A friend in the States downloaded a movie torrent unsuccessfully. How to save 5k bucks?

Question

Information Security

An acquaintance now lives in the States, and recently he received a letter that he was sued by a company responsible for distributing a film of a film. The funny thing is that for all the time, he downloaded only 2 in the US! torrent, and apparently unsuccessfully.
Suppose the provider discloses data that the download occurred from this subscriber. Are there any relatively plausible excuses that can be proven in court? It just got interesting. Let's say my Wi-Fi password was hacked by intruders. How can I prove my guilt?

Answer 1

For starters, hire a lawyer on the basis that it will be cheaper than 5k bucks.

Answer 2

Went for a walk and thought. The situation is the following. Until the court finally can not bathe. You never know what letters of "happiness" will be sent. Second. The other party still needs to prove the amount of damage. How do you finally know that after downloading the film, he is on the distribution? Or if you suddenly didn’t delete it .. see how much was distributed. A couple of copies at the most. And this is far from $5,000. Yes, and you did not know that something is being distributed. Ready to frankly compensate for these couple of copies of the pre-trial agreement. Although xs who pumped it there! I'll find him and rip his legs off. Here's what's worth saying. Well, then the lawyer all this will lead to a digestible form and forward.
And I recommend using RUSSIAN VPN in the future =D

Answer 3

We are not in the states, we do not know their laws. You didn't write there.
Write at least in good English.
And above there is the most practical advice to "hire a lawyer" or just consult - it will be cheaper

Answer 4

Get the right virus on your computer and refer to it. The user is not an information security specialist. You can try to move out to "Once, not ..."

Answer 5

Well, yes, this happens with them, a familiar lawyer told me. They work for quantity, not quality, hence the strategy is simple - I don’t know anything, I didn’t do anything. We respond to the lawsuit with a court, and only, very likely, the office itself will merge and request a symbolic 100 bucks. Here you need to look at precedents, so a lawyer will come in handy, but - they are VERY expensive, and even turn the price tag up to astronomical amounts, incredibly overestimating the time spent. So, if there is time and we ourselves with a mustache, we study relevant cases, look at decisions, participants and freely refer to them ourselves. You can refuse a lawyer - no one forbids, but you will have to follow the procedures - the court will not like it very much, if without it, and even mow. In general, if there is time, then we stand our ground to the end, we do not agree to anything. There are a lot of cases like this, no one will really understand,
We cleanly delete everything downloaded and the corresponding programs, in no case do we format it. We simply delete files, programs, copy free photos with cats 100500 times, which we then also delete. Useful in case of examination, although it is unlikely to decide.
And one more thing, we study in detail the contract with the provider. 99.9% he had no right to disclose your cases on the Internet in a pre-trial order (with the exception of a limited pre-agreed list of partners who can no longer do anything to anyone; it is unlikely that the plaintiff was among them). If there was no warrant, and 146% of it was not, while the plaintiff had no other legalways to get acquainted with your traffic - then directly in court we declare the illegal disclosure of personal data. Having done everything beautifully, you will get two goodies: the plaintiff’s case will collapse, since the court will have to ignore the provider’s statements, and you will be able to file a lawsuit against the provider that disclosed your private data. And tell your friend that the court doesn't care about that money. The main thing is to follow the formalities and everything will almost certainly be fine.
PS I could be wrong, because I'm not a lawyer, and even more so, I'm not a Pindostana lawyer. In any case, it is necessary to study the precedents, which, for sure, are very numerous. It will be clear there.
UPD. A friend answered. In general, according to him, do nothing until there is an official piece of paper. This is the seal and the necessary signatures. Then you protest. There will be no trial of 146% - the costs are greater than the profit. If it does, then I don’t know how to read a computer, I didn’t agree with anything anywhere, but I’ll have to prove it, and even myself - a lawyer will not be much cheaper, but it’s worth checking.

Answer 6

Buy discs with a face in the nearest store, when asked why I downloaded, answer that I was too lazy to go to the next room to look for a disc :D

Answer 7

Letter from government or distribution company? Can you post this letter?

Answer 8

I would move the computer to a friend. the cops would say it was a mistake. they say I don’t have a computer either))

Answer 9

Are there any relatively plausible excuses that can be proven in court? It just got interesting. Let's say my Wi-Fi password was hacked by intruders. How can I prove my guilt?

why was it "hacked" if it can be just without a password, like mine?
just do Wi-Fi without a password, and if anything - blame it. it is THEY who must prove the guilt of a particular person, and not he to prove his innocence. Can the plaintiff prove the guilt of your friend, that it was HE who downloaded it?
Until you prove it, you can't sue HIM. As much as possible, they can specify the IP of the computer and not the router. But even then, how to prove that your friend is to blame, and not his son / brother / godfather / son-in-law? Let them give time, indicate logins, prove that it was HE who downloaded it, and it was his computer, and not a Wi-Fi neighbor. And they give these pre-trial proceedings to him for review (what if your friend was ready to solve everything peacefully even before the trial, and find out whether he is really guilty, or point to the real culprit - to hand over his mother-in-law, a seasoned torrent criminal).
So for now, you can simply ignore it until no significant evidence of HIS guilt has been presented. After all, film distributors do not have the right to blame a specific Vasya Pupkin until it is proven, even if they have a magical set of IP numbers and someone told them that a torrent with a similar name was downloaded from this set of numbers. What if it was for conspiracy that a live stream was downloaded from the FSB headquarters for American residency? Who said that the file "jurassic-park4.torrent" is not really hard porn? You have to prove it first. And it’s not for a friend to defend himself from a collision and prove his innocence while no one has yet proved him and precisely his guilt.