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Lawyer Banned for Threatening File-Sharers
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:21 PM
from the your-uppance-has-come dept.
from the your-uppance-has-come dept.
S. Hare brings us a report from TorrentFreak about a lawyer working for a Swiss anti-piracy group who was recently given a 6-month ban for her attempts to intimidate file-sharers though letters threatening fines and court fees. Elizabeth Martin demanded 400 Euros each from "hundreds of thousands of file-sharers," and suggested that they would have to face large settlements if they did not comply. The Paris Bar Council took exception to this and instituted the ban. Martin worked for Logistep, a company who has had trouble following laws in the past.
"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."
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[+]
Anti-Piracy Group Violates Swiss Law to Track File Sharing 95 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Another fight appears to be brewing in Switzerland over how file sharers are identified. Logistep, a company that specializes in anti-piracy by collecting computer evidence against file sharers for use in lawsuits, seems to have taken an end run around Swiss law in order to try and settle cases out of court. 'Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said. The IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered "personal" information. In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.'"
Submission: Lawyer Barred for Threatening Filesharers by Anonymous Coward
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Do the same to RIAA and its lawyers (Score:2, Insightful)
balless bars (Score:2, Insightful)
Also I wonder if anyone who received the letter could sue?
Re:balless bars (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawyers are not charged with enforcing the law. They are charged with bending it to their own purposes, should that be getting an innocent man out of jail or extorting money from large amounts of people.
Parent
Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Not true. (Score:5, Funny)
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Couldn't be more wronger (Score:5, Funny)
It should be, um, large numbers of people.
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6 month ban seems rather lite.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is only another situation that shows there is no position a human can hold that prevents him from committing some deception against others.
It is because of such evidence that some positions of power should be eliminated or have built-in checks that would at least require wide scope and unlikely collusion to perform.
Especially those positions of initiating war.
Re:6 month ban seems rather lite.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that this SHOULD be grounds for disbarment or worse. Of course, I am not a lawyer but if I used my knowledge of computers to scare payments out of people I would probably go to jail or have a huge fine. Then the company I work for would find out and I would be fired ASAP.
How is this different? Isn't this some kind of extortion? Someone please clue me in.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
she has the means and the power to make that incredibly difficult for everyone involved.
It would be like a police officer trying to arrest another police officer. It would take a heck of a lot more than just one officer's statement to allow something like that to go through.
Re:6 month ban seems rather lite.... (Score:5, Funny)
FROM THE DESK OF
MR,CHARLES BOSAH
MUTUAL TRUST LAWYERS & COMPANY
HEAD QUATERS BRANCH
VICTORIA ISLAND,
LAGOS-NIGERIA.
DEAR FRIEND,
My name is DR CHARLES OBOSAH, INTERNAL AUDITOR MUTUAL TRUST LAWYERS & COMPANY. I am writing in respect of a fee which you are owing to a customer of our bank Mr.JONATHAN GHUNIAM.
Since the fee has been outstanding fdor some time now, we must regretfully commence action upon you according to the laws of our country which would see you personally liable for a sum of up to US$9..5m (Nine Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) or a jail sentence of up to 424 years (Four Hundred Twenty Four years)
On this note, I decided that the late payment of said fee is a small matter to you, and should you wish to enter into communications with me for payment of said sum, we can arrange to close this matter if you will deposit $400 into the account via Western Union to the account described within the next 7 days.
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this business is hitch free safe and legal. we have to hire an attorney who will protect you legally,and for benefit of doubt position you as the next of kin and beneficiary.that you should not entertain any fear as all modalities for fund transfer can be finalized as soon as possible.
When you receive this letter, kindly send me an e-mail on this mail box including your most confidential telephone/fax numbers and your address for quick communication.
Your Friend
DR CHARLES OBOSAH
Parent
This was her first offense (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What if it's my first offense filesharing copyrighted content?
Somehow I doubt I'll be given a such lenient sentence for the lesser crime.
Re:6 month ban seems rather lite.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that the money was deposited in a private account shows this was nothing more than a mafia style shakedown.
Yes, the legal profession should look after its own, by throwing the book at these crooks. It's in the interests of every honest lawyer in the world that these scammers do hard jail time, and lots of it. Permenant disbarment would seem only the first step. They should never work as lawyers again.
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But it's not in the interests of the vast majority of lawyers, so it won't happen.
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Especially those positions of initiating war.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
Look, I hate the RIAA's tactics as much as anybody and this issue seems like it was taken from their playbook, but we need to very carefully consider what we're doing before we tell somebody they wasted tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars going to law school and take their livelihoods from them. At the very least, I don't think a second chance is out of line.
Further, what they seem to be citing her for is overstating the se
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no way for those punishing her to know if any money was stolen. She isn't cooperating. From TFS above:
Goes Beyond Copyrights... (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine had a kid sister who got in with some bad friends, and was involved in some apparent shop lifting shenanigans at the local mall. She never stole anything, but her friends did, and this was made pretty clear with store management, so nothing ever came of it.
A few months later they get a letter from a law firm in Tennessee (they live in Canada), threatening to sue unless they turned over $500. My friend's family was quite intimidated, and was even ready to fork over the cash until I wrote them a letter for them in response. I basically told them to fuck off, and that if they wanted to pursue charges we would see them in court.
The knew full well that there isn't a lick of evidence that my friend's sister ever stole anything, they also know that there's no fricking way they're going to go through all the trouble of getting a local (Canadian) law firm to sue. It was all one big scare tactic.
And people wonder why lawyers are so hated.
Re:Goes Beyond Copyrights... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and just as a note... My friend's family did hear back from them after another month. This time they reduced their demand to $100. What a load of crock, this is basically them saying "we know we have no case, but can we pleeeeeeease have some money now?". Once again, I told them to fuck off. We have not heard from them since (it's been almost 2 years now).
I really wish I could file a complaint somewhere against these people. They are nothing but the lowest form of scum on Earth, as bad as any racketeering mafioso out there. IMHO sending letters like these should be grounds for a very quick disbar.
Oh, and FYI, they threatened to pursue CRIMINAL charges (since nothing of value was actually stolen). This would've been laughable, since there's no evidence she stole anything, and even if convicted her record would've been expunged in only a couple of years. Nice threat, jackasses.
Parent
Interesting bit of law ... (Score:2)
I would think that there'd be similar Federal or State law here in the U.S. Not that it would matter: copyright law is so screwed up here that when the RIAA says you might go down for hundreds of thousands of dollars they actually aren't lying. Not about that, anyway.
pay me now! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:pay me now! (Score:5, Funny)
Whats your account number, social security, and birth date? I'll transfer it into your account.
Parent
Why just banned? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is she being treated more lightly just because she's a lawyer?
Re:Value (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever heard of Linux? Jackass. Go back under your bridge.
Parent
Re:Value (Score:5, Insightful)
To the latter bunch I say, go find something you are better at and stop wasting time and resources.
If the speed of communications has got faster, and people want a faster pace of progress, then the length of all these monopolies should be getting shorter and shorter, not longer and longer. In the old days it takes a long time for a book (or other work) to get from an author to people (takes time for people to get to know about the book, and for payment to reach the author etc). Now I believe it should be much faster if you are doing things right.
Parent
Re:Value (Score:5, Interesting)
In much writing things are still going to take a while. Peer review takes time, because peer reviewers have busy lives. Doing fine typesetting is still a laborious task (yes, computers help, but you still have to painstakingly tweak their output).
Still, for some forms of entertainment, things do move fast, and once things are out they can be quickly duplicated. But in fact, they have always moved fast and copyright was an unnatural innovation forced into the the market only a few hundred years ago. In Ancient Rome, for instance, people would transcribe poetry recitals, have copies mass-produced by a team of amanuenses, and then sell it in the marketplace. No one seems to have had a problem with this lightning-speed duplication and sale of material. In his Epigrams [amazon.com] , the poet Martial complains only that someone else was putting his own name on his poems, but he had no problem with people profiting from the poetry itself, even if he didn't see a dime. The arts flourished even without copyright.
The digital era has brought nothing new in many respects. Art just fine existed before copyright, and we should dismantle it now because it will exist after copyright.
Parent
Re:Value (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK the copyright term stuff is _after_ publication. So if you're not done yet, don't publish.
My point was nowadays, after you publish, you should be able to get word out really quickly. Just some emails to your friends linking to your "teaser material" and word will soon get around, especially if you didn't actually produce crap. Or your crap is so crap that it "wrapped round to great" - just look at some of the "internet phenoms"
If the teaser material is all you've managed to produce, perhaps you should just do it as a hobby and get different job.
Wouldn't it be great if my employer paid me for the next 100 years just because I created one piece of work? It might be cushy for me, but I doubt this sort of thing benefits society, especially if it means nobody else can use that piece of work or a close derivative without my permission for the next 100 years. I think that's very wrong.
Lastly, someone else putting name on your work = plagiarism, which is something different from copying since it involves lying.
A copyright term of even just 7 years should be ok. Microsoft will still get money from XP, but they'd then have to make something much better than Vista, since people could use Win2K instead.
If they don't like it, I'm sure Apple or IBM will happily step up to take their place.
Parent
Re:Value (Score:5, Informative)
In much writing things are still going to take a while. Peer review takes time, because peer reviewers have busy lives. Doing fine typesetting is still a laborious task (yes, computers help, but you still have to painstakingly tweak their output).
All of that is absolutely NOTHING compared to the days when goods were carried by horse, typesetting involved blocks of metal, strips of lead, and a hammer, and a printing press' speed was measurable in seconds per page.
At that time, marketing was primarily word of mouth and equally slow to produce print ads in entirely local papers (no such thing as buying a national ad). The time between an author completing a work and having it ready for printing was measured in years. Still more years would pass between publishing and mots potentially interested buyers hearing of a work's existance.
At that time, in spite of the long lead time to market, 28 years was considered adequate time on a copyright.
By contrast, these days, the time between an author completing a work and it being bulk printed and marketed to all potential buyers is measurable in months. In spite of that, we seem to think a copyright measured in lifetimes is needed.
It's especially a travesty in software where a 28 year old program is of historical interest at best (more likely forgotten entirely).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"Peer review" refers to scientific writing, and specifically to research papers. Is copyright actually significant to those ? From what I've understood, the authors actually have to pay to get their papers published, so it seems to me that having them spread for free would help, not hinder, the scientists.
Re:Typesetting isn't hard anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:2)
I estimate Desktop Publishing has increased the output of a normal typesetter at least twentyfold (not to mention the ease of error correction you get with a computer!).
Re: (Score:2)
This is going quite off-topic, but it's always night to talk with other TeX afficionados.
Sometimes you can't. For example, I recently typeset a manuscript where a paragraph consisted of little more than phonetic transcriptions in IPA, which don't hyphenate. It took me a long while to figure out a way around the overfull \hbox.
The hyphenation files for any language don't handle more obscure proper names.
Re:Value (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It would also be interesting to see whether some of the threatened people are willing to take civil action...
Re:Value (Score:4, Funny)
I produce shit, and since you seem to eat shit, it is valuable to you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Linguists dropped prescriptivism a century ago, and English speakers are often proud of the fact that they have no body directing usage like e.g. the Academie Francaise. Your ranting about what is correct English isn't going to change anything and you'd have peace of mind if you
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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The Shakespeare thing does not cut it... you might want to try actually reading the thread before you make such outrageous claims. Shakespeare was not around in the "last couple of hundred years", which I clearly stated was the period under discussion.
So, really. I am serious. If you
Re:To illiterate poster below my normal threshold: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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However, the beauty of English over many other languages is that it is still possible to massacre grammar and spelling and still be perfectly understandable.
True, but unless you're deliberately massacring the grammar and spelling for poetic or satirical reasons, what you say will come across weakly and reflect intellectual sloppiness. You and CRCulver may not like it but one of the insights from the 20th Century is Marshall McLuhan's observation that "The medium is the message". A sloppily written post doesn't carry as much weight as a gramatically correct one.
do u get it? lolz
Re:To illiterate poster below my normal threshold: (Score:4, Informative)
For the editors I have no mercy, however: they are paid professionals and should get their spelling and grammar right. And avoid dupes!
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Re:Banned from torrent freak? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:From the Summery... (Score:5, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Caroline-Migros-p1000507.jpg [wikipedia.org]
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Switzerland is a neutral country, that means they'll have to stand on their own feet when it comes to (military) conflict.
The only thing that makes this difficult is they're a small country, otherwise they are quite ready for defence.
Re:From the Summery... (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm reminded of a joke i was once told. during WW2, hitler spoke to a swiss national saying, "y'know, there are only 500,000 people in your entire country. i've got a million people in my army. what do you think will happen if i just decide to walk right in?" to which the swiss person replied, "well
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I don't think we have to wonder who is meant by "foreign"