86-Year-Old Baffled By Metro 33 Piracy Claim

An 86-year-old Canadian grandmother has denied illegally downloading mutant-shooter Metro 2033, noting that it is not exactly to her taste.

It’s another example of what has generously been called “speculative invoicing” by a company acting on behalf of rightsholders.

Christine McMillan received two emails forwarded by her ISP from a private company. It said she could face court action and suggested she provide her credit card number to pay up to $5,000 as a settlement. That figure is, not so coincidentally, the maximum penalty a Canadian court could award if a case went to trial, though no case has yet gone that far under the current rules.

CBC notes that changes to Canadian law last year mean that if a rights holder (or their representative) contacts an ISP with a complaint and an IP address, the ISP must pass on the complaint to the relevant customer. There’s no legal requirement to acknowledge such a letter or make any payment. It’s yet to be tested whether an IP address alone would be enough to establish responsibility and a court judgement against the alleged pirate.

In this case a CBC video of McMillan seeing the game certainly suggests she was previously unfamiliar with it and most certainly would not be a fan. While it’s only speculation, it seems highly likely she had not secured her wireless network and somebody else took advantage for the illegal download. McMillan says she has no intention of paying any money in response to the emails.