70 Year-Old Grandma Threatened Over BitTorrent Download

by Ernesto, TorrentFreak
Jul. 17, 2011

As the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits continue to pile up in U.S. courts, more stories of what appear to be wrongfully accused persons hit mainstream media. A 70 year-old retired widow from San Francisco falls into this category. The grandma was recently ‘caught’ sharing porn on BitTorrent and was offered a $3,400 settlement, or the option to risk a $150,000 fine in a full court case.

Since 2010 tens of thousands of regular people have been sued in the U.S. for sharing films on P2P networks without the consent of copyright holders. Unlike other lawsuits, the aim of the copyright holders is not to take any of the defendants to court, but to get alleged infringers to pay a substantial cash settlement to make legal action go away.

As has been reported in the past, many of the people suspected of sharing copyrighted material are wrongfully accused. The problem for them, however, is that fighting the case is more expensive than paying a ~$3000 settlement fee. Justice aside, settling seems to be the best option for many innocents.

But not for a 70 year-old grandma from San Francisco. This retired widow has been accused of sharing porn (Amateur Allure: Kim) using BitTorrent, but says she doesn’t even know what BitTorrent is.

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