I have heard of more then a few people recieving letters in the last few days about alledged downloading of CDs/DVDs etc. These come from a company and threaten legal action with claims around £500 against the account holder of the Karoo service. Karoo have been required to give the downlaod information to this company and in no way are they behind it.

I can imagine quite a few people getting one of these letters and having a blue funk .......................... Don''t panic

FO!

Are karoo allowed to give out this info???

Yup. Thanks to the erosion of civil liberties undertaken by our wonderful Government.

Still, if you've nothing to hide...

First thing people need to note is that the first letter you will get will be from Karoo/KC and this letter does not need responding to it is just to inform you that they have passed your information onto ACS.

Wait until you get a letter from ACS then go to the site IAN mentioned and read through the info fully and DONT PANIC

When you do send the letter make sure it is sent by recorded delivery this way you have a record of the letter being sent. (do not ignore the letter) Do not admit to anything and do not add information that is not on the letter from them.
Remember they have to prove in a court that you shared this file/cd/film whatever, they cannot do this unless they sieze your computer and get the information directly from that.
Finally stand your ground this company have yet to take anybody to court because so many people panic and pay.

How to avoid the letters... Stop using peer to peer software (Torrents/file sharing programs etc) as IANP says the problem is not the downloading but the uploading(sharing) of the copyrighted file/s

Slightly off topic but if you need to download stuff look into newsgroups.

This company have actually taken two people to court..............

They lost both times

Not seen those cases and according to this

thank god i dont illegally upload stuff