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Received a warning letter from IPPC Law?
We protect your rights!
Lawyer Carl Christian Müller
Lawyer Carl Christian Müller
The lawyer behind IPPC Law Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaf is Daniel Sebastian. The Berlin-based lawyer has been one of the most active players in the field of file sharing warnings for years. Daniel Sebastian has so far mainly sent warning letters on behalf of DigiRights Administration GmbH for the infringement of usage rights to copyrighted musical works. His newly founded law firm, IPPC LAW, represents Gamma Entertainment Inc., MG Content RK Ltd. and MG Premium Ltd. among others.
The costs of a warning letter for copyright infringement can vary greatly depending on the case. As a rule, law firms charge lump sums of between 500 and 1,500 euros. The amount of the costs depends on various factors, such as the severity of the infringement, how well-known the author is, the number of works affected and the type of use.
The costs are made up of various items, such as legal fees, costs for preparing the warning letter, claims for damages and, if applicable, court and procedural costs. In any case, take a warning letter for copyright infringement seriously and seek legal advice to clarify further steps and avoid possible penalties.
It is difficult to give an exact answer to this question, as the time it takes to receive a warning letter for file sharing depends on various factors. In general, however, it can take some weeks or months to receive an IPPC warning for file sharing.
The reason for this is that copyright holders must first identify the IP addresses of users who illegally download or share copyrighted works. This is usually done through the so-called "peer-to-peer network", in which the IP addresses of users who download or share files are publicly accessible.
Once the copyright holder has identified the IP address, they can request a court to issue the contact details of the owner of this IP address. This is usually done via the internet provider of the user in question. As soon as the copyright holder has received the user's contact details, they can send a warning letter.
In any case, if you receive a warning letter for file sharing, you should act quickly and seek legal advice to avoid possible penalties and clarify claims for damages.
If you have received an IPPC Law warning letter for copyright infringement, you should take the following steps:
1. Check the warning letter: First of all, you should thoroughly check the warning letter and inform yourself about the allegation of copyright infringement. Seek legal advice for this.
2. Observe deadlines: The warning letter sets a deadline for submitting a cease-and-desist declaration and paying compensation. These deadlines should be strictly adhered to in order to avoid further legal action and possible penalties.
3. Submitting a cease-and-desist declaration: The warning letter will ask you to submit a cease-and-desist declaration. Check this carefully and have it amended if necessary. Seek legal advice for this.
4. Check compensation: The warning letter often also demands compensation. Check the amount claimed. A lawyer can also help you with this.
5. Contact a lawyer: If you receive a warning letter for copyright infringement, always seek legal advice. A lawyer will help you to check and, if necessary, contest the warning letter, formulate a modified cease-and-desist declaration and negotiate compensation for damages.
But the most important thing is always first: keep calm!
Unfortunately, no. You must take the letter from IPPC-Law seriously. Attorney Sebastian is one of the most active warning letters in Germany. According to the current legal situation, erotic films enjoy copyright protection at least as so-called motion pictures. Downloading such a film via a file-sharing platform is accompanied by a simultaneous upload. This upload is an act of use under copyright law that constitutes an infringement of rights without the permission of the rights holder.
Do not take a warning letter from IPPC Law lightly. Ignoring the warning letter would be a big mistake. You should also not blindly rely on any reports in the relevant forums on the Internet. Each individual IPPC warning must be considered individually and evaluated with regard to the circumstances and conditions. The assertion that the matter will be settled once a cease-and-desist declaration has been issued should also be treated with caution. In such a case, contact a lawyer specializing in cease-and-desist letters who will examine the matter individually for you.
Submit your IPPC Law warning via our contact form. Please describe the background to your case. We will usually get back to you on the day of the request.
We take a look at the warning letter. One of our lawyers specializing in cease-and-desist letters will then contact you and discuss the prospects of success of your case with you. The consultation is free of charge
.
Immediately after the initial consultation, you will receive our order documents, with which we will once again confirm in writing what we have discussed. You can then consider at your leisure whether you want to continue with us.
Immediately after being instructed, we will take the necessary steps to successfully defend you against the warning letter. We will inform you transparently about the progress up to the final settlement of the matter.
In the context of the warning letter, you are requested to
1. to cease the public provision of the warned file,
2. to submit a declaration to cease and desist, which is subject to a penalty in the event of infringement,
3. to destroy all copies of the exchanged file,
4. to provide information about to whom you have passed on copies and which users of the file-sharing platform have connected to your computer to download the file and
5. to pay damages and reimbursement of expenses
.
If the subscriber is accused of copyright infringement, this involves the unauthorized distribution of a copyrighted film via their Internet access.
In the event of a suspected copyright infringement, the subscriber whose internet access was used for the unauthorized distribution of the protected work is usually warned. A warning letter is sent to them with a request to submit a cease-and-desist declaration and to pay a certain amount of money as compensation.
First, it is explained that the rights holder is entitled to a claim for injunctive relief against further infringements of rights. You are requested to immediately cease and desist from distributing copyrighted works by offering them for download. A short deadline is set for submitting the cease-and-desist declaration, which is enclosed with the letter. In the event that the requested cease-and-desist declaration is not received within the set period, the threat is made to initiate interim injunction proceedings.
The warning letter asserts a claim for compensation for the damage incurred. It is claimed that the amount of damages cannot be determined at the moment, but could be between EUR 400.00 and EUR 1,000.00 according to the case law handed down to date. The case law stated in the warning letter on the amount of damages for porn warnings does indeed exist. Nevertheless, you should not be unsettled by this and should seek advice from a lawyer.
In this point, the IPPC Law warning letter is legally questionable in any case, as there is no sufficient quantification of the warning costs. It is not clear from the letter which object value is used to calculate the costs of the warning letter. Finally, the full costs of the information procedure are claimed, although these may only be invoiced on a pro rata basis. This is likely to be inadmissible and lead to invalidity.
Finally, IPPC Law offers you a settlement offer to settle the matter out of court and by mutual agreement. To this end, you will be asked to submit a pre-formulated cease-and-desist declaration prepared by IPPC Law and to pay a high settlement amount. The settlement offer for the download of a porn movie is 962.39 EUR. If you have downloaded several films, the claim increases by 200.00 per film.
If you have not uploaded any copyrighted files yourself to a sharing platform but you cannot rule out the possibility that your children, your partner, your roommate or another third party is responsible for the infringement, a legal defense makes sense. This is because in these so-called third party cases, the courts are increasingly ruling in favor of the connection owner.
If, however, you are responsible for the copyright infringement yourself, a defense may make sense. In particular, the claimed compensation is often exaggerated. Seek advice in this regard from a lawyer specializing in warning letters.
No way. Take action. Ignoring the letter from IPPC-Law is not a solution and will not help you.
If you do not respond, the claims will be asserted in court at the latest a few months before the expiry of the limitation period. As a rule, this makes it foreseeably more expensive.
It makes no sense to submit a declaration to cease and desist if there are no injunctive relief claims. Because if you are not responsible for the alleged copyright infringement, there is no need to submit a declaration to cease and desist.
You should also note that a signed cease-and-desist declaration obliges you to pay a contractual penalty if you violate it. This puts you at considerable financial risk, especially if you do not know the perpetrator of the infringement and therefore cannot prevent further infringements of the cease-and-desist agreement from being committed.
Receiving a warning letter is usually a shock for affected connection owners. Especially if the alleged copyright infringement involves a porn film. We have experience with warning letters due to copyright infringements and offer discrete help for those warned.
Whether you have to pay the amount depends on whether you have committed the copyright infringement. If you have not distributed a copyrighted work and can credibly demonstrate this, you can avoid paying. If, on the other hand, you have committed the copyright infringement in question, it is usually possible to negotiate the amount to be paid with the help of a lawyer so that you end up having to pay a lot less.
We can only advise against this. Please do not disclose any information that makes your legal defense unnecessarily difficult. Even if you as the owner of the connection are responsible for the infringement yourself, it is still questionable whether the claimed damages are reasonable. There is also the possibility that the connection owner data was determined incorrectly or in violation of applicable data protection regulations.