Popcorn Time users 'fined' by trolls

[silicon_toad2000]

http://torrentfreak.com/popcorn-time-users-get-fined-copyright-trolls-140515/

Yesterday, German lawfirm GGR Law reported that three of its clients had received demands for cash settlements from the Waldorf Frommer law firm based on allegations of copyright infringement. However, during discussions all of the recipients insisted that they had never installed a BitTorrent client on their machines. Instead they had used only streaming services.

The use of unauthorized streaming sites came to the forefront in Germany during December 2013 when users of the RedTube site suddenly started receiving settlement demands from the U & C lawfirm. That provoked a government announcement in January this year that viewing pirated streams is not illegal.

So are these latest settlement demands for 815 euros each just another attempt at illegally extorting cash following legal stream views?

Firstly and importantly, the letter recipients believed that the content in question had been accessed via streaming – certainly, nothing had been accessed via BitTorrent. However, this is where the confusion lies.

While the interfaces of Cuevana Storm / Popcorn time give the impression of server-to-client streaming (like YouTube), both have BitTorrent under the hood. This means that while streaming video to the inbuilt player, content is also being uploaded to other users, just as it would in any regular BitTorrent swarm.

[GhostShip]

That sounds like a recipe for disaster if they are using standard bit torrent protocols with no masking mechnism, I think a story like this one serves a great purpose in warning folks of the dangers of uploading via bit torrent where anyone can access the swarm of users IP's and send out ludicrous demands.