Copyright trolls are striking against those seen as the low-hanging fruit, likely to react well to their methods disturbingly reminiscent of blackmail: mind-games and intimidation.
The latest example out of Sweden reveals that a 75-year-old man there has been contacted by a company whose business is to extract cash from poorly prepared and often poorly informed internet users based on dubious claims that would be difficult to prove in the court of law.
The pensioner is question is accused of downloading and sharing a pornographic movie via the BitTorrent client, which he says is not true. But he also revealed that the threat of paying a “fine” or being taken to court – where things might get much worse for him – is weighing heavily on his mind, causing him to lose sleep.
The film in question, “The Creepers Family Part 7” was licensed by MIRCOM International, who are no strangers to copyright trolling, TorrentFreak said. Another company whose business model seems to be to go after alleged copyright infringements at the IP level, Media Protector International GmbH, provided the data.
The way the pensioner’s IP address got picked by the trolls is standard practice, TorrentFreak is reporting. The trolls harvest IPs from BitTorrent swarms, and then turn to courts who force ISPs to hand over real life identities of subscribers. Naturally, it’s impossible to determine if the person using a program on the internet via an IP address is the same who pays for the service, but that doesn’t deter the trolls, who move to frighten the target into paying before the process “gets more expensive.”
However, it was precisely this, so reminiscent of a blackmailer’s manner, that got the Swedish man thinking that paying now may not, in fact, be his best option.
“I am afraid that the bills will continue to come from other agencies and companies, it seems to be a business idea that is better than selling movies. This can be my ruin,” he shared with Bahnhof, a competitor to his own ISP, TeliaSonera.
The man said that he knew little about technology and is anxious for the ordeal to be over. Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung, meanwhile, spoke in favor of offering better protections and more media exposure to innocent targets of unscrupulous copyright trolls – who are currently, regardless of their level of knowledge in the matter, mostly rely on themselves.
“It’s a corrupt system promoting copyright trolls and legal firms that thrive on blackmail. Unfortunately, there is not enough political momentum to change the situation. It’s an ongoing scandal, and I believe that this affects the justice system as a whole,” Karlung told TorrentFreak, urging more visibility of the problem – and wondered what prompts competitor ISP to store data for 24 months, where his company does so for 24 hours.
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