Rightscorp is the notorious publicly traded shakedown outfit that accuses people of online infringement and threatens them with titanic fines and jail time for allegedly listening to music or watching movies the wrong way, offering to make the whole thing go away for a few hundred dollars — less than a lawyer would charge to advise you on whether to pay up.
Rightscorp’s investors expect robust returns, and they’re not getting them. Under pressure to get those dividends flowing, the company has adopted a terrifying hard-sell script for its telephone extortionists to follow when they get their victims on the phone:
In order to cancel this matter without payment, you will need to go and get a police report and fax or email it to us. The police may take your devices and hold it for ~5 days to investigate the matter. You must be sure that it was not you, anyone in your household, including friends and neighbors or you will be breaking a different law with the police department.
…(Sir or Ma’am) I do need to let you know we will be continuing to contact you with all methods possible, which will include email, regular mail and phone calls until this is paid or our client decides to no longer offer the settlement. This is a pre-litigation communication. Once our client has removed the settlement, we can no longer aid you in obtaining the release of liability. This could potentially result in the suspension or termination of your internet, escalation up to and including litigation.
If you think you may have been hacked, here’s what they tell you:
Our clients appreciate that you believe you were hacked but the fact remains that we have evidence that a computer at IP address ____ has been distributing our client’s product on the BitTorrent network from __ date to as recently as ___. Your ISP confirmed that this is your account. There have been __ infringements over a period of time….. In order to cancel this matter without payment you will need to go and get a police report and fax or email it to us. The police may take your devices and hold them for 3-5 days to investigate the matter. You must be sure that it was not you, anyone in your household, friends or neighbors, as you may be breaking another law with the police department. With this many infringements, the only way we can cancel the matter without payment is if you get a police report and fax it to us. If you fax us a police report, we will close the matter.
Rightscorp’s Copyright Trolling Phone Script Tells Innocent People They Need To Give Their Computers To Police
[Mike Masnick/Techdirt]