> Dear Customer,
>
> We are writing on behalf of Cox Communications to advise you that we have
> received a notification that you are using your Cox High Speed Internet
> service to post or transmit material that infringes the copyrights of a
> complainant's members. We have included a copy of the complaint letter.
> Pursuant to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
> ("DMCA"), which is codified at 17 U.S.C. § 512, upon receiving such
> notification, Cox is required to "act expeditiously to remove, or disable
> access to" the infringing material in order to avoid liability for any
> alleged copyright infringement. Accordingly, Cox will suspend your
> account and disable your connection to the Internet within 24 hours of
> your receipt of this email if the offending material is not removed.
>
> Please be aware that the DMCA also provides procedures by which a
> subscriber accused of copyright violation can respond to the allegations
> of infringement and, under certain circumstances, cause his or her account
> to be reinstated. To do so, however, the response must meet certain
> criteria. Pursuant to section (g) of the DMCA (17 U.S.C. § 512(g)), you
> have the right to submit to Cox a counter-notification which, to be
> effective, must include the following elements:
>
> (a) a physical or electronic signature of the subscriber;
> (b) identification of the material that has been removed or to which
> access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared
> before it was removed or disabled;
> (c) a statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good
> faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of
> mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled;
> (d) the subscriber's name, address, and telephone number and a statement
> that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of the Federal District
> Court for the judicial district in which the address is located.
>
> In the event that you submit to Cox a counter-notification that includes
> these elements, Cox will forward your counter notification to the
> complainant and advise them that Cox will cease disabling access to the
> allegedly infringing material in ten (10) business days. Unless the
> complainant notifies us that it has filed an action seeking a court order
> to restrain you from engaging in the allegedly infringing activity prior
> to the expiration of those ten (10) business days, Cox will reactivate
> your account.
>
> For answers to frequently asked questions, please follow the link below:
>
> http://support.cox.com/sdccommon/asp/contentredirect.asp?sprt_cid=c2a30ae8-d706-4f6e-beb9-618ea54d1791
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Cox Customer Security
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Entertainment Software Association
> 575 7th Street, NW, Suite 300
> Washington, DC 20004 USA
>
> Attention: Intellectual Property Enforcement
> Telephone: 202-223-2400
> E-mail: esa@copyright-compliance.com
>
> 10 Jan 2007 10:10:25 GMT
>
>
> ISP: Cox Communications
> ESA Reference Number: 182-2110459
>
> Dear Cox Communications:
>
> The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a U.S. trade association
> that represents the intellectual property interests of numerous companies
> that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal
> computers, handheld devices and the Internet in the United States and in
> other countries (collectively referred to as ESA members). ESA is
> authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose copyright and other
> intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described
> herein.
>
> ESA is providing this letter of notification to make Cox Communications
> aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive
> copyright rights of and is unlawful towards one or more ESA members.
>
> Through the Berne Convention and other international treaties covering
> intellectual property rights, ESA believes that its members' rights in
> such entertainment software products are entitled to the full protection
> of the intellectual property law as well as other relevant laws of your
> country.
>
> Based on the information at its disposal, ESA has a good faith belief that
> the IP address below infringes the rights of one or more ESA members by
> offering for sale or download unauthorized copies of game products
> protected by copyright, or offering for sale or download material that is
> the subject of infringing activities. The copyrighted works that have
> been infringed include but are not limited to:
>
> Title: [Something]
> Infringement Source: BitTorrent
> Infringement Timestamp: 10 Jan 2007 06:04:16 GMT
> Infringement Last Documented: 10 Jan 2007 06:04:16 GMT
> Infringer Username:
> Infringing Filename: [Something]
> Infringing Filesize: 721768309
> Infringer IP Address: [ip address]
> Infringer DNS Name: [Stuff]
> Infringing URL: [Some URL]
>
>
>
> The unauthorized copies of such game product(s) or the material that is
> the subject of infringing activities appears on or is made available
> through the above-listed IP address. Those items are listed and/or
> identified thereon by their titles or variations thereof, game-related
> listings/references/descriptions, or depictions of game-related artwork.
> Such copies, titles, game-related listings/references/descriptions,
> depictions, and material that is the subject of infringing activities, are
> hereinafter referred to as "Infringing Material."
>
> Accordingly, ESA hereby requests Cox Communications to immediately do the
> following:
>
> 1. Notify the account holder of the Infringing Material.
> 2. Remove, or disable access to, the Infringing Material detailed above.
> 3. Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse
> Policy/Terms
> of Service Agreement, including termination of a repeat offender.
>
> Please inform us whether you will remove or disable access to the
> Infringing Material as requested. Cox Communications or the account
> holder may contact ESA at the above-listed contact details, with email
> preferred. Please include the above-noted Reference Number in the subject
> line of all email correspondence.
>
> Thank you for your cooperation and prompt response in this matter.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Intellectual Property Enforcement
> Entertainment Software Association

I ratted you out to the RIAA, sorry. They offered me a heap of $$.

FYI this thread and title are an admission of guilt

Ouch. I didn't read the whole (long-***) thing. Are they going to drop your service, or is this just a warning?

TL,DR

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

What was it they got you on? Where did you get it from? I have a feeling it was a phony BitTorrent file that the ESA put out. (Just wondering)

i remember hearing that they've been posting fake torrents to collect IP data

naughty vinny

Are they getting payed to do this?

It wasn't a fake torrent.

i shall miss Vinny and all the copyrighted material he used to email me.

I'll just have to live with standard porn again I guess.

terrist

comrade vinny is in trouble...

come comrades we must fight the capitalists!

*grabs rifle and helmet*

Kill a commie for your mommy.

Vin: You forgot to take out your hostname/IP address.

It seems they are accusing him of seeding copyrighted material over BitTorrent. If he doesn't stop in 24 hours they cut him off. It doesn't look TOO bad, if you read it carefully.

I know... I'm deleting things right now and then I'm going to email em back saying everything was removed.

And if you look up ESA, it's not really a big scary corp like RIAA or MPAA.

You think that's bad; I just tried to sell 20 DVD-Rs full of porn on ebay and they pulled my listing.

I'd be pretty careful about that. By complying with the DMCA Counterclaim you are providing an admission of guilt for piracy along with a statement of good faith. All the ESA has to do then is contest your statement of good faith and they have a very solid legal case against you.

You might be better off deleting your data, letting Cox drop you, and looking for an alternative ISP. This makes it much more difficult for the ESA to make a case against you.

Better yet, call a lawyer. Doing the wrong thing now really could be painful.

Vinny: Hypothetically speaking, it is very possible another massassian received a nearly identical notice recently.

Found this information on the ESA site:





So unless the government decides to take action, I should be fine.

*crosses fingers*

Government? Usually you just have to deal with individual companies, or perhaps illegal monopo- I mean, corporate alliances.

-What did you steal?

lol, cox

What game was it?

Saying that they won't sue won't keep them from sueing.

But will it keep them from winning?

I see it before me:
<Vinny> But they said they wouldn't sue!
* Judge shrugs

Scary stuff. Nobody wants something like that to happen to himself. It's even nasty to read it to happen to someone else.

And they are sullying the abbreviation ESA with actions like that...

Uh..link? I don't think the ESA and BayTSP are the same thing.

Ouch. Yeah, that happened to me last year. Rather, it happened to one of my fellow housemates. There were 10 of us on the same connection, and apparently one of the guys in the upper unit was guilty of this. We were disconnected twice for a few days at a time. REALLY inconvenient, being a student and all.

If it goes anything like our situation did, a simple fix and phone call should clear everything up, no sweat.

If you research the letter, you'd realize that the only thing you need to do is stop seeding, and lay low. There's no need to contact anybody. They will not initiate contact again.

The first trial to ever take place in mIRC?

Exactly how sure of this are you?

I hope you realize that by removing it and then notifying them that you removed it, you admit guilt and it leaves you wide-open for a lawsuit. The "ESA" says they're not going to file a lawsuit, but they specifically say that once you notify them, they will in turn notify the "copyright holder" that you are "no longer" doing whatever, and then they have, right there, you admitting that you did it.

Just take the crap off and tell them you weren't distributing anything but you got a friend to come over and they noticed that your wireless access point wasn't configured properly and that people were stealing internet from you. Tell them you enabled encryption and you don't think it will happen again. Or something.

BTW, saying that someone else used your connection doesn't hold up in court, just so you know.

Send them back a carefully worded letter. Don't admit to anything.

Say something along the lines of:

"No illegal content is being distributed on this connection"

You're not admitting you ever did anything wrong but you're saying that if you were you've stopped.

in Criminal court it will...if they don't have evidence YOU did it then they got nothing.

Profit court, I mean money court, I mean civil **** courts, you just gotta have the charisma to convince the judge to let you win.

They have proof that your IP did it, that's all they need. It's the same way they can give you a ticket from a red-light camera.

Have they started taking a close look at people useing huge amounts of bandwidth or what?

Which you have no experience on, if you take a red light ticket to court and they don't have a picture of YOU in the car then its thrown out.

Running a red light is a CRIME and they need proof it was you to charge you for a criminal infraction.

Its not like a parking ticket which is only a civil infraction and they don't care who parked because they can get money from the owner.

Vinny is going to jail for BitTorrenting Napolean Dynamite.

Hahahaha, red-light cameras were ruled to be illegal here.

I LOVE THIS COUNTRY.

This is what I replied with:

I'm replying to inform you that any possible infringing material has been removed and any incedental access to it has therefore also been removed. I apologize for the mistake and sincerely promise it will not be made again.

:/