[tor-talk] Legal problems: TOR relay & Torrents in .de

[Nick Sheppard]

On 16/02/13 15:04, Joe Btfsplk wrote:
>
> On 2/16/2013 6:44 AM, Nick Sheppard wrote:
>> On 04/02/13 12:33, Hendrik Neumann wrote:
>>>
>>> I've been running an exit node from my home network for ca. a year or
>>> so. Now I've receviced mail from 21st Century Fox's lawyers in Germany
>>> accusing me of torrenting a movie. Since all I offer via Torrent are
>>> some old PC-BSD-ISOs and "House on Haunted Hill", I'm pretty sure it
>>> must have been a user from the TOR network.
>>>
>>
>> Hi Hendrik,
>> ....
>> Second, this immediate demand for money.  In my experience, real
>> lawyers work much more slowly than this (after all, they can charge
>> for every letter they write).  First one or two demands that you stop
>> what you're doing, then a threat of eventual legal action, and so on.
>> If they want to build a case against you that will stand up in court,
>> they would usually have to show that you were given fair warning, and
>> then wilfully and knowingly persisted in your evil-doing for a
>> substantial time.
> Nick, you could be right about a scam - at least warrants some
> consideration.  But in many countries, if one breaks an actual LAW,
> there's no *requirement* for anyone to give the accused any "warning" or
> Cease & Desist Letter, before filing civil or criminal charges.  In
> civil law issues, they MIGHT give a warning (like to take down
> copyrighted material from a website), but they certainly wouldn't be
> required to, if they can prove you broke laws & if the damages allowed
> by local law / courts for a given offense, make it worthwhile to file a
> law suit.  If it's legit, they either have enough evidence or they don't.
>
Hi Joe,

Of course you're right, and I could easily be making the wrong 
assumptions about the regulatory regime where Hendrik is.

*****************************************************************
Repeat disclaimer:  I'm not a lawyer.  Don't rely on me in court!
*****************************************************************

At this distance from the facts, all I can really do is point out 
possibilities, suggest lines of enquiry, and offer encouragement.

There has been one interesting development.  The Google search for 
'ipoque GmbH 21st Century Fox' (time set to 'past year') that gave no 
results yesterday now gives four hits.  One is my own post.  The others 
are in German and do seem relevant:

http://anwaltstipps.recht-gehabt.de/markenrecht-urheberrecht/abmahnung-prometheus-dunkle-zeichen.php

seems to be describing Hendrik's situation exactly - so it MAY be 
genuine; and the other (duplicated) hit is:

http://www.abmahnung-urheberrechtsverletzung.de/News/Waldorf_Frommer_Abmahnung_Twentieth_Century_Fox_The_Sessions_-_Wenn_Worte_beruehren

which (I think) offers advice about the same situation.  I'm relying on 
very rusty school German and Google Translate, which is not a lot of 
help!  I certainly can't judge whether those sites are genuine.

I have no idea why these two didn't show up in my search yesterday - I 
was searching in all languages. Maybe Google's search engines were 
prompted by that to cast their net a little wider?

Any use, Hendrik?

Nick Sheppard