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abuse notification #1


dkdex

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my isp sent me a letter today informing me that they recieved notification of alleged copyright infringement originating from an ip address and/or my computer associated with my account.then go on quoting millenium act etc.i was wondering can they tell whats being downloaded from utorrent or is a threat letter because im using to much bandwidth?anyone ever have this happen to them?,thanks dkdex

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found this c&p from another site makes me feel alot better about the letter Default Help....i Just Got A Letter From My Isp, What to do and how to avoid them in future.

Firstly, don't panic.

This letter has been sent by your ISP because they have been persuaded it's in their best interests to do so by the copyright holder (or someone acting on their behalf). What has probably happened is that you have had your IPaddress recorded (harvested) whilst you were in a swarm of people who were downloading/leeching (or uploading/seeding) a particular torrent.

It's important to understand that your ISP won't confirm or deny the alleged illegal activity unless they are at least presented with a court order to do so. Even then they may still resist. Your ISP isn't the enemy here, they couldn't care less. They have about as much interest in enforcing copyright law as they do in making sure you drive within the speed limit....basically none. If you get multiple warnings for the same thing it will be an annoyance to them and they may, under their Terms Of Service cut your internet but this is highly unlikely.

Your IPaddress alone might be a good indication that you were the person committing the offence but it's not generally considered conclusive proof in a court of law. The last thing you want to do is make their life easy by acknowledging or admitting the alleged offence.

Don't reply to, or even acknowledge the letter.

Don't click on or follow any links that might be contained in the letter.

If your download is finished then remove the torrent from your client (utorrent, vuze etc).

You might as well save the file to disk now you've gone to the trouble of downloading it. Then you can delete it from your PC if it will help you sleep better.

You can take some comfort knowing you're not alone. There are usually at least one or two of this type of letter posted on Darkside every week. I have never even once seen a post saying that someone has actually been to court or even had to pay a fine over one of these infringements.

Chances are 99.9% that you'll hear nothing more about it so no need to retain a lawyer just yet. If in the highly unlikely event you do get charged with a crime, then you should get legal help.

The next thing to worry about is to not get caught again for the same thing. There's a few simple rules that are worth following;

1. Don't download very early releases of albums or movies. Avoid CAM, Screener (SCR) and Telesync (TS) copies.

These are far more likely to be watched by the authorities who will harvest your IPaddress and take action.

2. Download from reliable sources.

It's kinda obvious that if you download the same movie three or four times before you find a good copy you are three or four times more likely to get caught.

3. Read the comments from other people who have finished the download.

If the file is fake they will usually post a comment to warn others.

4. If you play the movie and it tells you that you need a special codec to to watch it then it's a fake.

Don't follow any links to websites or allow any codec downloads. If VLC player won't play it then you can be sure that nothing will. Delete the file and run a virus scan. If you find a fake then post a comment to warn everyone else. In the highly unlikely event you downloaded a fake that was posted on Darkside please use the report button on the first post of the offending topic to inform the mods. It's also worth disabling automatic codec downloading in Windoze Media Player, if you use it, as a safety measure.

5. Do some homework and use your common sense.

If a torrent claims to be a DVDRip but the movie has just hit the theaters then be suspicious. Check out the official DVD release dates first. Use the IMDB and VideoETA websites for info. If something seems too good to be true then it usually is.

6. Only take movies from a regular uploader and also only from the place they call home.

Most uploaders officially release in one or two forums, take the time to find them and only get their torrents from those sites. This will help avoid fakes.

7. Always avoid movies in zipped or RAR'ed (or other) compressed formats.

Although RARed uploads are common on scene sites, for torrents they're not such a good idea. Firstly there's nothing to be gained by compressing an avi file. Avi or MKV is a container format that's already compressed so compressing it again with WinRAR or WinZip doesn't make it any smaller. Secondly if it's RAR or Zip files you can't see the contents until the download is finished and they're likely to be password protected. This is a popular way of making you go to an unsafe website to try and retrieve a password. Finally if people download a RAR or Zip file they are likely to delete the file as soon as they've extracted it in order to save drive space. This means a compressed file is less likely to be seeded. As with point 2; the more fakes, the more exposure and likelihood of getting noticed by the wrong people.

8. If you're a releaser who's created a new upload, seed as little as is necessary to get a decent swarm going and use the 'initial seeding' facility in you client to make the leeches work for their living.

I can only imagine that the MAFIAA et al would consider releasers as high priority targets so keep your exposure to the minimum necessary. If you're a downloader you have a duty to seed what you take. Seeding to a ratio of at least 1:1 is what makes torrenting possible. That said, I don't see the point of seeding to ridiculously high ratios unless you live in a particularly torrent-safe area, this would make your chances of getting caught unnecessarily high.

9. Use the tools available.

Set up the blocklists and IP blocker in utorrent or Vuse. Alternatively use PeerGuardian (PG2). These don't guarantee privacy by any means but every little helps.

Set your torrent client to allow encryption. Be aware that if you set encryption to forced, it might be safer but it might also slow your speeds and limit the number of peers who are connectable. Again every little helps.

Privacy is not easy to achieve with torrenting. By the way the system works your IPaddress is resolved and will be visible to others. The best way to achieve privacy is to operate through a VPN (Google it). This costs money to use a decent one and it will possibly have a negative effect on your speeds. Here's also a free one you can try but it might be slow. It shouldn't normally be necessary to use a VPN unless you're really paranoid or a prolific uploader but if you have already had multiple warnings it might be money well spent. Please do not use the TOR network, they specifically request no P2P traffic because this was not what it was designed for. All the other users suffer reduced functionality because of this type of traffic.

10. Renew your ipaddress regularly. Here's a quick guide within a guide courtesy of Flatline;

It can help to prevent capture, to regularly change your IP if you have a static one. Once again, this by no means guarantees you not to get caught however it will help. Basically it works because anti-P2P are more likely to pursue users that appear regularly in their records. If you change your IP regularly you won't appear as the same person in their records. However if they do a trace on a IP (even one you are no longer using) it will still come back as you as your ISP will keep a record of who used what IP when so if they submit the ID request with a time and date they will be able to track you.

Anyway to change your IPaddress there are two basic ways. The simplest is to power your modem off and then back on. Leave it off for about 15 - 20 minutes. However in some cases this does not do the trick. Especially so if you have a router/modem combo.

In the case where the above does not work you have two options. If you are connected directly to a modem without a router (combo or not) then you can preform the following to request a new IP.

Note: These will work in Vista but you may need to go to Diagnose and Repair to restart your internet.

Go to Start > Run

Type "cmd" (without quotes)

Once in cmd, type the following commands one after another all without the quotes.

"ipconfig/flushdns"

"ipconfig/release"

"ipconfig/renew"

Your internet connection will go down for up to a few minutes while it renews.

If you are connected to a router, then this will not work. However if you go to your routers maintenance page there should be a option to release the IP somewhere. Select this option, then power down router and modem for 15 - 20 minutes and reboot. You should now have a new IP.

This won't work with all ISP's as some lock you into a certain IP and even when you release they will just reassign you the old one back.

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There's lots of myths around that when you get a copyright infringement notice it's the fault of a certain uploader or certain tracker or certain torrent indexing site. This is simply not true. The authorities can monitor any torrent release they want to, they can harvest IP addresses from any swarm and send notices out accordingly. It has nothing to do with the releaser or the tracker and as I already mentioned above, it's more likely to happen on the very latest movies and music where they believe that piracy is having a negative impact on box office takings or DVD or CD sales.

At the end of the day you are doing something illegal (in a lot of countries) and you're playing a numbers game. The best thing you can do is to try and lengthen the odds as much as possible in your favour. Don't be one of the sheep, educating yourself and using some common sense means you're far less likely to get caught.

this is not my tut i pasted from else where

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