My ISP sent me seven emails saying that I'm under investigation for filesharing...

My ISP sent me seven emails saying that I'm under investigation for filesharing. It sounded really fucking serious - I've been doing this for decades and was always fairly careful. Will this come to fruition? Is my life ruined?

tell them you're going to switch isps

Yes.
Better just kill yourself before three NSA rapes you

Even the fires of hell won't hide you from the RIAA and the MPAA.

Courts of law have determined that IP addresses (which is surely the only identifying information they have about you) do not prove guilt for the owner of the IP address.

My first piece of advice is do not, under any circumstances, admit to anything

The second is to create a guest/secondary WiFi network with no password or the password "password" (plausible deniability)

Thirdly do not respond to emails or contact them in any way

Fourthly, stop torrenting without a VPN

Finally, delete evidence from your machine(s) (probably totally unnecessary)

I've read that I shouldn't respond and that if I just stop I'm fine.

I appreciate the response.

They just now specified that it was from a season of a TV show and they want damages from each episode downloaded.

I didn't even fully download it. It was at maybe .05%.

Are these fuckers serious?

You shouldn't respond, and it really doesn't matter if you keep pirating. If you're paranoid get a VPN.
Only call in and threaten when you notice youre getting throttled or if they shut off your internet and force you to call in to get it reconnected. Deny anything and tell them to fuck off or else you'll fuck off to another ISP

tell them " I'd rather to be tried with piracy rather than terabytes of Child pornography I acquired using your shitty service."

>Are these fuckers serious?
Theyre sorta obligated. When the IP owner notices that youre downloading their shit illegally they notify the ISP's and most ISPs send out generic emails that mean nothing but sounds menacing.

Was it an HBO show, by the way?

>tfw the only time I ever tormented something it was porn when I still lived with my parents and they got an email from the ISP threatening to cut our service off if it happened again
Luckily it was pretty vanilla stuff and my parents didn't find out about my fetishes.

Had this happen. Received cease and desist letter from ISP on behalf of Brazzers for torrenting some mega pack of like 50 HD porn videos from Brazzers. 5 pages, the first was the cease and desist, the other 4 detailed the videos specifically with the title and the copyright holders to it. I live in an apartment complex though but I immediately changed ISP, I didn't even pay my final bill with the previous one. Spoke to them on the phone and told them I'm not paying it since they sent me a letter falsely accusing me of downloading content illegally. Funny enough they were quick to say it was a fault on their end and that they value me as a customer, but I had to change since the botnet was already after me.

No, Viacom. But I've heard HBO being empty threats.

prank call them from somewhere else and use VPN from now on

lulz and solution

Legit response from a owner of a shitty ISP in rural Ireland.

I get the emails from whatever shitty company they hire to investigate the IP, we then send a generic email off to you so if we get sued we can say we were doing something about it.

Its legit to save our ass, we dont care and we wont go further unless we get sued.

THIS

>land of the free

SPOILER: OP is being investigated because he is hosting some kind of site with copyrighted material behind a paywall/ads, not because he is just downloading illegal files.

Protip, prepare your anus OP.

LOL Your life ended when you gave up mentally.

JON SNOW,
FILE SHARING IS EVIL!

start doing bumhole stretching exercises now to save yourself pain later, start with a carrot and work your way up to an eggplant

Then kester a .22

Here in finland the firsts case related to those ransom letters was settled recently. The compensation for the rights holders were actually pretty reasonable of just 50€ per episode and 100€ per movie downloaded compared to the thousands they demanded. However the real expense were the legal fees the defendant had to pay which resulted to over 20 000€.

lmao kys retard.

You won't get emails about infringement and it won't be your ISP that informs you about it.
It is not uncommon for hacktivists to make people believe that ISPs or major companies like Microsoft or Google are out to get them.
What you need to worry about in these situations is cyber crime being committed against you. The cyber criminal is trying to point out that you yourself are a criminal in order to get away with what they are doing. This way the criminal secures that their victims are less cooperative with the law and might even create situations where the victim helps the criminal.

...

Wait, were you torrenting or downloading shit from Mega/Zippyshare?

Get a VPN faggot.

>viacom
Even worse

Act stupid and claim you have a virus or something and threaten to change ISP

They don't get you on the download, they get you on the upload.

In theory, being on a torrenting network, you sent information to thousands of individuals. The information you sent allowed them to download the episode. So, by legal metrics they try to apply, you are partly responsible for every instance of that file being downloaded that you contributed to.

That's the reason you see "GRANDMA SUED BY RIAA FOR 1.1 MILLION FOR DOWNLOADING LINKIN PARK SONG".

Again, understand as well, your ISP is just the messenger in reality. Apart from Comcast (who has stake in NBCUniversal), an ISP doesn't give two shits what you download, however; they must comply with legal requests.

The ISP doesn't give a shit. They comply with legal requests to not get sued.

Delete everything and don't do it again, and nothing will happen.

This OP. Wall of denial and start using a VPN. Bite the bullet and pay for a service. And NOT one like PIA that's an American company.

dont give anything to anyone!!

people in power would never ask you for assets
if they do
they are not people in power

you are being scammed
forward their information to the police
OR
chill out, ignore, delete messages
keep on keeping on

Bystander here, what do you guys mean when you say, "delete everything"? What does that do? They don't monitor offline storage and they likely won't bust in with a warrant to search. OR do you mean uninstall the program and delete all the torrent files?

For the time being, yes, clear the evidence. If you're on a police state country like the US, use a VPN next time.

OP, I'm posting from jail for torrenting. Run while you can or practice stretching your butthole.

Happens in britcuck land too. I had a work college who downloaded shit tons of music and got caught, though I only think he got a slap on the wrist, he didn't really tell me much. He might have gotten a fine but I can't remember. Must have been around 2005.