File Sharers Look Out for the So Called Law-Abiding Citizens!

Techdirt puts forward quite an interesting case and through it addresses a most fire-starting question – Are Copyright Holders Purposely Putting Content On P2P In Order To Demand Money?

The UK law firm Davenport Lyons, mentioned in another P2POn post from today, comes again to our attention due to what appears to be a dedicated effort to shake money out of people disguised as a copyrights protecting act. The firm is even ahead of potential file sharers and is actually the one doing the uploading of the files downloaders could prove interested in so as to catch them red-handed.

Masnick from Techdirt was writing about a month ago: "It was quite clear from the beginning that this never had anything to do with copyright. It was just a straight up shakedown. The firm would send threatening letters claiming that it had evidence (even if it did not) and then demand a settlement fee be paid to avoid an actual lawsuit."

Here’s the leading thread as traced by TechDirt: "Basically, copyright holders are licensing the copyright on various movies to a firm called DigiProtect. DigiProtect, in turn, hires Davenport Lyons to send out the pre-settlement letters. But in a leaked contract between DigiProtect and one copyright holder, it's made quite clear in the contractual language that DigiProtect is expected to upload the movies as widely as possible prior to having a law firm send out the pre-settlement letters… "

Well, this is definitely meant to open our eyes and hopefully others too, especially that the hypocritical walls around the claims and practices of the recording industry and some legal companies tend to get thicker.

Supportive as always, the TorrentFreak gives users a hand in keeping away from these people and offers a link to a list of DigiProtect-owned titles.