Received a Cease and Desist Letter – What Now?
Received a Cease and Desist Letter
You were successful in finding a beloved piece of music and downloaded it to your computer. For this, you may have used one of the file-sharing programs like BearShare recommended by a friend. Unfortunately, your friend didn’t inform you that these programs are usually preset to make all your music titles, or at least parts of them, available for download.
Letter from the Lawyer
Months later, you receive mail from a law firm asking you to sign a declaration of discontinuance. Attached is an invoice often for several thousand euros, frequently combined with a “settlement offer” for payment of EUR 450 to EUR 1200, occasionally even more.
This happens more often than one might think.
If you now sign the declaration of discontinuance without further consultation, but refuse to bear the costs, a lawsuit for payment of damages and legal fees will soon follow, against which you can hardly defend yourself effectively anymore.
Therefore, in such cases, it is always advisable to discuss the situation with an experienced lawyer and develop strategies to effectively defend against such claims.
Often, you may not have even committed the alleged violations yourself. In this case, you can indeed defend yourself promisingly against the asserted claims; the jurisprudence is in flux and often has more understanding for those affected than one might think. However, if you only consult a lawyer after signing the cease and desist letter or even after receiving the payment lawsuit, it is often too late.