Germany Last Year 109,000 Piracy Threats Were Sent

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Since 2006, Germany has earned a reputation as a leader of file-sharing settlement demands. 2013 was no different: 446 copyright owners sent 109,000 threat letters, seeking over 90 million euros ($125 million) in damages.

Although the file-sharing settlement business has humble roots, it is turning into big business now. Rightscorp seems to be growing its operation in leaps and bounds, getting tens of thousands of settlements from American residents on behalf of copyright owners.
While Rightscorp is normally seeking small settlements of a few dollars per alleged offense, there are lots of other firms that really do earn their copyright troll label by demanding for thousands of dollars per infringed file. American users have parted with millions of dollars in recent years, but spare a thought for the Germans, who were introduced to this model in the middle of 2000s.
There are lots of well-known firms involved in the German settlement market, including record labels (EMI, Sony and Warner), US porn trolls Malibu Media, and big movie companies (Universal and Twentieth Century Fox). Within last year, almost 109,000 threat letters were sent out to Internet users, which is 1.3% less the number of letters sent the year before. It is still much less than numbers sent in 2009 and 2010.
Despite the decreasing number of threats sent, copyright owners and law firms involved are both on the rise. Last year, 446 rights owners employed 72 law firms to send out letters, compared to 422 and 65 respectively a year before. Most of settlement requests were sent out for regular films – 44% of the total. Porn trailed quite a way behind in second place with 24%, followed by music tracks with 23% of the total.
Back in 2012, the average amount demanded from letter recipients was $1,090, while in 2013 it increased to $1,140. If you multiply that by the number of threats sent, you’ll get a stunning $125 million. Although it is unclear how many people actually settled, German law is obviously geared up to put pressure on Internet users to pay up.
Despite the hopes of industry observers that new legislation (Improper Business Practices Act) enforced last October would help impose transparency requirements on law firms sending out settlement demands and cap the amounts claimed, the law firms managed to adjust accordingly.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.