Gaming News and Debate

According to one member of the www.slyck.com forums, he states that he had success with Davenport Lyons, they replied saying they would not continue with any futher action. This is what he sent them:

“I recently received a letter from yourselves, acting on behalf Atari France S.A.S, regarding “Infringement of Copyright: The Witcher”. This file was never downloaded onto my personal computer, to my knowledge, and I am therefore extremely concerned by your accusation.

The brief statement from your IT consultants, Logistep, does not give sufficient evidence of any such specific download – please send me copies of the forensic evidence in relation to IP address XXXXX, including how this information was collected and attributed to myself. The IP address may have related to my wireless router and I may have become victim of hacking.

I am very willing to resolve this situation, and will promptly respond to any further information you send.”

Hope this helps!

With the recent news of a polish woman getting fined 16 thousand pounds for illegally sharing a 9.99 pound pinball game I decided to see what all the fuss was about. According to various sources like slyck.com the alleged file sharer is one of around 500 that received a letter demanding a sum of 300 pounds damages & to prevent further court action, some people paid, some people replied stating that they were innocent, and of those that didn’t replay, were then narrowed down to 4 randomly, of which Davenport Lyons then proceeded with court action against them.

Davenport Lyons are working on behalf of game developers, like “Codemasters” & “Atari”, their aim according to them is to gain back a small percentage of loses that is caused by piracy. The letters arrive by standard post containing a large amount of “legal information”, they claim that IP Spoofing and your router being hacked into are not important, and regardless of all the flaws in their process, they claim the apparent game was uploaded/downloaded on your IP address and thus is your problem. Many receivers of the letters argue that it is not illegal to have an unsecured wireless router, and also even when wireless security is activated its not 100% secure, for example WEP encryption can be cracked relatively easily.

I understand that the majority of the alleged file sharers are probably guilty, but that does not mean they all are which is a worry to all internet users, and given that its highly possible that a person could accidentally click on file which linked to an illegal file and thus start downloading it, which could end up with a 16 thousand pound court bill is outrageous.

Davenport Lyons appear to be using scare tactics to get alleged filesharers to pay the initial fee demanded, and with the recent victory of an unemployed mother of two polish woman getting fined 16 thousand pounds it seems they will stop at nothing, and have even stated that they are already proceeded with court action against a further 1000+ people after the apparent victory.

For now it seems the best option is to reply, denying all knowledge of the alleged file sharing, and also stating that their method for capturing downloaders is bordering on entrapment, and is highly flawed based on the what can happen on your network hacking and IP spoofing to name a few.