72-Year-Old Man Accused Of Pirating Over 1000 Torrents

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rgMekanic

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A 72 year old man from Hawaii has received a letter from an attorney claiming he has illegally downloaded a movie, and over 1000 other downloads. He received a letter offering an easy $3,900 settlement, which would increase to $4,900 if he failed to respond before August 7th.

These "illegal download" lawsuits are getting out of hand. They seem nearly impossible to prove in a court that someone is guilty, and only seem to tie up legal resources to try and scam people out of a few thousand dollars. I really hope this gentleman fights back.

"I know definitely that I’m not guilty and my wife is not guilty. So what’s going on? Did somebody hack us? Is somebody out there actively hacking us? How they do that and go about doing that, I have no idea,"
 
Can you counter sue them? I'd get some high profile lawyers together to start counter suing those fuckers for a lot more than a $3,900 settlement. I don't know what for, but it's not some isolated incident. It happens fairly often. Sue some old lady with AOL for downloading 100TB of porn...

The judge should just laugh and kick them out of court. Contempt if they try that crap again. I see how court works on TV, I know how it is. :) (yea, I have no clue).

Seriously, though, it needs to stop. Either the courts need to tell them to stop it or counter lawsuits to get them to stop. Start fining them big money for these frivolous lawsuits with no proof.
 
I hate hearing about companies trying to take advantage of elderly people. I agree with Ur_Mom but it would probably end up costing the guy more in court fees to fight it. He should just ignore them.
 
Problem with fighting these types of cases is it's a civil matter requiring only preponderance of evidence. The judges usually side with the plaintiffs and they generally end with large judgments against the defendants.

Unfortunately tar and feathering the plaintiffs isn't an option......
 
If this old man is on a slow line like crappy DSL or *gasp* dialup, the plaintiff's case should go belly up in no time. But really, these people are scum. I get trying to protect digital content and all that, but some of this stuff has been ridiculous to say the least.
 
These are just Phishing letter to scare people into paying a smaller fee. If you respond to them you could be providing them some pseudo admitting of guilt.
 
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it's the Prenda law model.

scare tactics plus public humiliation equals prenda law going to jail.

wait that's not how it's supposed to work.
 
Hate these scams, like that fucking prick in Indiana who sues people out of state.
 
Ignore it and/or play dumb.

Torrent? No we don't have any turtles. We aren't allowed to have pets in this apartment.

It's on my computer? I have a computer mouse, but what's a computer turtle?

It's a file? I have a file cabinet, but I'm pretty sure there's no turtle in there.

At 72 I wouldn't worry. If they bother filing a lawsuit, it will take years to get through the court By the time it goes to trial he could get it delayed for medical reasons, or he might be dead or far enough gone it won't matter.
 
I agree with others saying he should defend himself vigorously... hell I'd contribute to his legal fund as I'm sure many here would...
 
rgMekanic said:
"I know definitely that I’m not guilty and my wife is not guilty. So what’s going on? Did somebody hack us? Is somebody out there actively hacking us? How they do that and go about doing that, I have no idea,"
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Oh man. you're knocking on the wrong door. Hacked? More like scammed, by the lawyers / copyright trolls trying to extort money from you.
 
His case is already being dropped:

Update: Attorney Kerry Culpepper informed TorrentFreak that he already sent a letter to Harding’s family about his intention to dismiss them. The attorney says that he doesn’t use “the Prenda strategy” to try to extract nuisance settlements from innocent people.

The attorney doesn’t know the age of any of the John Does targets. He offered help to Harding, to find out if others are using his connection without his knowledge, but that wasn’t needed.

“However, he does not seem interested and there are other complications so I will just dismiss him,” Culpepper says.
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Throwing this in here so it can sink into your brains and drive you crazy all day. :p

 
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