Have You Gotten a Letter From Your ISP About DLing Movies?

I haven't (yet), but I do have a certain paranoia about it - whenever my speed drops, my gut reaction is SHIT THEY KNOW ABOUT MY BREAKING BAD TORRENT. I don't think I've gotten a warning yet, but I don't check the main e-mail that's associated with the account.

Have you (yes, you!) gotten a letter yet, or been reprimanded for it?

@ch3burashka: I've had the same thought whilst using torrents (legal or otherwise.) Thankfully though I haven't received any kind of 'cease and desist' letters from my ISP and I hope it stays that way.

No. Then again I delete the file as soon as the DL is done and never upload anything.

No.

We dont get this kind of shit where I live

No

I've gotten a ton but my ISP doesn't seem to give a fuck

NEVER! ...but i don't download movies. I've had family members who were called out on it through their ISP while using illegal movie streaming sites.

No, but could be because I don't pirate any content, I don't care if other people do, just don't complain if they bust ya at some point.

>not using usenet

I did once, yes. That's what prompted me to grow the fuck up and buy the shit I want instead of pirating it. Much more sane now because of it.

I prevent this possibility by just not torrenting things.

No but I have gotten letters telling me that I'm in the top 0.3% of bandwidth users. They don't do anything about it, just advise some methods on how to use less bandwidth.

No, because I don't feel entitled to steal the work people put in to making cable television shows or Hollywood movies.

I got a letter once. I was downloading movies and got sent a letter saying that I had to stop or I'd get sued by the companies. So I stopped.

Nope.

What's it to ya, cop?!

I imagine you'd have to be pretty stupid about it in order for that to happen, like downloading a multiple movies every day or something.

I received one from Nbc a few weeks ago for downloading "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" for the Comedy Button commentary, i have the damn dvd somewhere....

We've got like 5-7 letters for my house. It's because most of my family pirates stuff and they aren't very safe about it. I think only one of those letters was mine, it was for some wrestling ppv like three years ago that I accidentally left seeding for a week. Ever since I got a job I very rarely pirate stuff.

Nope. I've downloaded a shit ton of stuff but I've never got a warning or even had my bandwidth throttled.

That being said, I've been smart about it too. I don't do it very often, and when I do it is usually low-profile file. Downloading lots of things in a short time, or even worse downloading high-profile files (like that new HBO show that everyone is watching) is just asking for trouble.

At one point they let me know that I was using a ton of GB one month but they quickly figured out that it was going to be that way every month. Although at this point I stopped using torrents since streaming video covers just about everything I would want to watch.

Only letter I got was when I got a new comp and 3tb external and decided I was going to install all 100+ games I had on Steam. They were just making sure my account and router were secure. I don't blame them. With Max Payne 3 being like 20 gigs on its own...it is still a work in progress but only a couple more to go.

Edit: I don't mess with movies or new music. Just buy it. I used too but there's too much heat movie-wise and I grew out of new music.

What the fuck do you mean "accidentally"? Are you saying you don't seed? Selfish bastard...

I've always heard of "legal torrents", and I assume Bittorrent proper hosts actual legitimate torrents, but I've never encountered any in the wild.

Actually, I think the Humble Bundle are the only example of legal torrents that I know of. I rarely even use those; I usually download the music straight, or use the Steam codes. As funny as it sounds, using those legitimate torrents feels weird.

Same here. I throttle my upload to 5kbps as I'm leeching and then delete the torrent immediately after it's done.

@ch3burashka said:

That's exactly what I'm saying.

I got an email a few years back, but that was it.

I'm more afraid of them, intentionally, capping my DL speed as punishment (yes, ISP's do that).

I don't seed so no.

That's my position. If you're a pirate, you have to understand that the party isn't gonna be forever. I doubt ISPs TRULY care about protecting IP, but you can bet your ass they care about not having some freeloaders hogging literally ALL the bandwidth, especially cable ISPs.

No because I know my ISP sniffs the traffic. It's all about secure connections.

That just means your ISP isn't watching your traffic or they aren't looking for the specific files you are downloading. Doesn't matter if you download the whole thing or not. Once they see a certain pattern come across, it flags you.

Yeah and funny thing is, I never actually downloaded said movie. They just forwarded some letter paramount sent them about me, to me. It was fucking hilarious and kinda just proved to me how stupid and greasy that shit is. I used to download tons upon tons of TV and music...nobody ever said shit about the stuff I actually did steal.

Of course, I'm in Canada and I think our copyright laws are different? It's been a few years since I read up on that stuff.

This reminds me of the time I had to deal with satellite internet.

Ugh, why did I have to remember that.

Are you a cop?

No, I haven't.

Then again the only thing I torrent are anime fansubs and nobody really does anything about that stuff.

Nope. Not that I know of. So I'm good. I actually don't pirate much of anything anymore, so I don't think I ever will. If I do get a movie or something, it's usually something old that I want to see, but am too lazy to dig through the mountain of DVDs to find and watch.

Once. Ironically while torrenting a game I already owned and couldn't find the CD for. Ya got me coppers.

Nope. Gotten some of my movies/music/roms on my computer that way. I figure I have a good excuse if I do get notified (i.e. I have the physical copies, even though it's a hazy excuse).

movies? nope.

I did get a letter for torrenting one of the harry potter GBA games. in 2009. It was actually just part of a larger group, but that one game is the only one that I got in trouble from.

It was really dumb

I haven't, although I'm surprised. I torrent a few things here and there, but nothing crazy. Mostly stuff I can't find anywhere, or that I already own, for whatever that's worth. There might be a certain popular fantasy series shown on a premium network that is based on some long books too. If I do get a letter I'll just switch over to a VPN or something.

I probably see more stolen stuff without attribution on Tumblr.

No. I would send them an angry letter in response if they did so. If I want to max out my down and up bandwidth 24/7 until I hit my cap, that is just me using the service that I am paying for them to provide to me. The cap on my monthly data is really high, I've never gotten close to it even in months that I thought I might have gone over.

@ch3burashka: I have not had one for movies. But in 2009 I was sent supposed legal document from a lawyer's/solicitor's (I am in the UK) office. It was first a well known solicitor called Davenport Lyon but due to the complaints of their practise they stopped it, they were taken to court and fined thousands of pounds. It was a group called ACS:Law that took on the same practices that sent me the letter. It was made up of some people who had left Davenport Lyon.

Their entire wiki page is devoted to this scandal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS:Law

They were accusing me of illegally torrenting a game by Topcow, this game was Two worlds. I baught this game on 360 played it a bunch and realised it was a pile of shit. Why would I download it on PC?

I did not download the game ever on pc. I used torrents for videos since this was the time not every website would just upload ot youtube.

They wanted me to pay £600 and if I would not pay it they will take me to court and if I didn't not appear in court then it would be an automatic win for them and I would could be charged for £20,000 or more.

I was not the same person that this happened too, This video shows EVERYTHING that I received and how they found me thinking they had evidence.

They even accused people of downloading gay porn to people who would never watch gay porn.

It was a terrible time, I was ill for months after it. Since I went to a solicitor asap and the solicitor was besides themselves. They critiqued the whole thing, from legal terms down to the paper these "legal" documents were printed on and the basic practice of bullying you into paying up before a court of law is allowed in to weigh the evidence, since they can only win with this evidence by me not showing up. If I show up the evidence of my IP adress is so flimsy its not usable in court unless I pleaded guilty.

I work for an ISP. In our case, as long as you don't upload the movie you should be fine. So torrent all you like. Just remove it from UTorrent as soon as it's done.

We got SO many DMCA disconnects for World War Z last week. I saw one GTAV download. Lots of Star Trek.

Giant Bomb has strict guidelines about discussing piracy. One way to ensure your topic is closed is to start it off by talking about your fear of prosecution when your speeds decrease while downloading copyrighted materials.

If you're going to pirate stuff, do not discuss it here. Thanks.