Yeah you’re pretty much free to not pay it because it’s a ransom threatening to make a lawsuit, not an actual fine handed out by a tribunal. The company would have to pay huge amounts to start a lawsuit for money they’re not even sure you can afford to pay, and that’s assuming they can get you convicted.
As it stands, it’s a profitable business because people are afraid of going to court and pay the ransom, but there’s little basis to condemn someone solely based on IP address collection. IP spoofing is trivial, and there’s many other ways someone could use an IP tied to your name (someone mentioned AirBnB hosts).
In France, infamous HADOPI wanted to fine people for sharing copyrighted materials, but as it stands you are presumed innocent until proven guilty so HADOPI was deemed unconstitutional, and a later revision of the law now condemns you for “failing to securize your internet access”, not copyright infringement. To my knowledge, to this day only people who ratted on themselves have been fined by HADOPI.
So that’s all they do?
Yeah you’re pretty much free to not pay it because it’s a ransom threatening to make a lawsuit, not an actual fine handed out by a tribunal. The company would have to pay huge amounts to start a lawsuit for money they’re not even sure you can afford to pay, and that’s assuming they can get you convicted.
As it stands, it’s a profitable business because people are afraid of going to court and pay the ransom, but there’s little basis to condemn someone solely based on IP address collection. IP spoofing is trivial, and there’s many other ways someone could use an IP tied to your name (someone mentioned AirBnB hosts).
In France, infamous HADOPI wanted to fine people for sharing copyrighted materials, but as it stands you are presumed innocent until proven guilty so HADOPI was deemed unconstitutional, and a later revision of the law now condemns you for “failing to securize your internet access”, not copyright infringement. To my knowledge, to this day only people who ratted on themselves have been fined by HADOPI.