A German law firm representing pornography publishers is threatening to publicly embarrass those it has accused of infringing its clients' works by publishing their contact information on its website. Der Spiegel reports (the news story includes a NSFW image) that the firm of Urmann and Colleagues (U+C) has warned on its website that it will begin publishing the information on September 1.
U+C appears to be the German counterpart to American copyright-trolling law firms. Last year, it announced an auction, targeted at collection agencies, of €90 million worth of claims against 70,000 individuals allegedly engaged in copyright infringement.
Now the firm says it has a list of 150,000 people who owe its clients money, and it hopes that the public humiliation of accusing them of sharing pornography will bring the checks in faster. The firm is threatening to focus on "touchy cases"—including "church rectories, police stations, and the embassies of Arab countries protected by diplomatic immunity"—first.
The firm claims that the disclosures would be consistent with German privacy laws, citing a 2007 decision holding that firms could publish names of their legal opponents as a self-promotional method. But that case focused on lawsuits against corporate defendants. Critics are skeptical that the same reasoning applies to publishing the names of individuals.
reader comments
71