GoldenEye international - nice little scam going!

[psychocandy]

Deny, if the worst comes to the worst and they persue it, replace the hard drive. Doubt very much whether any of this goes to court.

This is just a scam with a wafer thin veneer of legality.

Why replace the hard drive? They're not really going to get a court order to snatch your drive and perform forensic retrieval are they?

This is how their business plan works. The owner of GoldenEye has even admitted there is more money doing this than they ever made making and selling porn.

They tried the exact same thing a few years ago and it all got kicked out. Pretty sure solicitor got struck off for getting involved. Looks like they fancy another tilt.

But heres how it works:-

1.They stick up a torrent and harvest a list of IPs.
2. They get court order, and take their list to ISPs.
3. ISPs give them DHCP logs (To be fair, do you trust ISP list to be that accurate?) GE dont care though - plenty of people get these letters and never ever use torrents.
4. These letters go out. GE know a certain % will pay up no questions so they dont need to ever to go to court.

Think about, you wake up one morning, theres a letter on the mat telling you you've been caught downloading porn and £500 will make it go away. How many fellas (or women) will think - sod that I dont want the mrs to find out. And then pay up. A LOT and GE know this. Because its porn.

If you offer a reasonable denial, then they are unlikey to come after you. Too many easy targets where its one or two letters and easy money. They know its impossible to prove anything.

Theres also the question of damages. The figure they come up with is totally made up of course. Nothing agreed with a court. Even if you're bang to rights all they can ever claim for is lost income because you pirated a copy.

(BTW - over the years have had 3/4 of these type of letters. Not all for porn I might add!

[Pondlife]

Maybe your next sockie should be monkeyspanky.

[psychocandy]

2nd letter this time around from these jokers. Apparently, estimates are 25-40% of people cough up. Going rate it seems is £350. Nice little earner indeed.

Won't be getting any money off me that's for sure.

[happyboylouis]

Got a letter

Hi,

I First got a letter from Sky saying my details have been forward to Golden eye in november 2015 for downloads and that I may get a letter from them.

Now today on the 6/12/16, I got a actually 3 letter from them all at once. They said the sent out a letter in 1/9/16 which I never received and so I could not replied too. The current letter dated 14/11/16 says I didn't respond to the orgiinal letter and have 28 day to reply back to them which is late, I have like 5 day to reply back to them now or they will issue court proceeding against me unless I reply or settle £500 before then.

The 3rd letter is a settlement form which says.

I need to pay up £500. it also states in addition.

'If it subsequently comes to light that further infringements have been committed by in the future, we reserve the right to pursue you seperately for any such infringements.

in addition to payment of £500, you also undertake as follows:
1. not to upload, download, nake availableor otherwise share: Film %^%b works and/or permit others to do the same using your internet connection, at any time in the future, either from your IP address as set out in our letter of 1/9/16 or any other; and

2. delete any copies of the works (and other intellectual property of Golden eye or Immoral Productions LLc) from your hard drive and /or operating system and/or any copies saved to disk (or media), other than those which where purchased by you from legitimate source: and

3. To kkep strictly secret and confidential the terms of this settlement agreement and any sum paid in accordance with these undertakings.

I look foward to receiving your cheque within 7 days. Please quote your reference no. etc or transfer to our bank account.Please sign'.'

Has any one received this kind of letter yet? and what have you done about it?

I will deny it, besides theres nothing on my hard drive.

What will happen? if I do not pay up?

I will contact the Citizen advice bureau and get some legal advice before replying to them.

[Mordac]

Hi,

I First got a letter from Sky saying my details have been forward to Golden eye in november 2015 for downloads and that I may get a letter from them.

Now today on the 6/12/16, I got a actually 3 letter from them all at once. They said the sent out a letter in 1/9/16 which I never received and so I could not replied too. The current letter dated 14/11/16 says I didn't respond to the orgiinal letter and have 28 day to reply back to them which is late, I have like 5 day to reply back to them now or they will issue court proceeding against me unless I reply or settle £500 before then.

The 3rd letter is a settlement form which says.

I need to pay up £500. it also states in addition.

'If it subsequently comes to light that further infringements have been committed by in the future, we reserve the right to pursue you seperately for any such infringements.

in addition to payment of £500, you also undertake as follows:
1. not to upload, download, nake availableor otherwise share: Film %^%b works and/or permit others to do the same using your internet connection, at any time in the future, either from your IP address as set out in our letter of 1/9/16 or any other; and

2. delete any copies of the works (and other intellectual property of Golden eye or Immoral Productions LLc) from your hard drive and /or operating system and/or any copies saved to disk (or media), other than those which where purchased by you from legitimate source: and

3. To kkep strictly secret and confidential the terms of this settlement agreement and any sum paid in accordance with these undertakings.

I look foward to receiving your cheque within 7 days. Please quote your reference no. etc or transfer to our bank account.Please sign'.'

Has any one received this kind of letter yet? and what have you done about it?

I will deny it, besides theres nothing on my hard drive.

What will happen? if I do not pay up?

I will contact the Citizen advice bureau and get some legal advice before replying to them.

Tell them to do one. Read the previous responses on this thread, they don't have a legal argument, they are simply threatening you and others in the expectation that a percentage will cough up. They will have the devils own job proving what your IP address was in November 2015 and what you actually downloaded. It won't go to court, because they know they're very likely to lose, and have to pay your costs. A 12 year old can spoof an IP address these days, and if they don't already know that, they soon will when (more accurately if) they ever do end up in court.

[LondonManc]

Tell them to do one. Read the previous responses on this thread, they don't have a legal argument, they are simply threatening you and others in the expectation that a percentage will cough up. They will have the devils own job proving what your IP address was in November 2015 and what you actually downloaded. It won't go to court, because they know they're very likely to lose, and have to pay your costs. A 12 year old can spoof an IP address these days, and if they don't already know that, they soon will when (more accurately if) they ever do end up in court.

Correct. Even if they could prove what your router's IP address was, can they prove that you were in control of the device that allegedly downloaded whatever artistic material is was that they claimed you accessed? If you had taken off security to allow for network testing, anyone within reach of your network could have accessed it. I can still access my network from my friend's house across the street.

[Mordac]

Just as an afterthought, if it ever went to court they would have to explain how they managed to harvest the IP addresses. They can only realistically do this if they have access to the filesharing server(s) logs.
In short, they would have to admit it was them who uploaded the porno in the first place, which means if they offered up the file, they can hardly complain if someone actually downloads it. Secondly, isn't it still illegal to distribute porn on the internet from within the UK in such a way that under 18's could potentially access it? Even if it isn't, a judge is quite likely to take a very dim view.
In summary then, they can't realistically prove who actually downloaded a file they placed on the internet in the first place, and the act of placing it there is possibly illegal, certainly questionable. Which way do you reckon that judgement is likely to go?

[sbakoola]

I remember Ben Dover and his poorer cousin Neil Down who was the Neil Diamond to Ben Dover's Tom Jones.

[LondonManc]

Just as an afterthought, if it ever went to court they would have to explain how they managed to harvest the IP addresses. They can only realistically do this if they have access to the filesharing server(s) logs.
In short, they would have to admit it was them who uploaded the porno in the first place, which means if they offered up the file, they can hardly complain if someone actually downloads it. Secondly, isn't it still illegal to distribute porn on the internet from within the UK in such a way that under 18's could potentially access it? Even if it isn't, a judge is quite likely to take a very dim view.
In summary then, they can't realistically prove who actually downloaded a file they placed on the internet in the first place, and the act of placing it there is possibly illegal, certainly questionable. Which way do you reckon that judgement is likely to go?

Isn't that borderline entrapment, or a complete collapse of the case even, if they're putting their own videos on a file sharing site?

[Paddy]

Isn't that borderline entrapment, or a complete collapse of the case even, if they're putting their own videos on a file sharing site?

Having a nose around it seems like Immoral Productions put out honey traps for people to download their movies and then capture their IPs. They make their money by pseudo copyright infringements. Considering their movies are sold as $1 per download, damages for breach of copyright would be minimal if any.

It is definite entrapment and I doubt that any UK solicitor would want to represent them.

Interesting doc
http://goldeneyeint.com/Tobias%20Fie...itness%201.pdf