Hello all,
It is the all familiar “torrenting a copyrighted movie” claim by Frommer Legal.
After multiple letters over several years and a Mahnbescheid that I denied, I got a letter from the court saying that I have 2 weeks to write up my defense.
There are hundreds of posts regarding this over the decade, but not many discuss the stage when it is actually taken up to court.
My questions are the following:
* My understanding is that the burden of proof lies with me rather than them because of some Störerhaftung. Is this understanding correct, first of all?
* I have not committed the claimed infringement and I live in a WG with many neighbors/friends coming and going/staying over who uses the wifi over the years – and the internet contract is on my name.
As such, it is rather hard for me to find the exact person responsible. Does the burden of proof still lie with me even when this is the case and that I name that many people have the wifi password? (It is basically hung on the fridge)
* Assuming that an infringement is indeed committed by someone that frequented the household, the claim is that the upload was for less than 3 minutes. Yet they claim an outrageous amount, reasoning the (rental\_cost\_of\_the\_movie \* 2) \* 400 where 400 is a figure for some ‘repeated access’ (someone with more experience can clarify this point perhaps), by some twisted logic.
This part is obviously personal opinion but here it goes. It is worth keeping in my mind is that the proof of wrongdoing is one thing that everyone is focusing on. My point is, even assuming that a wrongdoing took place, the calculations they make for “damages” are completely arbitrary (see my point with their supposed upload taking place for a mere 3 minute period). Their supposed damages ranged anywhere from 700-3500EUR over the course of all their spam. Assume that I am geniuenly operating a bussiness, where I make money from distrubting copyrighted material. How the hell am I going to get paid by my “customers” by distributing a 3-minute section of a movie? Even YouTube videos that review a movie often show more than 3-minutes of a copyrighted content, and they literally make money out of it, often without ever needing to compensate for the copyright
I have seen some comments that one can argue that even if the claim would be true, a mere 2% of the movie streamed should not amount to the damages that they claim. Your thoughts on this?
And before anybody says that “I should lawyer up”, yes I will do that. I just want to be more informed of the proceedings to make a responsible choice of lawyer.
My other big hope is that this post hopefully becomes a reference to people who face this in the future, but who doesn’t have any information after the warning letters + Mahnbescheid stage, regarding how the court proceedings go.
Looking forward to any swift and kind help you could provide, given the time constraint I have at the moment.
Thank you!
Edit:
— For Future reference—
Please see u/PowerJosl’s comment:
Have a read through this:
[https://www.wbs.legal/urheberrecht/filesharing-haften-tor-betreiber-fuer-rechtsverletzungen-bgh-entscheidet-am-21-juni-2018-23686/](https://www.wbs.legal/urheberrecht/filesharing-haften-tor-betreiber-fuer-rechtsverletzungen-bgh-entscheidet-am-21-juni-2018-23686/)
Störerhaftung is not a thing any more if you are sharing a wifi with other people in exchange for money.
People replying here have no fucking clue.
Go talk to a lawyer they will tell you the same.
This will get thrown out in court as soon as you say that you are sharing the wifi with other people and don’t know who committed the crime.
by Snapeshot
9 comments
> the burden of proof lies with me
They have evidence you infringed copyright; it’s up to you to supply evidence in your defence.
> the internet contract is on my name
That’s their evidence. You’re responsible for what happens on your own account. Anyone can say, “Yes, but it wasn’t me”; the court isn’t going to just take your word for it.
> many people have the wifi password? (It is basically hung on the fridge)
Seriously? So literally anyone can walk in to your kitchen, torrent a random movie, and wait for you to get sued? You really should set up guest wifi access: at least some routers will let you limit guest activities to reduce the risk of this kind of thing.
> a mere 2% of the movie streamed should not amount to the damages that they claim. Your thoughts on this?
That’s a question for a lawyer.
> I just want to be more informed of the proceedings to make a responsible choice of lawyer.
You need to find a lawyer who is experienced in intellectual property rights.
Did you see the IP Address that did it? Then you can check your friends IP address and know who did that. This is one of the reasons why we shouldn’t share our WiFi password. You’re the one responsible because the contract is in your name. Go contact a lawyer asap. There’s not much people here can do when it already comes to court..
At this point the best you can do is get a lawyer
>some scolding
Welcome to /r/Germany 🙂 some people in Germany Internet even when they won’t be admitting, takes pleasure of doing this.
On the other hand, this is a perfect match to willfully ignorance foreigner that thinks whatever they do/have in their home country will apply in Germany. I don’t know you, so this is not meant for you.
Anyway, I’ve been in that position, was a student too.
Here is a scold-free answer: cough up few hundred Euro for specialized lawyer fee in order to avoid few thousands Euro fine. The so-called Abmahnung lawyers are always willing to negotiate/settle for lower fee.
It is not wise to write your defense without lawyer. All of your questions here can be answered by a specialized lawyer.
Have you offered to settle out of court? When this happened to me we quite easily negotiated the fine down around 50%. Then split it three ways between me (contract holder, but otherwise “innocent”), my friend who was crashing with me and his friend who had her torrent client open on the WiFi and was the “guilty” party
You aren’t going to argue you’re innocent. Do a deal and save yourself the hassle
Get a lawyer.
Frommer is the ambulance-chaser sleaze-bags of IP lawsuits.
This is how they make their money.
Have a read through this:
https://www.wbs.legal/urheberrecht/filesharing-haften-tor-betreiber-fuer-rechtsverletzungen-bgh-entscheidet-am-21-juni-2018-23686/
Störerhaftung is not a thing any more if you are sharing a wifi with other people in exchange for money.
People replying here have no fucking clue.
Go talk to a lawyer they will tell you the same.
This will get thrown out in court as soon as you say that you are sharing the wifi with other people and don’t know who committed the crime.
My partner ignored his, wrote to accept it two weeks before court so could skip court. Court fees alone were €500 on top of the fine of €1200. Still had to pay both.
He owned the wifi, and friend downloaded it. Friend paid luckily. I had one yrs an yrs ago and lawyer said its the internet owners responsibility for sharing the password. I just said i was leaving the country and 9 yrs later they didnt do anything. But evidently they sometimes do chase them.
Be prepared to pay it
Why would how much you earn from an illegal business have anything to do with how much damage you cause? Say a movie costs 10€ to buy. You sell 1000 illegal copies. The damage is 10000€, even if you sell them at 0.01€ and only made 10€.