My girlfriend got an Abmahnung from Frommer Legal yesterday. Unfortunately her name is on the internet account and she is very law abiding and worried by it. I’m Canadian and the most I’ve ever gotten has been a threatening letter from an ISP in Canada. Obviously, I didn’t know torrenting was so persecuted in Germany or else I would have been more vigilant with a VPN. Anyway , the Abmahnung is representing Warner Brothers and wants me to pay 1000€ for seeding 2 episodes of an HBO show. I contacted one of the many defense firms that specialize against these lawsuits but their fee is 30% of what I save of the “fine”. So the combined minimum(fine and lawyer fee) I could possibly pay with them is 300€. My girlfriend has proof that she wasn’t home that day (a hostel booking from Berlin) but even so the whole thing (Frommel and the defense firms) seems like the epitome of lawful evil to me and I’d rather not support it. They are both just lawyers preying on people foolish enough to not use VPNs with scare tactics. We are planning to move in 6 months anyway (elsewhere in Germany). I did read that these firms generally do (or at least sometimes) sue you in court if you ignore the warnings. I read a couple anecdotes from people that got sued just before 3 years ran out after the first Abmahnung. Can they even sue us if they don’t have our new address? What should I do? Suck it up and pay the defense firm or ignore it?
Edit: I decided to pay a defense firm and chose https://www.advocado.de/ because their fee €150 was cheaper than the others. If it was in my name, I would have just waited to see if they ever even try to take me to court, but my girlfriend just wanted it gone. I’ll provide an update if there is one, but I expect I’ll never hear from them again, as now they are communicating directly with advocado.
i had two incidents several years apart. got wbs law for about 500 euro (which was just shy of the first sum waldorf frommer asked for) and they replied to all letters for me, telling them basically to fuck off.
as soon as wbs law responded for me they tried to get me to pay with two additional cases. they were covered since they were before the time i engaged my lawyers. i suspect that they would try that either way though since its a money grab scheme anyways.
they keep trying to scare you into paying, but eventually they get less annoying.
in the second case (ca. 2015, the statute of limitations were about to run out) they try to get around the lawyers (which they are bound to communicate with instead of me personally) by suing me in front of the hamburg altona court (amtsgericht, notoriously pro intellectual property) which sent me a letter that looked very serious. forwarded it, never heard from them again. (its not actually a lawsuit but a letter from the court inquiring about the case which then decides if the claims are valid i guess).
dont pay, dont engage directly with them. they try to get you to sign a “unterlassungerklärung” that is worded in a way that traps you legally. also the deadline in the letter they send is very short on purpose (friday before te weekend e,g,).
but not engaging gives them the possibility to get more money via inkasso. since they sadly have a legal standing in germany with their intellectual property claims its not wise to ignore.
i havent heard of a IP court case in germany that was won by the studios or IP lawyers and got public since 2010. although one case where an underaged kid downloaded some movies got decided in their favor, and some old lady that didnt even have a computer got ruled against too, but those are really weird cases and the judges were on coke i guess.)
good luck & pm if you or your girlfriend have questions)