RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is a Reverse-Engineered CEG-TEK Evil Twin

CEG-TEK-DMCA-Scare-Letters

I have been watching the analytics of this website, and as you know, I noticed a spike in individuals looking for help with the DMCA notices they received from an entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT (a.k.a. “RIGHTSENFORCEMENT”).

Until now, because the only copyright enforcement company using DMCA settlement notices has been CEG-TEK (RightsCorp too, but they are a different animal), mistakenly, those who have come to this site have viewed the CEG-TEK articles.  I have done some extensive research to figure out exactly who RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is, how they got a hold of CEG-TEK’s proprietary software, and what to expect from them.

RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT IS A REVERSE-ENGINEERED CLONE OF CEG-TEK

RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is a reverse-engineered clone of CEG-TEK. They have taken and have copied all of the methodologies of CEG-TEK, and they have created a mirror entity which does exactly what CEG-TEK did. They have (I understand by brute force) convinced the ISPs to forward their DMCA settlement demand letters to subscribers, and when a subscriber receives a DMCA notice, they are directed to pay a settlement or be sued.

ISPs FORWARDING DMCA COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT NOTICES

ISPs forwarding the copyright infringement notices for this scheme fall into three categories.

  1. Those ISPs that I believe are being forced or bullied by Carl Crowell to participate in the scheme who were formerly hostile to this method of copyright enforcement;
  2. Those ISPs that were part of the Six Strikes System, but willingly participated in the bittorrent-based lawsuits; and
  3. Those ISPs who willingly worked with CEG-TEK to forward the DMCA copyright infringement notices for them, and now are forwarding the notices for Crowell.

CATEGORY 1) AT&T, COX, Frontier, Hawaiian Telecom, Windstream,

CATEGORY 2) Optimum Online, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon, and

CATEGORY 3) CenturyLink, Charter, and sometimes Comcast (at times) and COX (yes, I listed them twice on purpose).

CARL CROWELL IS THE NEW “KEITH LIPSCOMB” MASTERMIND BEHIND ALL GUARDALEY-BASED LAWSUITS.

Carl Crowell is the mastermind behind RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT, just as he is the mastermind behind all of the Guardaley lawsuits (pornography based AND movie-based). To understand who he is, he is equivalent to the ‘kingpin’ role that Keith Lipscomb had in directing all of the Malibu Media, LLC lawsuits (and formerly all of their other pornography-based lawsuits, e.g., Patrick Collins, K-Beech, NuCorp, etc.).

The interesting piece of information that people likely haven’t pieced together yet is when the relationship between Lipscomb and Malibu Media broke apart, so did the relationship with Lipscomb and Guardaley. If you time this, you’ll probably find that around the same time the relationship between Lipscomb and Malibu soured is the same time Carl Crowell ‘came to power’, so to speak and started filing all of the bittorrent-based lawsuits [backed by Guardaley].

***KEEP READING*** (SCROLL DOWN UNDER THE CONTACT FORM TO CONTINUE READING).

CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

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    RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT IS CEG-TEK’S ‘EVIL TWIN.’

    So CEG-TEK (which at this moment is in a dormant state, but is still watching what is going on) is not RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT. RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is an ‘evil twin’, so to speak of what CEG-TEK tried to be.

    RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT USES FAR MORE AGGRESSIVE TRACKING METHODOLOGIES (WITH FAR MORE FALSE-POSITIVES).

    The big difference between CEG-TEK’s bittorrent tracking methodologies and RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT‘s tracking methodologies will be the way someone is caught (and I am basing this on what I know about CEG-TEK’s vs. Guardaley’s tracking methods, because they were always competitors for the same copyright holder ‘copyright troll’ production companies).

    CEG-TEK always waited until they could prove that the download actually happened.

    Guardaley (and thus, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT) ‘catches’ a downloader as soon as he clicks on a bittorrent file and joins a bittorrent swarm (before even a byte of data is transferred).

    Thus, someone could technically get sued or accused of copyright infringement with Guardaley for a download they did not commit. They may have visited the bittorrent website. They may have clicked on the file, but that file never needed to download in order for Guardaley to sue that individual for copyright infringement.

    WHY RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT WILL BE A MONSTER.

    So in essence, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT will be a monster. It’ll be an evil version of what CEG-TEK strove to become (CEG-TEK’s goal was always to discourage piracy, and they succeeded in their goal which is what made it not profitable for them).

    RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT will likely accuse ISP subscribers of downloading multiple copyrighted files (asking for $300 per title), when the accused downloader merely clicked on a bittorrent file. This will be true even if he later changed his mind and decided not to download the file, whether he waited in the queue and never got the opportunity to download the bittorent file, or whether he clicked on a bittorrent file, but only decided to download one or more files in a bittorrent file that contained many files for download. Worse, if he clicks on a siterip (something Malibu Media, LLC / Guardaley) almost always ‘dings’ a defendant for, no doubt RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT will ask for settlements for each and every file in that siterip.

    WHY CARL CROWELL WILL TURN RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT ‘EVIL’.

    To make matters worse, Carl Crowell has a reputation that precedes him. Where CEG-TEK would give deference to an individual who made a mistake, or who didn’t realize the gravity of what he/she did, or if that individual was a war veteran or an elderly lady or gentleman, these considerations reportedly mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to Carl Crowell. Rather, people have referred to him as a bully, and in order to deal with a bully, you need to stand up and fight if needed.

    In sum, this is why I am predicting that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT will be a monster.

    HOW WE WILL HELP TAKE DOWN ‘RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT’

    As I mentioned before, expect Carl Crowell (and anyone working under him) to be a bully.  As such, the only way to fight a bully is to punch him in the face.  Now since it does a client of our firm no good if I ‘punch him,’ so to speak, the only way to handle a bully entity (as I am sure RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT will become) is to be willing to step away from a negotiation, file a lawsuit, and perhaps even proactively file a declaratory judgement action for non-infringement.  For copyright matters, this can be done in any federal court in any state (although Crowell has already had some issues with judges in his own state, so perhaps that is a good place to start).

    I will take clients for both settlements (these will be anonymous just as a CEG-TEK matter would be since Crowell will not know who you are when he sends the DMCA copyright infringement notice to you), and for the explicit purpose of filing lawsuits (and defending lawsuits filed) by him and his local attorneys in the various states’ federal courts.

    There will essentially be three kinds of clients:

    GROUP 1) Clients with matters small enough that we can resolve them anonymously with no, some, or aggressive negotiation.

    GROUP 2) Clients with matters to large to settle (e.g., they are faced with an unreasonable settlement demand, or RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is unwilling to negotiate a matter).  For these clients we will defend the lawsuit when the client is sued (again, it does not matter in which court this happens), or we will proactively file a declaratory judgement action to obtain a ruling that these clients were not guilty of copyright infringement.

    GROUP 3) Clients who want to skip all settlement negotiations and fight this matter in court.  As I mentioned, many individuals will get accused of downloading titles they simply did not download (or, that perhaps they clicked on, but did not download).  For these people who are willing to fight, we’ll skip settlement negotiations and go straight to the lawsuit.

    In sum, I am willing to dedicate a significant amount of our firm’s resources to shutting this guy down. From what I understand, this Carl Crowell guy is another John Steele bully, and if he runs his RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT the way he’s been handling his lawsuits, I will be sure to help clients either proactively attack the claims against them, or in the alternative, I will help them get out of his way with an anonymous settlement.

    Blog Articles:

    Anti-Piracy Management Company (APMC) Still Running Strong – “Pay No Attention To That Man Behind the Curtain!,” written by DieTrollDie on 4/13/2017.

    New Automated DMCA Notices Hit Movie Pirates With $300 Fines,” TorrenFreak, written on 3/11/2017.


    CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

      NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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      RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT DMCA letters like CEG-TEK but with teeth.

      CEG-TEK-DMCA-Scare-Letters

      If CEG-TEK were a stone, I deeply analyzed every facet of it.  I knew every client of theirs. I knew what business connections they had, how they acquired them, and which ISPs they were working with.  I knew which of their principles answered the phones, and at what times.  I knew what problems they were working on internally, and what business ventures they were working on externally. But then in August of 2016, they took a step back and stopped sending DMCA letters to ISP subscribers accusing them of copyright infringement.

      I thought this was a win, namely, that there was one fewer copyright enforcement agency out there actively sending settlement demand letters and threats to sue for copyright infringement in federal court.

      Before CEG-TEK stopped going after downloaders, there were rumblings of what was to come.  …What they would and would not do, and as far as I understood, their success was causing their business model to fail.  Around the same time, there was a huge opportunity missed for Keith Lipscomb to partner with CEG-TEK (consider this lucky timing based on him getting sued by his Malibu Media, LLC client), because if the relationship between Lipscomb and Malibu Media, LLC had not soured around the same time as CEG-TEK began to shift their client base and restructure the operations of the company, Lipscomb might have proposed a partnership and CEG-TEK might have agreed to it.

      For those of you are newcomers because you received a notice or a letter forwarded to you from your ISP based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) statutes, Lipscomb used to be the mastermind behind each and every Malibu Media, LLC (adult film-based pornography lawsuit) and through his local attorneys across the US, he filed thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits against John Doe Defendants, initially asking for $20,000+ in settlement amounts from each defendant.  Do the math.

      If Lipscomb corrupted CEG-TEK’s Copyright Enforcement system, instead of asking for a mere $300 per title for the bittorrent download of one copyrighted title, Lipscomb would have employed Malibu Media, LLC’s strategy of “catch one torrent click, sue for 60+ titles which were all downloadable by clicking that one bittorrent file.”  In other words, we would have seen settlement amounts of $18,000 ($300/title x 60 titles) per accused downloader.

      But that didn’t happen, or so I thought…

      HAS “RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT” BECOME THE NEW CEG-TEK?

      Come now, a new entity dressed in new clothes, but one that still ‘walks and quacks’ like CEG-TEK did.  This new entity named “RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT” (or, “RIGHTSENFORCEMENT”) appears to have gotten access (legally, illegally) to CEG-TEK’s proprietary systems and mechanisms and they started sending DMCA settlement demand letters directly to ISP subscribers, just as CEG-TEK did.  They appear to be tracking and sending these notices the same way CEG-TEK did.  They are asking for $300 per title as a settlement, just as CEG-TEK did.  But the RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT name doesn’t carry the same history as does the CEG-TEK name, which caused me to write almost FIVE YEARS of blog entries on them.

      A few weeks ago, I started to notice that people were finding my older website articles using the names of CEG-TEK’s old clients, as I outlined in CEG-TEK’s Client List (posted in 2014).  I saw Google Searches such as looking for DMCA notices surrounding adult film companies such as Brazzers, Girlfriends Films, Reality Kings, Wicked Pictures (all CEG-TEK clients), just to name a few.  I did not think anything about this until in the past few days, people started visiting my CEG-TEK articles.  Again, I didn’t think much about it until the visits to the CEG-TEK articles started to spike in the last day or so, and this morning, I wrote a blog entry in alarm, asking why everyone was suddenly visiting articles on CEG-TEK, a sleeping entity?

      I have to thank Sophisticated Jane Doe (“SJD”) of FightCopyrightTrolls.com for the tip-off.  I am posting her comment in its entirety, and I do encourage her to write more about it.  While I could answer a number of her questions about the mechanisms of how CEG-TEK did their tracking, and how their systems worked, SJD has pieced together who the entities are behind the scenes.

      Crowell was cozying with Siegel since last summer. “London Has Fallen,” used for shakedown by both the Guardaley network and Siegel, was a test drive for something new IMO. This “new” is a new CEG-TEK-like outfit created and run by Crowell in December. Check it out. The letters are already being sent out. I wanted to write a post (and maybe I will) about these developments, but has been busy recently.

      I don’t know who harvests IP addresses and have no idea to what extent Siegel and Crowell work together, if at all, but my gut feeling: they do.

      The gravity of this news is that Crowell & Co have something that neither Rightscorp nor CEG-TEK had: credibility of threats to sue. As a result of non-paying to this new shakedown factory, at least one lawsuit was already filed (can’t locate it for the moment, but the complaint explicitly mentioned that the defendant was given opportunity to pay small ransom, but skipped).

      Funnily, Crowell wrote about it anonymously yesterday, as if he didn’t know.

      “RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT” IS NOT CEG-TEK

      So what do we have now?  We appear to have a new copyright enforcement entity called “Rights Enforcement” which acts as if it is CEG-TEK, just in new clothes.  Aside from the fact that this name (RIGHTSENFORCEMENT) is impossible to search for in a Google Search (ingenious).  Aside from the fact that it is next to impossible to bring scrutiny to Rights Enforcement’s practices because the name is so generic.  And, aside from the fact that “rightsenforcement.com” is just as confusing to look at as “iwenttothestoreyesterdaytobuysomedaisies.com”… I believe what is going on.

      CEG-TEK WOULDN’T SUE. RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT UNDER OWNERSHIP / MANAGEMENT OF ATTORNEY CARL CROWELL WILL SUE.

      A big complaint the principles at CEG-TEK used to have is that they would ask for $300/title and threaten to sue if this amount was not paid, but when that notice was ignored, nobody at CEG-TEK filed any lawsuits.  I would even say that Ira Siegel was averse to filing lawsuits, as we know that he used to file copyright infringement lawsuits, and then after having Siegel had a number of bad experiences with the California federal courts inquiring about his settlement rates, he dropped all of his lawsuits and went on to help form Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG-TEK).

      However, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is run not by Ira Siegel, but by Carl Crowell.  Putting aside everything that has been written about him on the other bittorrent-based blogs, one thing that you as a recipient of the DMCA letter must know is that Carl Crowell files lawsuits in federal courts, justified or not.  This means that if a settlement is not reached, he will file copyright infringement lawsuits against individual John Doe Defendants, and instead of asking for $300 for one title (or whatever he is asking for in the DMCA notices), he will file a copyright infringement lawsuit for $150,000 for the infringement (unlawful download, upload, etc) for ONE copyrighted movie.

      So in sum, as far as I understand it, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is a reverse-engineered copy of CEG-TEK, but with teeth and a salivating desire to sue accused downloaders who do not settle.

      FOLLOW-UP NOTE (FOR ACCURACY PURPOSES): RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT, especially with litigious attorney Carl Crowell is certainly a threat to anyone who received a DMCA  letter from their ISP.  Why?  Because whoever represents a client in a settlement MUST be prepared to also be able to fight Carl Crowell in the federal courts.  It appears as if they have somehow acquired, or even reverse engineered CEG-TEK’s DMCA copyright infringement notice system (I have already contacted a number of individuals at CEG-TEK trying to ascertain who RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is).

      Either way, based on the way they appear to be structured, I believe that we’ll be able to settle these cases using the same methodologies as we did the CEG-TEK cases (keeping the accused downloader ANONYMOUS), but with a caveat that we did not need to give our CEG-TEK clients — these guys are a different breed of attorneys than CEG-TEK, and they come to the negotiations with a “we’ll take your house” mentality, so aggressive negotiations backed by a willingness to fight or be bullied is the strategy that will need to be used with this new RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT / CEG-TEK clone entity.


      CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

        NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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        How CEG-TEK Is Growing With New ISP Relationships.

        We already know that it is the business model of CEG-TEK and other copyright monetization companies is to develop relationships with the internet service providers (“ISPs”), and to have them forward copyright infringement / DMCA notices to their subscribers.

        I have mentioned this already with regard to the relationships CEG-TEK has with Charter, CenturyLink, and Suddenlink, and as we know, COX Communications, Inc. signed on with CEG-TEK in December of 2015, and has been sending CEG-TEK’s DMCA violation notices to their users.  What we did not notice until now is that Cox Communications has become CEG-TEK’s “golden goose.”

        WHY COX IS CEG-TEK’s “GOLDEN GOOSE”:

        Why Cox? Because Cox provides its users the same IP address each day. This “one subscriber, one static IP address” trend provides copyright holders and government officials an “ID” of sorts which allows them to identify a particular IP address, watch the activities of that IP address over time as it interacts with different websites (e.g., to see what links that internet user clicks on, to learn where they shop online, what accounts they use, what items they purchase, and what bittorrent downloads they participate in).  Then, when they have developed enough of a profile on that user to convict, they then trace that IP address back to a certain Cox Communications account for prosecution, or in our case, extortion.

        For CEG-TEK, they are focusing their efforts on Cox because by doing so, they do not need to obtain from the ISP a past list of IP addresses assigned to that user, and it is very easy for CEG-TEK to go back in time and check their own logs of the past bittorrent swarms to see whether that particular subscriber / IP address participated in any other downloads of their other clients. Some have suggested to me that CEG-TEK can do a search to see what other bittorrent downloads the accused Cox subscriber has participated in. In short, Cox’s “one subscriber, one static IP address” is nothing short of a violation of their subscriber’s privacy, and it is only a matter of time before someone’s IP address gets “followed” and someone gets hurt because Cox is not obscuring the identity of their subscribers.

        BRIGHT HOUSE NETWORK IS NOW WORKING WITH CEG-TEK:

        Other than Cox, I have recently learned that Bright House Networks (brighthouse.com) is now working with CEG-TEK. I do not yet know in what capacity they are working with CEG-TEK, or in what kind of relationship, but it appears as if they are a new ISP “recruit” in CEG-TEK’s “war” against piracy.

        NEW CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS POLICIES AS TO HOW THEY FORWARD DMCA NOTIFICATIONS (THE GOOD AND THE BAD):

        For the thousands of you who are Charter subscribers, Charter has recently changed the way they forward the DMCA notices, and this can only be good for subscribers. Instead of forwarding the notices in an e-mail, they are now asking subscribers to “log in” to their website, where only then can then view and copy for themselves a copy of CEG-TEK’s letters.

        This is both very good, and bad. On the good side, any “hoops” an ISP makes a subscriber jump through to see the claim(s) against him might annoy the subscriber, but it no doubt infuriates the copyright holders and “monetization” companies (like CEG-TEK) that rely on them seeing their DMCA notices to provide their copyright holder clients their dirty money (I could have said “ill-gotten gains,” but emotionally, calling it “dirty money” seemed to fit better).

        THE PROBLEM OF “LOST” DMCA NOTICES:

        However, BUYER BEWARE! I have received many calls about people who have physically LOST their DMCA notice because they did not copy it down when they viewed it. And when they called me about it panicked, because I couldn’t see the claims because they did not know who was claiming copyright infringement against them, I couldn’t tell them whether the copyright holder was a “copyright troll” or not, or whether they are suing downloaders in the federal courts. So please, as soon as you access the DMCA violation notices sent to you, either download a copy of it for yourself, or copy-and-paste it into a text file.

        GOOGLE FIBER IS A DISORGANIZED ISP WHICH HAS ALSO LOST DMCA NOTICES:

        Google Fiber subscribers also — Google Fiber seems to not be organized as to keeping track of the DMCA notices that they are forwarding to their subscribers. So when an internet user inadvertently deletes that notice, it is gone forever. Neither I, nor anyone else can help you fight or settle (or even advise you as to your options) if you accidentally deleted the notice. I suspect that if you are reading this article, it may already be too late.

        CANADA — NEW CANADIAN ISP RECRUITS:

        Okay, last piece of news and then I need to get back to work. As we know, CEG-TEK has been sending letters for months to Canadians and forcing the ISPs to send these letters to their subscribers under what is known as “notice and notice.” I have written about the problem and the solutions here in my “CEG-TEK: What are your financial risks and considerations of ignoring, settling, or being sued for copyright infringement if you live in Canada or Australia?” article. The news is that just as CEG-TEK is growing their business by signing on new ISPs in the US, this is also true in Canada.

        The new Canadian ISPs now working with CEG-TEK appear to be Videotron (a.k.a., Vidéotron), Bell Aliant (www.bellaliant.ca), and Eastlink (www.eastlink.ca) — this will also affect their FibreOP users under the ISP names NorthernTel, DMTS, Telebec (Télébec), and Cablevision. If anyone receives notices from these internet providers, I would like to see them, as I hear that CEG-TEK is not following the notice rules.

        As for the older ISP names — Bell Canada, Rogers Cable, Shaw Communications (sjrb.ca), ACN Canada, Electronic Box Inc., TELUS Communications, Start Communications, and TekSavvy, yes, these are still in play. The only one of these that has my respect thus far is TekSavvy which has tried to protect their users by fighting back, but even so, they are still sending CEG-TEK’s DMCA violation / copyright infringement letters, so my respect is limited.

        RELATED UPDATES:

        [2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities operate almost the same way, it is good to understand the relationship between a copyright enforcement entity (here, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT and below, CEG-TEK).]


        CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

          NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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          What is the REAL RELATIONSHIP between your ISP and CEG-TEK?

          The Three Relationship Types Between a Copyright Troll and an ISP.

          Obviously I am not privy to the contracts signed between CEG-TEK and the internet service providers (“ISPs”).

          There are three possible relationships between a copyright enforcement company and the ISP through which they send DMCA letters informing subscribers that unless they settle the claims against them for downloads that allegedly occurred, they might be implicated in a copyright infringement lawsuit.

          1) A RELATIONSHIP OF FORCE AND THREATS AGAINST THE ISP (where CEG-TEK threatens, and the ISP complies),

          2) A RELATIONSHIP OF PROFIT FOR BOTH SIDES (where CEG-TEK pays, and the ISP cooperates), and

          3) A RELATIONSHIP OF PURE MOTIVE (both CEG-TEK and the ISP hold hands and cooperate, to “fight piracy”).

          SCENARIO 1) “A RELATIONSHIP OF FORCE AND THREATS AGAINST THE ISP” (where CEG-TEK threatens, and the ISP complies)

          In the first scenario, a company or set of attorneys representing the copyright holders contacts the ISP and informs them that they might be in violation and subject to various lawsuits, fines, and penalties for not complying with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), and other statutes (in Canada, the ISPs are literally required to pass on claims to their customers, and this is referred to as “notice and notice”). If the ISPs do not comply, they could be sued for millions of dollars for encouraging piracy on their networks (I am speaking loosely in the vernacular).

          ISPs across the US would be included in this first scenario, which explains how many of the bigger ones such as Comcast [who I understood were originally NOT working with CEG-TEK, because doing so would violate how they are supposed to act by being part of the “Six Strikes” system] started sending out abridged CEG-TEK infringement notices a few months ago, even to first time offenders.  Another such example of ISPs who “take steps” to stop infringement is Charter, which has been known to temporarily suspend their users who are accused of copyright infringement, but only with a pop-up notice that they need to click on to acknowledge the claim of copyright infringement against them before their internet service is resumed, unhindered.

          NOTE: Comcast also has a strong profit motive as demonstrated in Scenario 2 (below), as does Charter, who has been known to be working with CEG-TEK since the beginning of their operation.  We believe the relationship between Charter and CEG-TEK is one of “for mutual profit” (Scenario 2) because CEG-TEK has obtained information about accused downloaders that they could only obtain with the help of the ISP.  Also, I understand that over the years, there have been periods of “tension,” (as I called them) where Charter has held back the sending of the CEG-TEK DMCA infringement notices for sometimes weeks at a time, only to send them all at once (my joke at the time was, “I guess they were waiting for their payment.”)  All jokes aside, the point here is to note both the Comcast example and the Charter example to show the actions an ISP will take to make it look as if they are “taking steps” to fight piracy.

          In each of these scenarios, the ISP does the absolute minimum to comply with the claims against their customers, but what you don’t see is the “wink and a nod” from the ISP that they are likely not going to shut your account down or lose you as a customer over this (in other words, your activity violates the ISP’s terms of service “TOS” or “PUA”, but I have not been hearing of anyone’s account being shut down).

          UNRELATED, BUT STILL VERY IMPORTANT: I have even heard that ISP customer service representatives actively tell their subscribers [in ignorance of the law] to just delete the infringing content and to ignore the notices.

          FYI, look up “spoliation” of evidence, where the victories of the copyright holders in the US against downloaders happen where the copyright holder can prove that the accused defendant wiped his hard drive or deleted the infringing content after being notified by the copyright holder that there was a claim of copyright infringement against the subscriber. Thus, take what the ISP customer service representative says with a grain of salt because even though they might not care that the download happened on their network, there is still the law and the claims against you, and your ISP’s customer service rep is in no position to be giving you legal advice. Better to deal with or resolve the CEG-TEK claim against you first (if you were going to settle) before wiping the hard drive in fear of having other claims of copyright infringement or lawsuits filed against you (e.g., by other copyright holders such as Malibu Media, LLC, etc.) in the near future.

          NOTE: Your relationship with your ISP has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with your relationship with the copyright holder (or CEG-TEK) or the claims against you, since the copyright holder(s) still have one or more claims of copyright infringement against you.

          SCENARIO 2) “A RELATIONSHIP OF PROFIT FOR BOTH SIDES” (where CEG-TEK pays, and the ISP cooperates)

          In this scenario, the understanding is that CEG-TEK is actively paying the ISP for providing their DMCA infringement notices to their subscribers. While I did not initially believe this was happening in Canada (although I did have my suspicions), as of this morning, I now believe that Shaw Communications Inc. (a.k.a. Shaw Cablesystems G.P., or “sjrb.ca”) is working with CEG-TEK in a “for profit” relationship. I obviously cannot prove this, but from what I understand is about to happen with their subscribers [who will shortly be receiving multiple letters of infringement sent to them at the same time], this type of “delay, then dump a bunch of infringement claims” experience usually happens in a “for profit” relationship when the ISP is being compensated for the time they spend complying with the copyright infringement requests, and the payment is not immediately made.

          Two examples demonstrating the “for profit” motive of various ISPs in the U.S. with facts (in these two cases, the “for profit” motive was forced upon CEG-TEK to their frustration) can be seen in the past behaviors of both Comcast and AT&T. A few years back, to handle the increasing number of subpoena requests (at the time, as a result of John Steele / Prenda Law Inc. lawsuits and the increasing number of bittorrent lawsuits being filed across the U.S.), Comcast opened up a “subpoena compliance” department in Morristown, NJ and staffed [at the time] twelve new hires just to handle the new subpoena demands from the lawsuits. In the lawsuit filings, when the copyright holders and their attorneys learned that Comcast was trying to profit off of the bittorrent lawsuits, they complained to the judges that Comcast was stalling on the subpoenas (Comcast was, at the time, under a duty to comply with the many subpoenas that were being requested of them).  It came out that Comcast was asking for something like $25-$50 per IP address lookup, when they were supposed to be complying with the subpoena for free.  Comcast prevailed in getting their IP address lookup fees, which I understand they continue to charge, even though other ISPs still do this for free.

          Similarly, for those who know anything about Ira Siegel — the name that shows up on the bottom of every single CEG-TEK DMCA notice — there was a point where Ira absolutely refused to work with AT&T because AT&T’s subpoena department would charge $200 per subpoena request or IP address lookup, something at the time I heard that he found infuriating. Thus, you’ll notice that even today, you’ll never find a recipient of a CEG-TEK violation notice being a subscriber to AT&T, but as you can see, there *is* a profit motive of the ISPs to benefit financially from the growing influx of copyright infringement claims against their subscribers.

          NOTE: I understand that the relationship between Charter, Centurylink, Suddenlink, Cox, sometimes Comcast, [and now most recently in Canada, Shaw Communications] fall under this scenario. The reason I am of this understanding is because of the advanced information CEG-TEK is able to identify about that subscriber, sometimes including the subscriber’s name (I have my own understanding as to how they get this from the geolocation), the geolocation itself of where the downloads occurred, along with other “past downloads” that allegedly happened weeks or months in the past at that same location, or by that same subscriber (based on a list of old “IP addresses” provided to CEG-TEK so they they can correlate that list against their own bittorrent records).

          SCENARIO 3) “A RELATIONSHIP OF PURE MOTIVE” (both CEG-TEK and the ISP hold hands and cooperate, to “fight piracy”)

          This is the “kum baya” view of piracy, where CEG-TEK approaches the ISP and tells them that they want to fight piracy. They show statistics of how when other ISPs “joined forces” with them and started sending out the DMCA violation settlement letters, piracy dropped significantly on that ISP’s network.

          The ISP then sees this information and also agrees to “sign on” with CEG-TEK to help them forward their settlement demand letters to their subscribers with the hopes of diminishing the amount of “piracy” of copyrighted content that occurs on their networks.

          NOTE: In this last scenario, you won’t find a profit motive by the ISP, and this is where I believe they get colleges and universities to sign on with them to fight piracy on their networks.

          MY PERSONAL OPINION AND BIAS: Whatever the relationship or the scenario between CEG-TEK and the ISP, in the end, the subscriber is the one who suffers because it is THEY who receive the “settle or else my client will sue you as a John Doe Defendant in a U.S. federal court lawsuit for copyright infringement” letter.  Call it “speculative invoicing,” call it “Intellectual Property Monetization,” call it “fighting piracy,” when it is the individual downloader the copyright holder goes after, it is still WRONG.

          To CEG-TEK’s merit, I have personally been in conversations with CEG-TEK where they were excited that piracy was actually going down on a particular ISP’s network — so apparently they do believe in what they do — but then again, whatever I feel about piracy and how the copyright laws should be changed to match today’s internet generation, in the end, it is the college students, their parents and landlords, the young graduates who are trying to find jobs, and those who are lured in by the adult content which is so addicting, widely available, and prevalent on the internet who fall prey to the tactics of the copyright holders.  For this reason, I still believe that the copyright holders should focus their efforts on pursuing those SELLING FOR PROFIT, DISPLAYING PUBLICLY WITHOUT A LICENSE, POSTING OR INITIALLY SHARING copyrighted content, but leaving alone those internet users who have no profit motive, who click on a link to view the copyrighted content.  

          Back to my policy letter, I believe that it is the job of the copyright holders to police their own copyrighted materials, and not to attack, sue, extort, threaten, or pressure those who view or download content already aired on TV or in a public forum and posted on the internet.  The internet today has become like the TV and the Betamax of yesteryear.  Media becomes available, and people watch that media, whether the source is legitimate or not (think, Youtube).  TV shows are recorded, and are posted on many websites, some of them are licensed to share that content (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, ABC.com, etc.), some unlawfully do so without a license.  However, it is not the job of the internet user to inquire as to whether a source for a video is legitimate, especially when watching a show that was publicly aired just a few days beforehand.

          The last thing that I want to do is to think twice when clicking on a YouTube video.  Taken to extremes, this is where the copyright holder’s activities go.

          [2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities operate almost the same way, it is good to understand the relationship between a copyright enforcement entity (here, RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT and below, CEG-TEK).]]


          CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

            NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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            CEG-TEK’s Growing List Of ISPs, And Their NEW Alliance With COX Communications.

            growing-list-of-isps-sending-dmca-settlement-demand-letters

            I am observing “shifting sands” when it comes to the number of internet users who are getting caught in the web of CEG-TEK DMCA-based settlement demand letters, especially with a growing list of ISPs working with copyright trolls like CEG-TEK.

            CEG-TEK initially only had 3 ISPs sending their DMCA settlement letters.

            For almost two years, I have been telling people that there are three internet service providers who are working with Ira Siegel — Charter Communications, SuddenLink, and CenturyLink. This has been true, and continues to be true.

            I have also told people that if your ISP is participating in the “Six Strikes” anti-piracy system — specifically, Comcast (Xfinity), Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision — then there is nothing to worry about (because these ISPs are no longer forwarding Ira Siegel’s DMCA settlement demand letters, meaning that there is nothing at the moment to settle).  This is NO LONGER TRUE.

            The “Six Strikes” anti-piracy system was meant to stop ISPs from being used for settlement extortion schemes.

            In recent weeks, I have observed a growing list of ISPs sending infringement notices. Most noteworthy is Comcast (Xfinity), which has been sending infringement notices to its subscribers in spite of the “Six Strikes” system being in place.  

            What information does Comcast (Xfinity) provide subscribers accused of copyright infringement?

            The Comcast notices contain relevant infringement information, yet only reference the “CEG-TEK Case Number;” Comcast has, however, neglected to provide the password so that the accused downloader could visit CEG-TEK’s website to determine what claims they have against him.  

            Unintended consequences of not providing all data to subscribers.

            The unintended consequence is that in order to see what claim(s) CEG-TEK has against the accused subscriber, the subscriber would be forced to contact CEG-TEK directly to obtain the password corresponding to the Case Number (thus exposing his identity, and potentially incriminating himself when answering questions).

            Direct communication with copyright trolls is a big no-no, as you know it is my opinion that communicating directly with them is a bad idea because their goal is to extract a large settlement from you on behalf of their clients.

            The growing list of ISPs agreeing to send DMCA settlement demand letters.

            As for the 100+ small and mid-sized ISPs who did not join the “Six Strikes” system, with hindsight, we now know that CEG-TEK has spent the last two years on an aggressive campaign to enroll as many ISPs to work with them as they could… “to stop piracy,” of course. 

            While it was surprising to us is that CEG-TEK went after Giganews and a growing number of online privacy providers (finding the downloaders where the downloaders allegedly reside), the breaking news is that within this list of ISPs and privacy providers, CEG-TEK has most recently signed on COX Communications to send Ira Siegel’s DMCA letters to their subscribers.

            COX Communications, Inc. Yes, COX.

            Again, just in case you missed it — COX COMMUNICATIONS is now working with CEG-TEK.

            Cox Communications has literally millions of subscribers.  They were almost expected to be part of the “Six Strikes” system, but then they declined to join keeping them free of the “Six Strikes” rules.

            On a personal note, Cox used to annoy me when various copyright trolls would sue their subscribers. Instead of housing a subpoena department internally, they used to outsource all of their business relating to their subscribers to a company named NEUSTAR, a company that was complicit and merciless in turning over the records of hundreds of accused defendants in the copyright trolling lawsuits over the years.

            In Summary

            In sum, with this article I take back a number of things that I thought almost two years ago, namely that the Six Strikes system would kill CEG-TEK’s business.  As you can see from the growing list of ISPs (below), CEG-TEK has responded to the “Six Strikes” system by focusing their efforts on growing the list of ISPs who are working with them.  Now that they have Cox Communications on board, this will be a problem for many thousands of users in the months and years to come.

            The List of ISPs sending DMCA Settlement Letters:

            Below is a list of ISPs who have been known to forward Ira Siegel’s DMCA settlement demand letters.  This list of ISPs is obviously incomplete (and I have no intention of updating this list), but what is important is that two years ago, these ISPs were not working with CEG-TEK.  Now they are, and accused internet users are receiving notices of infringement instructing that they visit CEG-TEK’s website and settle the claims against them.

            LIST OF ISPs (INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS) KNOWN TO WORK WITH CEG-TEK:
            AeroSurf
            AirtranNet
            Arvig
            Ashland Home Net
            Bloom Broadband
            Blue Ridge Communications
            CenturyLink
            Charter Communications
            CondoInternet
            DigitalOcean
            EPB Fiber Optics
            First Communications
            GigaNews
            Google Fiber
            Hotspot Broadband
            Internet Services of Cincinnati (ISOC.net)
            MetroCast
            Midcontinent Communications
            Mid-Rivers Communications
            Morris Broadband
            NeoNova Network Services
            OlyPen Cable
            PenTel Data (another name for Blue Ridge Communications)
            ResTech
            SuddenLink Communications
            ViaSat / Exede Internet
            Strong
            Whidbey Telecom
            WildBlue (service through ViaSat)

            UNIVERSITIES KNOWN TO FORWARD CEG-TEK SETTLEMENT DEMAND LETTERS:
            Rice University
            Columbia University
            Cornell University
            Stanford University
            University of Michigan
            Wisconsin University
            University of Alaska

            RECENT NEWS:

            UPDATED COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT GROUP (CEG-TEK) ARTICLES (from this blog):
            Canada begins receiving CEG-TEK DMCA settlement letters. (3/12/2015)
            How time limits / purged records stop a copyright holder from learning a downloader’s identity. (12/18/2014)
            CEG-TEK’s growing list of participating ISPs, and their NEW alliance with COX Communications. (11/12/2014)
            The Giganews Problem (11/12/2014)
            CEG-TEK is now your friendly “photo” copyright troll. (6/13/2013)
            CEG-TEK’s new “you didn’t settle” letters sent from Marvin Cable. (3/22/2013)
            CEG-TEK’s DMCA Settlement Letters – What are my chances of being sued if I ignore? (2/22/2013)
            Why CEG-TEK’s DMCA settlement system will FAIL. (2/22/2013)

            RELATED UPDATES:

            [2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities are continuing where CEG-TEK left off, namely adding ISPs such as AT&T, Frontier, Hawaiian Telecom, Optimum, and Winstream, this article is relevant because it also applies to RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT.]

            CONTACT US.

            CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

              NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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