Dear TRS,
I came across this post on HardwareZone and felt that it was an issue worth some more public attention.
To me, it sounds like this netizen's privacy was infringed and others have raised concerns about a possible scam or extortion happening.
This forumer explained that he received a threatening legal letter from a local law firm demanding that he pay damages and costs. The legal letter was not a cease and desist letter but one asking for money.
The netizen is an M1 Subscriber and he was accused of downloading the movie, Dallas Buyers Club. Apparently others on the thread also experienced something similar and they are all M1 subscribers.
I did a bit of reading and found that a similar tactic had been used in Australia and America before. In both these countries, individuals were sent threatening legal letters demanding that they pay up for illegally downloading the movie Dallas Buyers Club.
For these subscribers, many of them did pay and others were really taken to court for copyright infringement.
When concerned netizens contacted M1, they did not share whether or not they had given out their customers' personal data.
So... how did this law firm obtain the information of customers?
Also, last time there was a similar case in Singapore regarding Japanese anime and Odex which was demanding up to $5000 from Singaporeans for downloading some anime online. For this case, the court ruled that they weren't actually allowed to keep sending out their threatening legal letters, especially because they were not the original copyright owners of the movie. But those who settled outside of court because they were scared or couldn't afford court, they ended up paying thousands.
I also found it concerning as there are articles online suggesting that film companies actually do this on purpose and extort money from illegal downloaders and it actually makes up to 150 times more than from what they make from people buying the movies legally.
This is another reminder to those who like to torrent copyright content that they wont necessarily just get away with it but another issue is whether these legal threats allowed or if, similar to the Odex case, they are actually just getting money from people who can't afford to take it to court.
JT
TRS Contributor