Help! I was sent a copyright infringement notice from ISP

The main point here is to change your WiFi password.
I've had this before - you just have to make sure you're not sharing this file any more any you will probably not hear any more about it. Changing your WiFi password should do this. Only exception to this is if the PC that is sharing the file is directly connected to the router. Then you have to make sure no one is using file-sharing software on this PC.

And also ask who is making the accusation, and what was the material in question.

Simply a multi thread torrent does not make you a pirate - as many games use torrents for downloading primary software and updates.

More concern to me is the Macrovision anti pirating / licensing on STAND ALONE software that sets off most security software - reporting on you everytime you use it.

You maybe responsible for your network - but not the flaws and holes built into older poor OPEN networks.
UPGRADE your hardware and software when possible.

Let me give each person a clear understanding of copy right infringement. Most if not all the people who receive this notice are those of us who use a p2p service on the web like Vuze or the torrent, piratebay, etc and the movies we download are movies someone else uploaded to that site and made it available for downloading and your ISP provider knows this precisely, as they have the technology to track another IP Address and clearly they are aware of these web sites. I have received the same notification and if the problem was that serious, your ISP would have followed through with the intent to interrupt your subscription. But to do that, they would lose millions of subscribers and 10 times that in revenue. Most if not all the movies you download are the recently released films which are shown in the UK and throughout europe before they are released here in America and those recording these movies are using camcorders are they have an agreement with the projectionist to illegally record a live movie in progress, or they are given additional studio demo production copies. Now it is safe to say that you can not be held liable for downloading any media which is allowed to be uploaded and available to the general public. Also, the only real illegal action that can be taken is, if you reproduce the downloaded material for sale to the public without the express permission of the producer of these films. Again, most, if not all of us view these movies for personal use within our homes. It may be easy to track the IP address of the user, but remember, you can do the same on an unsecured Wi-Fi just sitting in a starbucks or even while you are on a airplane. For the guilty parties who scratch their heads and wonder how someone has pirated their secure network..wake up and be truthful..If you are the sole administrator, and you gave out the wep key, or wap phrase, then you are the blame and you have no defense, and like the story says, if some person is downloading child pornography, you can be charged the same as the person caught doing it, if you made your secure network available..NO EXCUSE !!!!

The situation is a little different in Australia. A recent High Court case brought by AFACT against an ISP over the activities of their customers found that the hardware supplier was not liable for the activities of the end user. Therefore if someone else downloads material through a breach in my network, even if said material is kiddy porn, neither I nor my ISP is liable. Just as you suggested the scenario of someone using a Starbucks HotSpot, Starbucks cannot possibly police all the data and expecting an ISP to police the data of tens of thousands of users is a technical nightmare. I have been involved in several KP investigations. These people trade encrypted files. How can an ISP possibly keep track of that? And now there is a trend on torrent sites of any sort to offer a client program that includes encryption and other forms of obfuscation.

I will admit to downloading some media materials, however I am not in the habit of downloading the "latest and greatest" Any music I have download is unavailable in any commercial form (e.g., it existed on vinyl, but is unlikely ever to be re-released on CD.

Any video material that I have downloaded is usually followed by a) deletion because it wasn't what I was seeking; or b) a follow-up purchase of legitimate DVDs.

What surprises me is that I have encountered links to download movies so far ahead of their release date that one is left to conclude that the editor must rely on the download while in the cutting room in order to know how the movie finishes...

I certainly don't endorse piracy for the sake of getting everything you want free but, I do think that some of the more obscure cases could easily be classified as free advertising--"I previewed it as an MP4 and now I'm ordering the Blu-Ray from Amazon."

As I see it, encryption is going to become the "in thing", and RSA keys will be traded just to visit everyday innocent fora like this one.

<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">My ISP rotates my IP every couple months which helps. I
watch the kids play with hack programs and come up with angles I have certainly
never thought of, especially by these people creating laws and middle agers who
THINK they are creating some sort of original protection or accurate tracking
code. Computers are second nature to kids today like never before, and they are good. That being said
it is not the first time by any stretch I have heard poor people like "<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Lynn V." innocently take the brunt of something
even the accuser do not understand. It is an ongoing battle that should be monitored
as to benefit all evolved. Nough said!<?xml:namespace prefix =" o" ns =" "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"" /><o></o></font></font><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
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"reproduce the downloaded material for sale to the public without the express permission of the producer of these films. Again, most, if not all of us view these movies for personal use within our homes."

I completely concur with your explanation and reasoning, but I must add that if this is the case then the ISP providers should restrict the p2p programs as they did with ATDHE.Net which was a view only program which provided links to torrents to download videos. Now respectfully speaking, you are correct in assuming that a business is business, and as such, there will be repercussions when you operate outside of boundaries set forth in managing the redistribution of encrypted materials. But why now the witch hunt, as this has been going on for many years and the ISP as well as the movie industry has been aware of the practices of the public downloading protected media, and I say one more time, just as Nexflix found out the hard way, the leading ISP ( Comcast ) will lose many subscribers as well as revenue if they pursue this infringement policy violation against the general public. An example to my reasoning is using your sound card as a source to copy live music and then convert it to a wma / mp3 format to make music CD's...How do you stop that when computer programmers made the technology available. Will the music industry be able to effectively prosecute anyone who records music knowing the designers and programmers made such technology available " Free " to the purchaser of their PC's? It's a tuff decision all the way around and it is worth while to pay closer attention to the out come.

Good grief! Your sons friends "MIGHT" have your passwords.
If that were so and it was my son he would lose ALL of his computer privileges for six months.

CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD AND KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!!!
If your son needs to download stuff, do it for him. Otherwise, you might one day find that your wallet is not only very flat, but that you have a very large bill.

And copywrite infringement may also hit your wallet very hard.
If that happens I don't think things will be so "loose" in your house for a very long time.

It is like deleting a whole hard disk - once done you learn rapidly not to do it again.
I hate to be so negative about this, but, you son probably knows computers better than you do.
So, another initiative is to go to your local community college and take some beginning computer courses.

On my Linksys WRT610N, if I turn on MAC address filtering, the router periodically, randomly forgets some of the addresses. It would be great if it worked properly, of course. And Linksys stopped supporting the 610N a long time ago.

Extra steps are change all default passwords and use WPA or WPA2 security, not wep. Any way to reduce the transmitter's power. Also change your SSID to something other than linksys

Your info. is interesting. But how do I do these ?


"thanks"
Jim.

Note: This post was edited by its original author to remove email address on 08/08/2011 at 11:42 AM PT

Follow the guidance here;
http://www.ehow.com/how_2253625_secure-wireless-router.html

Choose WPA2 security, not WEP.

By the way, I have asked the Forum Admin to edit out your email address. Posting that in 'public forums' is not very secure.

Mark

Halting the SSID broadcast helped security about 15 years ago. It does absoluetly nothing now tostop anyone who has a utility that helps them access wireless networks.

MAC filtering is not so great either because the MAC address of nearly every wireless device can be retrieved when it is broadcasting.

Firewall and password are your best friends in wireless security. Most of these "hacks" originate from infected computers. Your computer may have been infected with a Trojan that established the connection. That is probably the most common method of hijacking today.

A determined person can "fake" their mac address to be like one of the devices on the network and therefore bypass security...

Not broadcasting an SSID and mac address filtering won't keep an attacker off the network, and will make a household network more of a pain to manage. Simple WPA2 -PSK (pre-shared-key) with the password 63 characters (containing upper case, lowercase, special characters and numbers) will do just fine.

Good information. In my router, besides using the WEP 128 bit password, I also use the MAC address control. This will only allow computers with those MAC addresses to connect to your router. The MAC address also comes out with the ipconfig /all command. These measures are very important for the wireless routers. I used to connect to my router while parked in my apartments parking lot. If by any chance you are not using wireless to connect to your computer others still can.
Some routers allow you to turn off the wireless or remove the antennas if you are plugging you pc into the router with a cable.

In reference to the previous router answer on a pc. What about s
a mac? How do you access a router change on a mac?

Help - I was able to change the password, but couldn't find a place to change the username. I have a Linksys.

Do not let you change the router's login name.

I work for a telco and I can assure you that we will termiante a subscribers account if we receive sufficient legal communications from the represantatives of the copy-right holders advising us that the infringements happened from an IP address that we provided to the subscriber.
Don't infrige copyright would be my advice - It's the law.

Please don't "...assure..." me, since I didn't address the 'telco' role. I think your reply is misplaced, if not heterodox. I didn't shed any doubt on whether a 'telco' would or wouldn't act on "...legal communications..."
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i got a letter in the mail from mediacom directly stating that they were given info that i had downloaded copyrighted material. in my case i had i did not even think about this when i downloaded the flics i got as the subject had never been brought to my attention before nor did i ever here from anyone i new being called about it . i stopped doing it and have not heard anything else about it. one of my cousins that knows a lot more about pc's than me said microsoft sends a signal when you play bootlegged movies to the persons ISP, don't know about that but who knows what all is in the microsoft programs buried where lite weights like me cant go. i would definitely check out the router and any other possibility if your sure no one in your house did the download.