You’d expect anyone to shut down their site and take off, upon receiving a ‘cease and desist’ warning from a multi-billion networth company.
But kudos to anti-copyright Bittorrent site ThePirateBay.org, which simply impresses me with their replies to ‘cease and desist’ letters from companies like Microsoft and EA Games.
Here are real extracts and the red text are their replies:
From anakata_anakata.hack.se Mon Sep 13 07:20:31 2004
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:19:36 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata
To: Piracy - Online
Subject: Re: Copyright Infringement
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, Piracy - Online wrote:
> September 14, 2004
>
> SENT VIA E-MAIL
>
> Fredrik Neij
> PRQ
> Box 1206
> Stockholm, Sweden 11479
>
>
> Re: Electronic Arts Trademark and Copyright
> Infringement Notice
>
>
> Dear Mr. Neij:
>
> It has been brought to the attention of Electronic Arts Inc. (”EA”) that
> the website http://www.piratebay.org with the IP addresses of
> 217.75.120.115, 217.75.120.116, 217.75.120.118 is conducting
> unauthorized activities with respect to EA’s copyrighted software, The
> Sims 2. The aforementioned website is offering and distributing
> bittorrent seeds for an unauthorized downloadable version of this EA
> game.
>
> The infringing material may be found at:
>
> http://www.piratebay.org/download.php/3238103/Sims%202.torrent
>
> http://www.piratebay.org/download.php/3238222/The_Sims2_AlcoholClone-CLO
> NEGAME_Full.Release_%28exclusive_for_trackerwww.prq.to%29.torrent
>
Hello and thank you for contacting us. We have shut down the website in
question.
Oh wait, just kidding. We haven’t, since the site in question is fully
legal. Unlike certain other countries, such as the one you’re in, we have
sane copyright laws here. But we also have polar bears roaming the
streets and attacking people :-(.
> This unauthorized activity with respect to the distribution of EA’s
> software products constitutes infringement of EA’s intellectual property
> rights. EA enforces its intellectual property rights very aggressively
> by using every legal option available.
Please don’t sue us right now, our lawyer is passed out in an alley from
too much moonshine, so please atleast wait until he’s found and doesn’t
have a huge hangover…
>
> As you are listed as the registrant for this website, EA demands that
> you immediately and permanently disable access to the aforementioned
> bittorrent seeds for The Sims 2 and any in the future.
You’re free to demand anything you want. So are we. We demand that you
cease and desist sending letters like this, since they’re frivolous and
meaningless. Where should I send the bill for the consumed diskspace and
bandwidth?
> Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions concerning
> this matter, please contact us via e-mail at:
> piracy-online@ea.com.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> EA Law - IP Enforcement
> Electronic Arts Inc.
> piracy-online@ea.com
Thank you for your entertainment. As with all other threats, we will
publish this one on http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/
//anakata
AND
From: “Internet 2″
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 10:15 AM
Subject: Demand for Immediate Take Down - Notice of Infringing Activity - MS
Ref. [snip]
VIA EMAIL:
Demand for Immediate Take-Down: Notice of Infringing Activity
URL: http://tracker.piratbyran.org/torrents-details.php?id=2614,
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/torrents-details.php?id=2969,
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/, http://www.piratbyran.org/
CASE #: [snip]
20 February 2004
Dear Sir or Madam,
This letter serves as notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512, or equivalent notice provisions of your local law,
that content currently residing within your computer system infringes on the
copyrights of Microsoft Corporation. Moreover, the source code contains
proprietary trade secret information belonging to Microsoft. I am
authorized to act on behalf of Microsoft in this matter.
The infringing material residing on your system is the source code for
Windows 1998, Windows NT, and/or Windows 2000. This source code,
copyrighted by and proprietary to Microsoft, is on your system at the
following location:
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/torrents-details.php?id=2614,
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/torrents-details.php?id=2969,
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/, http://www.piratbyran.org/
Posting of Microsoft’s source code as described above is not authorized by
Microsoft, any of its agents, or by law. Pursuant to this notification, you
should immediately take steps to locate and remove and/or disable access to
the Microsoft source code that is on your system at the web address detailed
above. As a service provider, you may otherwise be liable for copyright
infringement if, upon obtaining knowledge or awareness of infringing
material being stored upon your network, you do not act expeditiously to
remove, or disable access to, the material. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c).
The information in this notification is accurate. I swear under penalty of
perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of Microsoft in regard to its
exclusive rights in the work(s) identified above that I believe has been and
continues to be infringed as described above.
We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take
expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described
above, and thereby prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this
source code via your company’s network.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please advise us regarding
what actions you take.
Yours sincerely,
James Young
Internet Investigator
for Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States of America
E-mail: Internet1@microsoft-antipiracy.com
AND
From anakata
To: law@iprights.com
Subject: Re: URGENT - FOOTBALL MANAGER TRADE MARK INFRINGEMENT
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 law@iprights.com wrote:
> Dear Sirs
> Our client: SEGA Europe Limited
>
> We act on behalf of SEGA Europe Limited (â^À^ÃœSEGAâ^À^Ã) in the enforcement of its Intellectual Property Rights in the United Kingdom.
>
> As you will be aware, Sega is world famous and is recognised as being an industry leader in interactive entertainment. Sega, and its software developer Sports Interactive Limited (â^À^ØSports Interactiveâ^À^Ù) have recently announced that its new football management PC game â^À^ØFOOTBALL MANAGER 2005â^À^Ù is due to be launched later this month (see: http://www.sigames.com/news.php?type=view&article_id=1029 ). As a result of the recent publicity our client and Sports Interactive enjoy a substantial reputation and goodwill in the FOOTBALL MANAGER name.
>
> Further, SEGAâ^À^Ùs developer, Sports Interactive is the owner of a UK trade mark registration for FOOTBALL MANAGER under number 2,169,952. We attach details of the UK registered trade mark for your information.
>
> â^À^Øthepiratebay.orgâ^À^Ù website / FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005
>
> It has come to our clientâ^À^Ùs attention that through the service provided by your â^À^Øthepiratebay.orgâ^À^Ù website, users are able, by clicking on a link on your website featuring the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark, to download an unauthorised and illegal version of our clientâ^À^Ùs new FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 PC game. In this regard, your website is currently listing FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 as number 1 in its â^À^ÜTop 5â^À^à and a substantial number of UK users used your services to download this game in the UK.
>
> By providing this service to UK users using the FOOTBALL MANAGER name, you are infringing the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark in the UK. Further, our client is concerned that due to the volume of illegal copies of our clientâ^À^Ùs FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 PC game being provided via your service our client is losing substantial sums of money in lost sales.
>
> This email is ask that you immediately remove the link complained of, and to confirm that there will be no further misuse of the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark in relation to your services.
>
> In the meantime, our client reserves its rights in respect of any causes of action available to it in this matter and in respect of any claim for costs and/or damages against you. In this regard, your speed in complying with our requests will be taken into account.
>
>
> Yours faithfully
>
> Willoughby & Partners
Dear Sir(s), Madam(s), and/or Slimemold(s),
I have the distinct pleasure of informing you that no Swedish trademark
and/or coypyright law is being violated, regardless of how the situation
may or may not be under UK law. I would advise you to read up on Swedish
trademark law, more specifically Varumarkeslag (1960:644), as this might
save you a great deal of future humiliation.
I would also advise you to
a) not write the subject all in UPPERCASE, as it makes spam filters go
nuts
b) not attach meaningless data from trademark registrys in PDF format
and
c) stop lying.
> The Isis Building, 193 Marsh Wall, Thames Quay, London, E14 9SG, United Kingdom
>
> Tel: +44 (0)207 345 8888 Direct Fax: +44 (0)207 345 4555 law@iprights.com
>
> www.iprights.com
>
>
>
> IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and attachments are confidential and may be subject to legal privilege and/or protected by copyright. Copying or communicating any part of it to others is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, copy, distribute or rely on this email and should please return it immediately or notify us by telephone. While we take every reasonable precaution to screen out computer viruses from emails, attachments to this email may contain such viruses. We cannot accept liability for loss or damage resulting from such viruses. We recommend you carry out your own virus checks.
>
Then I guess you’ll have to send us another oh-so-scary-sounding e-mail
about http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_mail.txt and
http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_response.txt :-/.
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