General
Don’t let go your banana, Troll!
Monkey trap (plural monkey traps)
- (literally, probably folk-lore) A cage containing a banana with a hole large enough for a monkey’s hand to fit in, but not large enough for a monkey’s fist (clutching a banana) to come out. Used to “catch” monkeys that lack the intellect to let go of the banana and run away.
- (figuratively) A clever trap of any sort, that owes its success to the ineptitude or gullibility of the victim.
Copyright trolls hate light and try to avoid publicity, so that they could continue their shady shake-down business. They are not too stupid and do understand that earlier or later their scam will be brought to light and their little extortion enterprises will melt as a result. That’s what is happening with ACS: Law in Great Britain right now, but not in the US yet.
So, rationally thinking, the lower they lay, the longer the ransom cash will flow. So why do they allow obviously wrong cases to continue? These cases get publicity and draw attention that clearly harm their “business” model. For example:
- Righthaven: sued a mildly autistic blogger and a war veteran
- IO Group cases: about 10% of victims tried to obtain something completely different from what was alleged (mislabeled files)
- Steele: a 70 year-old grandmother was accused of downloading porn
I can go on and on, but you can google these stories, there are lots of them.
What is striking is that in every such case trolls continue to press charges instead of letting clearly innocent people go. These extreme cases are usually related to just a small percentage of their victims, and letting these victims go wouldn’t seriously undermine their extortion revenue, and at the same time they would avoid harmful publicity and general public’s mounting rage.
The answer is simple: greed. Like in monkey trap cases, they just can’t let a banana go to save themselves from being caught. Unlike monkeys, they understand the situation, but obviously greed dominates common sense inside their hard sculls.
Greed destroyed Andrew Crossley in UK, greed will eventually destroy the US copyright trolls.
So, continue holding your banana, Troll, someone is already on the way with a nice cage!
Fight © Trolls 
If you arrive home one day and find said monkey with fist wrapped around your banana, please consider these as a possible response to him. But first I’ll quote the applicable item of law –
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 41 > § 875
(d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000875—-000-.html
Since I’m not a USitizen, I’m STILL unsure whether you should lodge your complaint (with evidence please) in the 1st place to –
1.
Mr J Cole, Esq.
Office of The Deputy Attorney General,
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
http://www.justice.gov/dag/
2.
Your own State DAG
http://www.justice.gov/usao/about/offices.html
3.
Your local FBI Field Office
http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field/field-offices
or 4.
Your local State Police Office.
But you should ALWAYS quote the above item of law, AND take letters or email evidence of the “letters of settlement extortion”.
If you’re contacted by ‘phone NEVER admit to anything, but PLEASE take a written note of the date and time of call, who called and what was said.
Yes, this statement should be repeated over and over again. Some people are prone to saying self-incriminating things when pressed by extortion professionals.
Also, you can buy a cheap (or expensive — it is up to you) voice recorder and record all the conversations. But first learn if it is legal to record conversations without the other party’s consent. Some states are “one-party”, so any conversation can be recorded, some are “two-party”, which requires both sides’ consent. Even if you live in “two-party” state, it is still possible to record conversation saying something like “by staying on the line you agree that this conversation will be recorder, otherwise please hang up “.