nsane.forums Posted September 19, 2009 Share Posted September 19, 2009 At an increasing rate copyright is ‘used’ as a tool to carefully extract money from file-sharers, instead of protecting the creative works of artists. The anti-piracy outfit DigiProtect is one of the companies that uses copyright for this new purpose.“We get the legal rights from the companies to distribute these movies to stores, and with these rights we can sue illegal downloaders,” said Digiprotect’s account manager Thomas Hein as he explained how his operation works. “Then we take legal action in every country possible, concentrating on the places where such action will be profitable.”“No one working for DigiProtect has a fixed salary. If we make money, everybody makes money. If we don’t, nobody does. This means the lawyers, sales people and customers. It’s all about how much money can be recouped and then sharing it,†he added, crucially.And here lies the problem. According to lawyer Christian Solmecke of Wilde & Beuger law firm in Germany, the law requires such an operation to have an RVG agreement, which is part of the mechanism to regulate attorney’s fees. Since no-one can say how much the lawyers get paid, this causes difficulty.“The interview creates the impression that no RVG agreement was entered into by DigiProtect and the law firms who admonish users [threaten with pay-up-or-else letters]. The report relating that the money thus earned is shared, rather suggests a success fee. Such an agreement is illegal. An admonishment based on it would equally be illegal and admonishing expenses would not have to be paid,” Solmecke notes.DigiProtect have been pretty open about their aim of generating profit for their own company and their partners – indeed, its tagline is Turn Piracy Into Profit. This may also cause problems for their lawyer partners.“If the admonishment serves solely the purpose of generating gains, it may furthermore be repudiated for reasons of abuse of legal right,” says Solmecke. DigiProtect partners with lawyers ACS:Law in UK and presumably operates in a similar manner, sharing profits from those who ultimately pay up on the threats.Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits. View: Original Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrVoice Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 Um, oops? More idiots stealing from the little guy. Grrrrr! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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