to stop this hassle once and for all somebody has to file a criminal case against DL, accusing them of violation of data protection act (at least in Switzerland, but my guess is they violated the English law as well), and then they can't win any civil cases any more (if at all until then), because people can just refuse their evidence (actually the only evidence they have) prior to any hearing.

I am definitely going to see a lawyer next week and will go against DL without awaiting their answer on my refusal to pay up. I am only wondering why nobody has done so before?

Btw, just to help the discussion on file-sharing=illegal=huge income loss to games industry=high prices of games=etc.:
There was a very interesting article in the latest Total PC Gaming magazine (issue 9) title 'Can piracy save the PC?'. The answer to that question is the personal view of the author and will not concern me here. More interesting is the game company he cites which has conducted an analysis on how many pirated copies would actually be turned into sold copies if there was no piracy. Russell Carroll of the company Reflexive comes to the conclusion that only one copy in 1000 pirated copies would actually become a real sold copy, despite what game company giants say (claiming 100-500% loss due to piracy). That means 0,1% of all pirated copies would turn into cash for them. I'll just leave it at that.
 
Interesting that people stating piracy is ruining shop sales and the industry as a whole. That suggests every download (of media x) would have been a definite sale. This is the same attitude the IP holding companies have which is where wildly inflated losses to piracy come from.

I'm not either way on the subject, see right and wrong from both sides of the fence, but someone also mentioned the lack of games (in the OPs case it was a game, could be anything) being sold in shops, are they suggesting that piracy stops and PC games flood back into stores and get bought left right and centre? GOOD games will, and a majority of franchise titles, but the crap that is being passed now will still remain unsold, it just won't be played by anyone either.
 
i had a letter from these a few weeks ago saying they were acting on behalf of Atari and were suing me for £505 so i wrote a letter back saying i didnt know what they were talking about i own the game they were speaking of and loads of people use my internet and that it wasnt secured at the time in question due to me not understanding my router.

They finally sent me a letter back basically saying that not understanding my router wasnt a good enough reason and they were awaiting on a reply from atari and that they may get a court order and send someone round to inspect my computers

my question is can they do that ?
 
It could be even considered as some kind of blackmailing, albeit this will not stand it court, but this is basically how I feel.
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It is extortion, and it probably would stand up as that in court as it is rather blatant!

The letter says that you are guilty and must pay them or they will take you to court. You cannot ask someone for money as an alternative to taking them to court. That is the literal definition of extortion.
 
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