Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG-TEK)
While CEG-TEK‘s lawyers do some “classing” copyright trolling, i.e. sue masses in frivolous bittorent lawsuits, this shakedown outfit specializes on sending small amount claims (as small as $200) to its victims and direct them to a payment site. This activity includes pursuing amateur sites that post copyrighted images and other shakedown activities in addition to targeting bittorent users. While this page is an appropriate place to discuss the lawsuits initiated by this troll group, attorney Rob Cashman has by far more expertise when it comes to the small amount claims please read multiple article about CEG-TEK by Rob and inquire advice there.
Trolls
- Ira Siegel (CA)
Terik Hashmi(FL)- Mike Meier (NY)
- Marvin Cable (MA)
- Carroll Law Firm (AZ)
- Matlock Law Group (CA)
CEG-TEK has its own “expert” (not certified, of course) Jon Nicolini.
Relevant posts
- 08/25/2011: Troll Ira Siegel was ordered to disclose how much money he extorted from Does.
- 09/01/2011: Ira Siegel replies to judge’s order, helps me to spread the word.
- 09/07/2011: Judges start to understand the wrongs of “copyright trolling” model.
- 11/25/2011: Copyright troll subspecies: Weretroll (Mike Meier).
- 12/01/2011: Ira Siegel is asked uncomfortable questions once again.
- 12/11/2011: Not enough trouble for Ira Siegel: Digital Rights Foundation files an amicus curiae brief.
- 02/23/2012: Copyright Enforcement Group distances itself from Terik Hashmi.
- 08/20/2012: Another day, another defendant is fighting back.
- 08/25/2012: Attorney Samuel Perkins: Troll Marvin Cable must be stopped, all the 34 of his cases should be dismissed with prejudice.
- 08/27/2012: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne encourages copyright troll victims to file complaints with his office.
- 10/04/2012: Another Massachusetts Judge issues a strong anti-extortion Memorandum and Order.
- 10/09/2012: A motion that made my day.
- 11/07/2012: Judge Leo Sorokin is tired of troll Marvin Cable’s lies, denies ex-parte discovery.
Comments
My settlement date is coming up (no suit or litigation yet)… I won’t say I’m innocent (nor admit guilt)… All I hear is I have nothing to worry about, they are into me for about 13 titles ($2600 to settle now)… advice?
I am not an attorney. But, if all you have received is an email from CEG, that was forwarded by your ISP… DO NOTHING.
If it is a subpoena, then consult an attorney.
It’s a crap shoot. Most people say the CEG doesn’t move past E-Mails but I have seen them do so in the past. I would say if you do decide to settle then don’t do it through the weblink in the email. Don’t even log into the site. I would do so through an attorney that can (likely) get you a blanket settlement for any and all CEG clients and alleged infringements before the settlement date. Depends on your comfort level, how much you have to lose, and if you did it. It sounds like you did so you have to decide if it’s worth the risk of others finding out, if you have assets to lose, etc. Since it’s only $200 per movie now I’m assuming it is just an email with a website link telling you to login and pay. This means an actual lawsuit has not been filed yet.
If it were me, I would do nothing and see if they actually initiate a suit against you (or a doe collective) in the future. If they do, your ISP will have to notify you well in advance of giving out data (unless it’s a fly by night ISP as they aren’t real good about timing). Comcast for example usually notifies you 20+ days in advance. If that were to happen, then I would get an attorney and try to settle before they give your info out. Aain, you want a blanket settlement/release. Be advised though, the settlement amount jumps to around $3000 per movie if they actually initiate a suit, subpoena your ISP, etc.
@anon
Could you keep us up todate on what is happening. I am in the same situation as you only a few weeks behind and would be very interested on how this progresses.
Thanks
I had an attorney settle it for me for $1000 which is fantastic compared to $2600, and I get to remain anonymous! The attorney I used was Billy Joe Mills he is suggested by this site in the Illinois section (actually his associate Ben Kailin did the leg work because Billy is out of the country right now). The law firm is called firmequity and they are located in Chicago. They charged a flat fee of $425 to negotiate a settlement for everything, and if I chose not to settle, they offered to shield me. They were very nice and professional and how it worked in my case was the whole time Ben was negotiating with Ira’s goons, he was back and forth emailing me almost auction style and then I didn’t hear anything for a bit (he did say the guy he was talking to was long winded) but then I got an e-mail saying they agreed to go from 13 cases to 5 cases and now I only owe $1000! They nor I will guarantee these results as typical but legal fees included, I get out of this thing for $1425 and I get to remain anonymous as opposed to originally owing $2600 and risking letting these goons find out who I am. Good Luck to everyone still losing sleep over this.
You are trying to convince yourself an us that you did the right thing giving your wallet to a robber — the one who implied that he had a gun. Well, in the absence of information it would be indeed the right choice. But majority knows that the robber does not have a gun, even a knife, and his muscles are dystrophied from drug abuse. For the god’s sake, it’s not Randazza or even Prenda, it’s CEG! I’m not aware of a single instance of them inflicting any harm to anyone who did not succumb to their threats. This is CEG’s MO: to stay under radar and don’t push hard: there will always be enough people who freak out an pay.
Of course there are people who treat $1000 as a pocket money, but for the overwhelming majority it is a significant amount.
I was mostly paying for peace of mind, like insurance money, more like mob “protection money.” I wouldn’t say the way I handled it is right for everyone by they way, $1400 is about a full 2 week paycheck, but I like to lead a boring risk free life. I know I broke rule #1 when I fed the trolls, but I just wanted to quit worrying. Sorry to disappoint SJD, I don’t mean any disrespect and I really appreciate what you do with this site. I just know that there are others like me that don’t like to take chances even when those chances are less than .01%, and I wanted to share my side to give them peace of mind. Also, I contacted my ISP Charter’s legal team and they said since I would be sued in St. Clair County, IL, a hot-bed for frivolous lawsuits, it may be best to settle. They said if I was out of this area not to worry about it, but they knew for a fact that CEG has a lawyer (actually an ex-judge talk about scum) around here that they use occasionally in these matters.
CEG in St. Clair county? Lawyer a former judge? Are you sure you don’t confuse things? The only racket that have been going on in St. Clair county of Illinois is done by Prenda. And a former judge, O’Malley, was a lawyer for Lightspeed for a short period of time.
Anon:
After settling; did you hear anything else from Ira and CEGTEK?
We got a similar notice for multiple titles of only 2 movies. Even though I know nobody in this house did it, we can still be held liable. We are thinking of settling as long as their are no repercussions.
I settled through an attorney so I got to remain anonymous. I haven’t heard from them since. If I knew for sure that I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t have paid a dime and I only paid for 100% piece of mind. Good luck with your choice
Hey Anon,
or anyone else who has settled…
Did your attorney get you a release from most of CEG’s clients? My time to settle has been up for 5 months, but the reason I did not settle was fear of future letters. Anyone who has communicated with CEG please let us know if the were willing to work out a deal like that. Have you ever heard back from them? Was your release by IP (my fear is my ip is different and they will later find out another IP used by me.)
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Prenda is small stuff compared to CEG these days, CEG actually scares people into thinking they are world class, so anyone who dealt with them your insight is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
just carefully read the john nicolini declaration, the claims are phony. they are carefully crafted to look like copyright infringement when in reality the content holder agreed to essentially give the monitored file away. look at the complaint in this case: 1:13-cv-10315, Dore v. New Sensation, CEG, and Marvin Cable. attached is an exhibit showing that these guys were openly advertising settlement based litigation, and if you read the nicolini declaration you will find that the company doing the suing with the CEG’s assistance had “contracted” the ceg to monitor the file in question WITHOUT doing anything to prevent any such copying before any such copying has even taken place. this all being done in secret with the content owner’s knowledge is indicative of unclean hands, lashes, and aquiscence (aka secret or silent permission). thus, the work was essentially given away and no infringement happened. I understand that piracy is illegal however not every torrent download is an act of piracy, remember these guys are just preying upon the misconceptions of a hot button issue. the whole CEG scam closely resembles the auto insurance fraud scam that plagued the Massachusetts courts in the 1990′s. look at all their evidence and how they identify you, if it is an IP with a snap shot observation, then it proves nothing and is insufficient as evidence of infringement (see judge otis writes rulings found on this site). just dig, question, and never never only pick on the easy points warranting dismissal.
If your time to settle has been up for 5 months then the infringement they are accusing you of is at least 6 months old.
Read the original complaint in any of CEG’s attempted shakedowns and you will see the timestamps of all of the infringements they have attempted to discover are all fresher than that.
Furthermore all of those cases last year were severed for abuse of joinder and CEG’s goons have not filed new court cases in more than 7 months.
You are home free at this point. Forget it and sleep easy.
@anon
I am actually very thankful for your response. It is comforting to me to at least know what to do, to have a game plan. I don’t know how this works but would that law firm be able to also handle my situation if I live is a state north of IL?
My situation is that I have been sent an email from my ISP informing me that they have (what I see is identical to others from this group with just different “evidence”). The ISP said they will give nothing to them without a valid court order. I did not go to the site to pay the settlement at all, not even to look but did some Google work to find out what it was all about and found this WONDERFUL site.
So I have a bit of time until my “time is up” to settle. But if anyone has advice for me I would be VERY appreciative!
Thanks everyone.
@SJD, maybe they were referring to O’Malley, and maybe they confused Lightspeed and CEG, either way they suggested I settle based on location. Or the more likely case is that they get a percentage of the settlement… Either way, it’s done, and I don’t regret my decision but I am also no fun in Vegas. Again, I am not advocating my way as right, in fact I often wished I took more chances, I just wanted to share a side of this that isn’t often discussed here.
Here are some general points, in case they are not known:
(a) Unless there’s a court order, the “deadline” that some troll servant has set trying to turn up the fear. The trolls will maybe get around to a next step if and when they want. A common troll tactic is for non-responders is to give a follow-up notice with something like: extending the deadline, raising the amount of the demand, “asking” the Doe’s lawyer to contact them immediately. All these steps aim to raise a Doe’s worries, even when the general situation remains the same. The trolls basically have an accusation.
(b) You only need an in-state lawyer for responding to direct court orders to you and preparing for trial. That is, for negotiating with the trolls or simply shielding you from harassing troll messages, any U.S. lawyer will do. In fact, if you and an out-of-state lawyer really wanted to represent you on the remote chance of having to go to court in your state, there’s a method for that. “Pro hace vice” is a process available in some places for a lawyer outside of that jurisdiction.
Many Doe defendant lawyers will have an initial discussion for free. Exploratory calls can be made to see what the options are, if you are at a point where profesional legal are needed.
(c) Do I understand your situation correctly, that the trolls have basically sent an allegation for an I.P. address at a certain time, which your ISP conveyed to you?
If the trolls have not subpoenaed a Doe’s ISP for the alleged title, they must FIRST file a case for legal discovery, to get Doe contact information. Getting a Doe’s direct contact information is typically used for the purposes of making more demands, threatening to sue if the Doe doesn’t pay up.
So, (unless a Doe has needlessly given trolls contact information already), the troll’s have a two step process just to BEGIN the process of approaching trial. So in a way, prior to filing for discovery, a copyright troll is making a threat that they’re going to make a threat.
Trolls will gladly take your money at any time.If it was one of the small percent of times the trolls followed through, and if negotiation were necessary, there would be possibilities to negotiate further down an unlikely road.
The troll method continues to be trying to get the most money with the least effort. It takes time and money for trolls to go further with an individual Doe. They can make much more money per hour going on to scare other Does than proceeding to make a case against a single Doe.
Well I fit their MO perfectly. I have a public position, am required to report any and all legal actions to my employer, I am required to report any legal investigations to my licensing board, I have a very conservative wife, I have two impressionable children. Just the threat made me lose sleep the entire time the “pre-settlement offer” was open. I did a little “Google research,” but not enough. Any public defense was high political capital risk. I hired an attorney to settle. Sorry I didn’t take the recommended action. I have learned how to lockdown my wireless router. I whole heartily support all the actions and sharing of information to shut these guys down—quickly.
Don’t get me wrong, guys: I didn’t want to imply that I somehow have the authority to judge the actions of those who decided to settle. Every case is unique. While every time when I hear that someone has decided to bail out, it makes me sad, but not angry: I repeated many times, that there are circumstances when there is no other choice. What makes me upset is when people settle without a slightest attempt to understand the situation, to evaluate options, research, talk to lawyers. I.e. to make some effort. If your decision is informed, it’s you decision, and I have no right to insult you with my whining.
Can I ask a simple question? I know everyone is innocent here, but just for argument’s sake, does all the advice above change if a person is, in fact, guilty?
If you are innocent and can prove it, I suppose that is one thing, but what if a person really is guilty? Is it better to just pay the “Stupid Tax” and move on?
A valid question. My (and I thing the majority’s) position is the following:
- First and foremost I care about the innocents.
- Yet I do care about those “guilty”: even the punishment they already suffer (in a form of harassment, depression and uncertainty) is disproportional. 3000 is also too much. 30,000 – 150,000 is an insult to common sense. I’m OK with some fine (~ $100) if a person admits the wrongdoing, but even then the question remains: where this money goes? To sustain the racket, and I’m not OK with it. Law is supposed to reflect the society’s current state of morals, but this law, which has the number 150,000 in it, is so lopsided, it warrants a civil disobedience. If society, by overlooking the moment when statutory fines were smuggled into the law by greedy industry dinosaurs, allows such a Kafkaesque injustice, everyone has a burden of being his own judge. If you feel guilt, good: it’s a very healthy feeling. Stop doing it — a real copyright holder who wants to limit piracy and not out there for the easy money, would be happy. If you feel it’s not enough, donate to a charity or a civil right organization. But don’t pay to the vultures.
I will agree with SJD. If you are doing this, stop it. Even if a person is guilty, that doesn’t mean he should pay what the Trolls claims is fair. There is no fairness to this situation. The Troll gets most of the settlement from this extortion and keeps the business model rolling on.
As far as the evidence goes, please read this article that shows how hard it can be for the Trolls to prove their case even with a guilty person.
http://dietrolldie.com/2012/12/27/the-truth-of-the-matter-or-copyright-troll-crap-shoot/
DTD
Hey Anonymous @April 29, 2013 at 7:41 pm
When I received my notices in Nov. 2012, they stopped shaking down in court just prior to that. Can you point me to a case where the date is more recent than that? I honestly thought they were still using Nov. Dates. I hope that if anything were coming from 6 months ago it would have shown up by now, so I hope I am truly home free.
Thanks for any insight you have.
Hey, fellow anonymous!
By “fresher than”, I mean that the timestamped infringements that CEG accused Does of their suits last year were less than 6 months old at the time those suits were filed. There is nothing newer that you’re missing.
Discovery costs the trolls time and money. When they could get mass cases through and ask for hundreds or thousands of of names at once, requesting an IP that had been purged, moved, died, etc. only cost them about 40 bucks so they could afford to be sloppy. It’s much harder for them now.
You can see that in Malibu’s single Doe cases. Those cases probably cost them $6-800 for each IP they look up. So the subscribers they are suing all have most recent infringement dates within just 10 or 15 days of the time the suit is filed.
Hi Anonymous! @10:13pm
Sorry for giving more questions. One last one. Because they sent an email through the ISP (however many months ago) I thought even if they filed suit 1 year later that the ISP might delete the IP record but in their (DMCA ‘sent’ folder) would see my IP and ID me through that method. Basically do you think even with a DMCA email issued to an ISP subscriber, if they wait 1 year would all record of the DMCA notice and IP log be gone forever? I tried asking but people seem to be on the fence with this one.
Thanks again for your input!
I don’t know whether a ‘DMCA sent’ folder even exists, or whether it would supersede the usual retention times for IP logs if it did. The answer to both of those questions would depend on the specific ISP.
Keep in mind how many infringements are going on. I read a CEG amicus letter to the court last month wherein Siegel stated that he sent out 3,100 DMCA threat emails from January to March for “Fat Kid Rules The World”, a indie movie that made all of 40k at the box office and you nor anybody else ever heard of. (Obviously Siegel doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that nearly all of his trolling is for porn, so “Fat Kid” is the token movie with clothing in it.)
That’s 40 threats a day for just ONE of his crap titles. His mass filing porn suits list scores or hundreds of IPs over a few months for a single title in a single state alone. Do the math and figure out how many hundreds of these emails must be going out every single day. Even with a cooperative court one troll can’t possibly keep up with the paperwork to subpoena that many people. They aren’t going to put what limited resources they have into scouring last year’s log whether your ISP keeps a record that long or not.
Two days before my Father died last year, he received a three-page letter from Prenda Law, located in Illinois. This letter said Dad, a mid-80 year old man, who hasn’t been on the internet for many many years said Dad had violated some kind of copyright law online. The letter said they would settle out of court for $4,000.00 — other wise they would take Dad to court and he would have to pay $100,000.00. Since Dad’s antiquated computer doesn’t go online and he hadn’t used his computer for five or six years, Mom also contacted a judge, her friend who attends one of her classes. The judge told Mom that these people don’t have a leg to stand on, because they do not have authority to practice in our state. He advised her to send a copy of the letter to the Justice Department, which she did.
Over the past few weeks, representatives of Prenda Law are now calling and leaving threatening messages on my Mother’s phone–things like, “we’ve been nice up to now. Since you haven’t responded we will be taking you to court, etc.” Mom has not responded to this barrage of bullying phone messages.
Just before these calls began coming in, Mom, who is working on other legal matters, has attained legal representation through Legal Shield. Today we are calling our lawyers to see what can be done.
I am VERY angry about this.
What happened with your case?
[...] Copyright Enforcement Group [...]
If I may be allowed to play the Devil’s advocate here, SJD, with all respect intended I ask, how is it good for a downloader to feel guilt over downloading something that could have been uploaded by the copyright holder themselves. It has already been made very public that companies like Viacom, Disney, MGM, Universal, and most of the RIAA and MPAA started this whole piracy phenomena by either funding, investing in, and/or creating the programs used or by providing the works intended for copying to begin with. Mike Mozart (i believe that’s the spelling of his name) covers this really well in his “stop sopa” youtube videos. This considered, the copyright holders are essentially the trolls themselves by creating the problem, falsifying and manipulating “infringement” data to congress for sympathy, “suing” people unreasonably, and then attempting to put control over the internet into corporate hands. When all said and done it really is and was a well played scheme.
Continuing, what about all of the people who benefit from file sharing? local musicians are able to get their music out to the public without relying on high risk and often abusive contracts with corporate producers who, often times, take all their music and leave the artist destitute. Or what of independent film producers who cannot get their films produced or advertised because they can’t get the MPAA’s approval, it is well known that the MPAA is essentially a board of censorship run by the independent producer’s competition. What of the many major copyright holders who use torrents as a form of advertising by distributing some of their works to keep their company names known and in business. Finally, what of all those companies who complain about piracy but have greatly increased profits as a result there of, statistics have shown that piracy is actually good for media corporations by keeping public interested in would-be dead franchises such as Dragon Ball Z, owned by funimation. Sure they don’t make money off of the tv episodes but they make even money off of the collectibles, costumes, and other such merchandise that would otherwise not be on the market if the public didn’t have the continued and open access to such works. What of the public who get victimized by current copyright law? Long after a work has lost it’s value, corporate copyright owners who have no interest in producing or enabling access to recently dead or long dead works complain that people are pirating it from them and it hurts their profits when they won’t even make a digital copy available for purchase them selves. the point being that the issues surrounding modern copyright law have nothing to do with protecting the rights of creators, it is solely about enabling massive corporations control what we watch/listen to, when we watch/listen to, how we watch/listen to something and how much they can bleed out of the consumers while producing more and more crap, rather than quality works that “promote the progress of science and useful arts [U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8″. This whole copyright trolling issue has shed a true light on the real problem at hand and it isn’t just the abuses of copyright law by these scam artists, but as a whole the changes to copyright law that have been pushed by corporations such as Disney and the abusive business practices that have since then followed. I am by no means a supporter of piracy generally, however 70 – 90 years of exclusive control after the death of the creator, is excessive and there are corporations, such as righthaven who made it their sole business to own copyrights and nothing else.
Anyway, just presenting a different view, and I do mean it all with the greatest respect. I love what everyone does here and at DTD and other such sites. I too have been a victim of trolling, only to research the core issues surrounding the case itself to find, as fact, that there is no copyright infringement. the copyright holders all agreed with companies like the CEG to use their copyrighted works to engage in these lawsuits before any of the copying complained of ever happened, thus there exists an implied contract or “permission” in which their lawsuits are entirely barred by estopple as a matter of law. Let alone the failures of evidence and the other, frankly, minor details surrounding each case. In my opinion, it seems that no one wants to shed a favorable light on anyone who uses a torrent related program but the fact of the matter is that everyone being sued by these companies, assuming they downloaded the work in question, downloaded said work lawfully. Copyright law is consent dependent, when you consent to let your work be distributed or copied for the purpose of suing all who do so you have consented to the distribution and copying and thus have no right to sue.
First, thank you very much for creating your website as it has been very helpful for me to educate myself with copyright infringement issues. I am emailing you regarding a recent email I received from my ISP, who provided an email from CEG’s Ira Siegal, stating that my IP address has been used for downloading a pornographic movie illegally. With that said, I panicked while reading the email and clicked the link CEG provided. I did not use a Web proxy (due to my panic attack), though I was able to find out the settlement price of $200. The letter states that I have until the end of March 2013 to pay the settlement.
I have a few more weeks to “pay the settlement”, but I’m not sure what to do. If I pay the settlement, CEG will have my name and the card I used for the payment.
I was reading the comments on your website who have received emails like this, but I don’t know what has happened to them if they decided to ignore it or pay for the settlement. Should I ignore it? Or pay for it? I am currently unemployed living in California, and I don’t have much money (no assets either). Also, since I did not use a Web proxy to access the settlement link, what does that mean for me?
I appreciate your time and advice. Within writing this email, I just received a second CEG settlement letter from my ISP, for a different pornography movie. I’m not going to click on the link that CEG provided, since it will probably be $200 again for a total of $400.
Be advised there are stories of people trying to pay that settlement via the website only to have the website mysteriously “fail” while attempting to authorize your payment. Then, a few weeks later they receive a letter demanding thousands, adding other movies, etc. It seems that the website is often a ploy to get your info and then send out more threatening letters with higher amounts. Someone suggested settling through an attorney who contacts CEG-TEK so they can get a blanket release from all known, unknown, and suspected claims from CEG-TEK from the date of settlement and before. Of course this will cost you more money. My guess is if they can tie your IP to a number of alleged infringements, payment via that link will fail.
Hi,
Just so other people know, I received a postcard in the mail from my ISP yesterday for a copyright infringement (CEG). Despite the panic I have not been on the troll’s website and will not. I will keep silent…
Thanks for this wonderful website and all the information available.
I am in the same boat. I paniced, and visited the website under the same IP address that is under fire (Unfortunately I was in panic mode and wanted to see the settlement offer, like most people). I then went to various websites which told me NOT to visit the website…I am a college student who does need to take a professional license exam in a little over a year. I have about a week to decide to pay or not on copyrightsettlements.com
However from what I am reading, this is just “legal scam”? As soon as I pay and give my identity away, they will further pursue me, with more claims, and the price exponentially increases.
So what I am hearing is that you basically HAVE to obtain an attorney? 1)Pay the website, I haven’t heard a case where this just ended the whole situation (if so PLEASE LET ME KNOW)
2) Do nothing, wait for a subpoena, and hire and attorney to settle anonymously?
Any update to this? Are they still sending out ISP sopeanas?
My date for settlement is around the corner. Just wanted to know if people are in the clear so far that have ignored.
I ignored since Nov. 2012 (late Nov) Settlement expired End of Year 2012 (Dec) and nothing thus far. Perhaps SJD or DTD can alert us if Ira Seigel is filing suits again.
Siegel’s family of trolls (Siegel – CA, Meier – NY, FL, MD, Matlock – CA, Cable – MA) doesn’t appear to have filed any new federal cases since September. The relatively few (by Lipscum or Prenda standards) cases they had been filing last year were broad fishing expeditions against 50-100+ IPs at a time and nearly all of them seem to have been severed for improper joinder.
My analysis is as follows:
1. As Rob Cashman observed, the six strike system now blocks most of CEG’s settlement emails. Therefore it seems likely that CEG’s cashflow will dry up and they will either begin filing cases again or else the content companies they currently represent will hire new counsel who will.
2. Either of those options will take some months to organize. That organization is taking place right now and we don’t know how far into it they are or long it will take. But when they are set up to pursue Does in court again it seems unlikely they will go after did-not-settles from 6 months ago when there are many more new infringers than they have the ability pursue being recorded every day. Old hits are that much more likely to be purged from ISP logs, moved out of the country, died, etc. in which case the trolls’ time, court fees, ISP lookup fees, etc. are lost with no return.
3. If they were in any kind of position to go to a court and collect several thousand dollars from you then they certainly wouldn’t give that up for a $200 web payment. That they are offering that at all suggests they do not currently have the ability to follow through.
4. So don’t pay the bastards one thin dime.
I am in precisely the same situation, except I haven’t visited the damn site. Legal counsel through my school suggested that I bite the bullet and pay the $200, which, he said, has been his default advice–there has apparently been a spike in these recently. And it certainly would be nice to make this all go away and be able to finish out the semester with some measure of peace of mind. I have my concerns, though, about paying through their online system, which is the only option available to me. Paying with anything linked to me seems to kind of defeat the purpose. And $200 is a fairly big hit, at least for me. The attorney said I was welcome to try my luck and hope they don’t subpoena for my information (which apparently hasn’t happened for a number of years at this particular institution), but, of course, there is always that possibility. So I guess the question is how high the probability of their pursuing the subpoena option is, and, if they should, what the implications of their having my information would be. And would it be better, after all, just to settle with them? I don’t like it, but there doesn’t seem to be a right answer here.
1. If you were accused while connecting from an .edu domain, unless it’s a high dollar private school, CEG (or any subsequent troll that takes over these recorded infringements) knows that in all probability you are a broke student and they will be unable to collect a significant judgement from you. If they pursue anyone, which is already a question mark in itself, .edu domains will be last on the list. They may subpoena you (and 100 others) if they are able to get a mass Doe case through, and they may threaten you, but it’s exceedingly unlikely they will pay a local counsel several thousand dollars to actually pursue you when there is every indication you have no assets to recover.
2. Settling for “just” $200 means doing it yourself through their website which is a TERRIBLE plan. That means giving them the same contact information they’d ordinarily have to go to court for. They now know exactly who you are so they can accuse you of other titles, or their website can “crash” while you attempt to settle for the first title. You will now get the collection agency treatment for years, or until you pay significantly to make it go away.
If you do choose to settle, you need to do it through an attorney to keep your anonymity and ensure the release agreement which you are purchasing actually releases you from everything CEG could have on you. That isn’t going to cost $200, it will cost at least $700 and they may then tell you they know of additional infringements to drive the cost higher.
You’re correct that there is no right answer. There is no certainty in any of this. It’s all playing the odds and those odds are only educated guesses.
In your shoes, my educated guess would be to ignore it.
These are the thoughts that were going through my head when I went and sat down with this guy in legal services. He openly admitted that he doesn’t “understand how this downloading thing works,” which should have been my first clue that his advice might not be the best. He assured me that “these CEG people are real” and that he knew this from an email thread that was on the list-serv of legal counselors at universities across the country, but he didn’t seem to know how tenuous their case is.
Thanks for the advice and for expressing my own worries about the online system. If they do follow up on their threats with a subpoena, I guess the worst that will happen is they’ll find out I’m a philosophy student–which, in addition to maybe indicating that I make bad decisions, should also let them know that I am not now nor am I likely ever to be able to give them the money to justify their trying to get to me in a local court–and then maybe harass me personally.
I also received settlements letters with 2 titles from ISP, 2 of these letters are duplicate with 1 title. I had such experience 2 years ago and ignored that with nothing happened.
Now I am still scared of these and can not get along well with life and work.
I just wanna know whether the probability to be subpedoned or sued is lower if:
1. The movie I downloaded is more than 15 years old and probably no one else download it other than me, for it is difficult for them to file mass lawsuit;
2. I live in a state of nowhere (Like North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Alaska), probably no such case has been filed in these area(forgive me if my knowledge is poor).
Should I feel more comfortable or safe than other fellow sufferers?
Any opinion about this? Thanks!
Those factors will reduce the chance, but you are still taking one. Best not do it and be safe.
DTD
Hi TrollGoHell,
1. Risk based on age and obscurity of the movie. It depends. So far there are three approaches that the swindlers have taken to the courts in search of your identity.
1a. Lipscomb/Malibu’s single Doe approach. If they are going to do this then it doesn’t matter how many other people downloaded it. On the upside the litigation investment for the troll must be significant such that this is probably only a viable business model in some circumstances. It works for Lipscomb because Malibu content appeals to an upscale (well, relatively, it’s still prostitution on video) audience and is broken into dozens of titles which equals extremely large settlements. Lipscomb’s group is also large enough to benefit from significant economy of scale in filing hundreds of near identical suits. I don’t think any of these factors currently apply to CEG and the first two wouldn’t apply to any other firm that took over CEG’s clients, either.
1b. The Prenda, fraud in state courts approach. A troll that slips one of these through can combine titles to send subpoenas to his heart’s content so obscurity won’t help you here either. Prenda’s multiple frauds catching up with them may give the other trolls pause at trying the same thing – but Prenda’s carte blanche discovery orders may also tempt them. This is the biggest unknown.
1c. The most other trolls, federal mass Doe suits. A troll probably won’t bother with one of these for an unpopular movie where they could only demand a few names. Upside (and downside) – there is now precedent in many federal courts to sever these mass cases as improper joinder. That’s good in that it impedes this kind of extortion, but bad in that it drives the trolls to the previous two approaches which are, in their own ways, even worse.
2. Risk based on where you live. CEG doesn’t have local counsel in most states, but if they get your identity through abuse of the wrong court (which seems the only way they’re likely to acquire identities at all) they then have 3 years from the date of infringement to hire someone in your state to individually pursue you. That’s extremely unlikely but you’re still in for 3 years of uncertainty and collections agency threats.
Should you feel safe and comfortable? Absolutely not, none of us should, not as long as Hollywood writes the copyright statutes which let these extortionists literally demand your house over a bit torrent screen shot. But will you be the one that actually happens to?
Almost certainly not.
Thanks for your pertinent reply so much.
The 2 movies claimed by troll (Elegant Angel) are issued long time ago. I didn’t really feel any safe in the past week. I had an experience from CEG TEK and ignored according to my friend’s classmate who is an IP lawyer. he suggest that:
This decision has to be made by your friend. I don’t think there is perfect
solution here. My guts feeling is not to pay and take the risk of being
sued. I think voluntarily giving up your identity and admitting infringement
is a bad idea.
I also didn’t feel any safe and comfort though. But I think I’ll participate in FightCopyrightTrolls instead of giving into them.
I know a guy who is involved in the Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe case in Indiana now, case might be the same as 1:13-cv-00665-WTL-MJD. He also refer to this website and DieTrollDie to fight now. Does anybody know the new progress about that?
If you got the warning email 2 years ago I would not worry as your ISP likely deleted your IP logs by now. Why are you not feeling safe this past week? I do not understand the circumstances.
Thanks,
I just got the warning a week ago. 2 years ago was another one I ignored and nothing happened.
Now I am just trying to comfort myself that they most probably don’t pick me, and even they pick me the result will most likely be not that bad.
Those troll guys just throw thousands of messages out like fishing, but leaving us in the state of anxiety for a whole month or even long to a year, but most probably without any further action. I doubt if this action is legal. Even it’s not illegal, it is absolutely immorality.
If I was lucky enough to escape with a warning two years ago I would have changed my ways…just saying. Nobody here is condoning taking things for free or getting away with something wrong, aren’t we here to fight against bad guys doing bad things to innocent people?
I just didn’t intend to claim innocent or guilty. They won’t get me if I really did that. No doubt that taking advantage of anyone or anything is wrong. No one here encourages continuing to download but claim innocent at the same time.
I don’t believe all the people here are innocent, but I do believe most of the people with something wrong will get away from that forever thanks to this lesson, and they should also be protected from persecution.
It’s a lottery drawing.
Depending what you downloaded and from where it could be a pick 3. Or it could be a pick 6.
But for goodness’ sake, now that the curtain is up you need to STOP BUYING ADDITIONAL TICKETS.
Bob, the whole thing is a scam, it shouldn’t be about preventing actions against those who don’t download because if we really look into the matter we could show that copyright infringement didn’t even occur, thus rendering all who did or didn’t copy the work as innocent. we should be focused on ending such scams so that the only copyright infringement lawsuits in the courts are both legitimate and against an actual infringer.
My router often drops and reconnects automatically, that might be the reason 3 duplicate letters sent to me. I live in an apartment, a couple of neighbor share my network, not sure who did this. I have no idea how many such duplicate letters will come again. I ceased their share and hid my router, hope no more letters coming again.
Just wonder does duplicate settlement letters raise the number of lottery tickets and the rate to be drawn?
Hi Bird,
I don’t believe that duplicate settlement letters increase your risk of being sued.
There are a number of reasons CEG could send duplicates, being charitable they are simple incompetence but considering the track record of these goons I believe they’re more malicious than that. Keeping quiet and paying the same settlement three times over is more money for them. Protesting that you only downloaded it once is an admission of guilt which they will immediately use to demand even more money from you.
But if they take these cases to court again, a single title is a single title.
I don’t quite worry about that they will sue me with multiple duplicates, just don’t want to get their notice focused on me. I doubt if it is their strategy pushing you to argue with them or it is the defect (or purposely) algorithm of their tracking system which tracks you each time you connect to same source. Anyone knows these guys send out emails by hand or they have an automatic system doing this for them? They probably didn’t noticed those are duplicates, but they definitely love that duplicates.
I would rather they turn to any other method (i.e. censorship on the network or smash the seeds), and then pursuing those who try hard to broke the wall, than throw tons of threaten letters poisoning people’s nerve and mind. This makes me think of a robber robs your money and throws them away, whoever picks it up is sentenced guilty and should compensate for all your loss.
@NintenDOE 64 – we agree wholeheartedly. The scam needs to be brought to an end. The “strategic” procedural distractions on the part of plaintiffs and counsels are annoying. However we are allowing them to distract the community and possibly the Doe defenders and Judicial system when we loose focus that their unvalidated, unverified, improperly documented methods, procedures, evidence collection and handling, computers, and software, as well as their factually erroneous statements, oversimplifications, misleading statements and assumptions get pushed to the background.
The lawyer we consulted with stated “everybody gets their day in court” our problem is when do we get ours?
I am curious that do the trolls have another evidence to subpena network subscriber’s other than IP address (and the files and time based on that IP address). Since I know it is so easy to disguise one’s ip address as a Computer Science field worker. Why do the judges believe those shaky evidence and approve their trick?
iit’s not just a matter of belief, it’s about establishing prima facie (on its face) copyright infringement. if one looks at the combination of evidence and the nicolini declaration, they have essentially crafted prima facie infringement, not to be confused with actual infringement it just means that it looks like infringement is plausible. The other side to it is that copyright infringement is a very hot button subject, many judges and anti troll moderators don’t want to appear “pro piracy” and so they only look to specific weaknesses in evidence rather than arguing against the whole case. the problem with the mentality of avoiding looking “pro pirate” is that it weakens the stance against the trolls by causing a “holier-than-though” type of division without realizing that since copyright infringement, in many CEG based cases, did not actually occur that everybody is innocent from the copier to the wrongfully named.
It seems that you are professional, NintenDOE 64.
I conclude that these trolls are glad to let it go and do nothing to prevent the p2p sharing. Otherwise there must be much more effective and efficient ways to protect their or their client’s works. And it is crystal clear that their reward comes from the settlement fee rather than benefits from prohibiting infringement and the corresponding revenue increase based on the protection. Sounds like creative but nasty idea.
interestingly, not a professional…just done a lot of homework on the subject…a lot.
I would have to agree with your conclusion, not exactly sure who started it but my research leads me to believe it is those who seek to turn copyrights themselves into commodities rather than legal rights, I believe this was popularized by righthaven. the best way i’ve heard the entire scam described is “the ceg does this [their monitoring scheme] in an attempt to create the technical circumstances required to have a legitimate copyright infringement claim without the need of a legitimate copyright infringement claim” complaint in case 1:13-cv-10315.
These guys just try to get your information and do the further extortion stuff, and treat the court and law of this country as their weapon. It is us taxpayers (not only those trolls) support the weapon of the country. But the court and law have to be kidnapped by them as their key for enrichment all the time before they really go to court.
Hope there will be any action to prevent these sneaky and immoral guys.
Checked MN Pacer but could not find the case, can you double check the MN docket number?
Never mind, recalled it now.
1:13-cv-10315 Dore V New Sensations Inc, Copyright Enforcement Group LLC, and Attorney Marvin N Cable received the green light to proceed, all we wait for now is the service and responses.
Yesterday (7 may 2013) I received an email (not letter) from my ISP, with email chain from Siegal. Similar to what most of you have explained: offering to “settle” for 200$, with a note saying another suspicious download looks similar to my situation so their asking me to pay for a second title. They say they can investigate and likely find more. My settlement date is early June.
I (mistakenly) visited their site because I didn’t come to this site first. Question: I didn’t used computer but used my cellphone… But I was home… Does it likely use my ip from my router when I’m using my phone online at home?
Question 2: it seems like everyone has stories about nothing happening. Does anyone gave stories about Siegel winning?
My initial feeling is to ignore. It’s just 200, maybe 400. I’m guessing I’m not a big fish and not worth their time. Do you think that’s logical reasoning for these situations?
Thanks
Hi Express,
I don’t know whether your phone uses your home wifi and would show the same IP or not, but the real harm of contact with CEG is giving them any contact information which they can link to your IP address. If you didn’t enter any information then you’re still just another anonymous entry on a list of literally hundreds of thousands.
As far as only a handful of accused downloads making you a small fish, yes and no. Yes there are bigger fish out there, but the troll model so far (except for Lipscomb/Malibu) is threats for a nuisance value settlement and one file is plenty for that if Siegel can swindle a court into a mass discovery order.
We don’t know what Siegel will do but we do know what he’s done so far. He sends hundreds of those emails every day, most of which aren’t even read let alone paid. He has local counsel arranged in only a few states. He filed a lot of mass discovery suits last year, all of which were eventually severed for improper joinder, and not opened any new ones since those defeats. He has actively pursued a few (very unlucky) Doe #1s from those suits.
Most telling to me is that he offers these $200 settlements at all. If he were set up to find out who you are and scare up a $3-4,000 settlement then he certainly wouldn’t give that away for just $200.
I would ignore it.
Appreciated.
What states does he have legal representation?
Just take it easy. I was almost scared to death when I was thinking about these. Occasionally subpena some people is just their strategy to facilitate their extortion. Their big money comes from $200s, not $3000s which will cost their huge quantity of time and focus, not even to say $15,000s.
You might think they would probably subpena you, even though that probability is tremendously minimal. But even that you still hold very good chance to let them go away keeping ignore them when they bothering you with email/mail and calls. To go further, they might file a case against you which is definitely even rare, then resist and fight back, they never appeared on the court. Sending $200 emails will cost half of their life, I don’t believe they will devote another half life on pursuing you, not spending any time with family and friends and entertainment.
In an impolite manner, every people will get chance to ill, or even die, that probability is no higher than they suing you.
Well, obviously I’m a victim as well If I’m writing here..
I read and learned many things here… the only question I have is if they ever tried to file a suit against you and look for evidence other than just the IP snapshot what all option do they have. A person/victim/accused could have formated his laptop/ desktop(knowingly or unknowingly) by the time a lawsuit is filed.
Pretty much the same options as the Bellwether trial going on now. See this RECAP link: http://ia700807.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.paed.461508/gov.uscourts.paed.461508.49.1.pdf Additionally, they can subpoena your ISP and various search providers for records of searches made from your IP, similar material you bought on PPV, etc.
If this sounds like an enormously complex, expensive, and invasive pain in the ass, that’s because it is. The saving grace is that it’s also a complex and expensive pain for the troll which is why three years into this douchebaggery the PA case is still the only one to have advanced that far. They’d rather get easier money some place else.
You’re not a victim until you write Siegel a check or he serves you. All you are now is an IP that he hopes will be a gullible mark.
It would seem that WOT ranks copyrightsettlements dot com as an untrusted site and blocks it, not sure if that means anything or not, but it certainly isn’t a ringing endorsement.
I have same problem, but for celebrity images on my site. They want $500 for image. It’s strange that I have 9 emails, but 6 of them are repeated. I receive email from my hosting provider. Btw I’m not an US citizen.
Any idea what to do?
Mawerick
If the files were legitimately copyrighted just remove them to avoid more emails. The CEG emails are not lawsuits unless they mention a subpoena, they are requests for compensation coupled with the chance (however slim) of a lawsuit. They send thousands of these per day and could never afford to go after every one of them. You also need to look at where they are located, if they don’t operate in your geographical area your risk is lower (but not zero). It would be absolutely infeasible to pursue more than 1% of the claims they make. In fact I think that they may not even be aware that some of thier “claims” are going to the same person so I suspect it is possible that they may end up with multiple “john does” who are the same person in real life (i could be wrong because I don’t know the legal system that well).
This does not constitute legal advice and should be taken with a grain of salt as it is entirely my opinion based on observations.
I can post received letter(masked info) so everyone can see it and to be inform in future
If you do this be sure to remove case/password, any form of link to their site (just to be safe), and the hash for the torrent they claim you downloaded, those are potentially identifying.