Dont get panicked. This is very routine. I deal with dozens of criminal subpoenas each month for my clients.

US law enforcement has to follow MLAT procedures when issuing a subpoena for business records in a criminal matter. Its unlikely that the local detective from LBPD will be bothered.

National law enforcement in the US usually knows the rules and can follow the treaty guidelines.

A local attorney in Long Beach NY will be of little help. You need to hire someone that understands MLAT and can explain it to the detective.

Let me know if I can assist.

Who did you receive it from?

If you confirmed you had received it , then it can be a different situation of course.

E-mail doesn't prove anything. Even ip address doesn't. That sir was confirmed to me by a lawyer.

WILLIAMS v. ADVERTISING SEX LLC

Like I said Mike: get a lawyer LOL

"She petitioned the court to allow her to obtain service by alternate means, including e-mail"

..which means it is not usual procedure and that court had to approve it. Also, this is a criminal case, he was contacted by police.

Did you reply to that or acknowledge anyone you knew of the email or that you received it?

I don't say they can't use it. I just say it can't be proven you received it. Even delivery notification doesn't ensure the email was delivered. It can still end up in a spam folder, or you simply don't use the email address anymore, or the email address is shared etc.

Where I live this would not work. It must be proven that YOU received the delivery, by signing the paper, the delivery confirmation. And the official letter must be mailed to your actual physical address where you reside or stay.

correct! what about the phone call??

maybe the address on whois is wrong and the email is correct

Did you have trial because of DMCA? Could you tell more about how it was and how it ended?
I don't know the reason of that email, was it DMCA or something else. 4 days and there aren't any answer from them. In any case I would be grateful for any information. Thanks!

Of course I would be grateful for help. I have not recivied any subpoena. I got just some email a week ago and it's all, they asked me to give them my address. I wanted someone at least to find out what happend, maybe call to that detective. There was his telephone number and his name in the email. I don't want to post it here.

How to contact you? I don't see private messages here, probably I do not have enough messages here and I can't send them.

The detective will ask you to pay your "penalty" in itunes cards. Delete email and stop worrying.

michael(at)fattlegal.com

They want your address so they can send you a subpoena.

I get paid for legal work though...

If you are looking for free help - you need to see my earlier post. You should spend some of your time researching MLAT.

That's rediculous!

OP if you need legal advice I'm a certified nonattorney feel free to hit me up for free nonlegal advice :thumbsup

I had an email come in one night saying I had used someone?s name on my website demanding that I removed it.

While the email was open, I ftped into my site and deleted the page, was one of millions, automated seo spam, early 2000's.

There was no content, just a text link to sponsor, that text link was actually broken, was not carrying thru my affiliate code.

Ie: text link, with no way for me to make money from it. The pages I had not written, were done by some seo spam company I used to generate them.

I have no idea who made them, was an ICQ contact, didn?t even pay we just split the traffic.

Because I had deleted the page in question immediately and there was no content, I basically forgot about it.

Couple of weeks later the paperwork starts arriving.

So I went to my Lawyer, who had a look at what i had received and they come back and said.. we cant comment as its American law not Australian.. That will be $3500 thank you.

So I went FUCCCCCK.

Then I contacted an USA Lawyer, in CA, and they looked at it and went.. we can?t comment this is in WA, you need someone in West Virgina

The problem there was the person doing the suing was a lawyer in WA, I looked up the town where the case was being heard in court and there only seemed to be two lawyer firms in town and the chick suing me had worked at both. She also served as an intern to the Judge overseeing the case.

Worst of all not only was she suing me, but also my company so I got stung twice.

I had no way of defending myself, the case went thru the court system and the judge basically threw it out due to lack of jurisdiction

Williams appealed that and took it to the appeals court and because no one was defending it.. they gave her everything she asked for.

850k for me and 850k for company, for a text link

So never presume these things are from anyone but a jilted Lawyer with too much time on their hands, and don't presume if you ignore it... it will all go away.

I suggest you take up PornLaws offer

And I doubt you ever paid the judgment if you had no assets in the court's jurisdiction. Did they try for a civil contempt on a failure to appear for a debtor's examination? Probably not.

Once again I say: The police only are involved in crime investigations. Crimes can equal jail time. Lawyer up.

No I didn't pay a cent, because she has to bring that judgement to me here in Aus, which she can, but all of a sudden we are on a level playing field costs wise. No doing her own work here, she will be paying someone else.

Reality is though she got me for a lot more than the court ever ordered, its the mental drain, the slandering of my and company name in public, to the point I couldn't trade any more and all the other shit that plays on your brain, that is the real unmeasured cost. Business wise it took me 8 years to recover from.

Just commenting, because yes a Subponena can be issued via email in the USA, and yes you can be charged in multiple courts, without ever of doing a thing... NO proof required!

And lawyering up in your own country or even in the USA means shit, except more cost for you. You need a lawyer in the jurisdiction you are being charged in.

Give them your details, let them contact you, act when you have the subpoena, at least then you know what its for and can take any action you or your lawyer deem necessary. Trying to make that process more difficult, just adds to your issues.

It's a scam, ignore it.

First, they did not say you were the target of the criminal investigation did they?

Email? Aside from this thread what "proof" is there you even got it and it didn't go to spam? What's the penalty of ignoring it?

You don't live in the US and this is a US issue? If it were serious they would have your address.

I guess they can't arrest you if they don't have your address, right? LOL

:banana

To all the GFY IDIOTS: The police do not get involved in civil matters. Third, and last time, I am going to say this.

If I say the sky is blue some of you assholes will argue it is pink.

If they (the police or a civil claimant) really knows your domain name -- they can get your address from the registrar VERY easily. If you registered your domain with a false address your domain is forfeit to the registry.

So, 90% of this is just GFY mental masturbation. I don't give a fuck -- this is not my problem.

Hmm, i got also once request to remove name, but after i removed it there was no further action. But charging 3500$ just for saying how they are not eligible for it it's crazy, if not valid. I mean, that would be like bringing a car to mechanic and they say you how they dont fix you brand but still charge you.

Right, and to collect on it they'd have to sue you in Australia because a USA judgement doesn't mean anything in AU. They won, but really if you aren't planning on having any assets in the US it doesn't matter much.

My advice to OP is to ignore everything they send you. If you confirmed receipt of it or not, It's not a certified letter and you don't really know who is emailing you or why. It might be someone phishing for your data to do some identify theft or do use this data after to do bank account changes on affiliate programs you work with. You have many, many reasons to believe that it could be a scam.

The police doesn't work like that. If they needed to contact you, they would subpoena your domain registrar or host for your information and send you a letter.

Not entirely true, in some countries they do. For instance, my friend had to give a statement to police in germany because he was a witness in a civil suit against a company that went or was going bankrupt.

Incorrect: American judgement stands in Australia and is collectable.

I would have to counter sue, especially since I can prove the judgement was based on untested statements and basically lies.

I have no idea if the OP is in that position or not.

Certainly any "Ignore It" advise is wrong.

I have more than 100'000 comments on the site, most of them something like "hey, send me nudes here " and telephone number or email. From time to time I get requests to delete some comment. I remove it. But how can I know, either a comment is someone joke or not? How to protect myself? Just remove all comments that contain any personal information? By the way anyone can leave a comment with his name and number and then sue me and ask 850k.

So what did you do then? Obviously not pay it out - so ergo it seems to not be collectable that easily, otherwise anyone can sue you for anything in the US, win by default because you wont defend yourself and ruin you financially in your own country. I know at least here a judgement in the US is not collectable and I would have to be sued locally.

Have you been in US after this incident?

loveparade

Actually its irrelevant if you remove the posts, in my case I removed them within seconds of being notified.. way it was read to the judge was, links were removed "some time after" that could of been days, weeks or months.

The issue in the eyes of the law is they were there to start with.. not how fast or if you removed.

Have I been back to the USA? no,. I don't need a holiday being ruined at border control ;) Not saying that would happen, just not willing to carry the risk.

k0nr4d
"So what did you do then? Obviously not pay it out - so ergo it seems to not be collectable that easily, otherwise anyone can sue you for anything in the US, win by default because you wont defend yourself and ruin you financially in your own country. I know at least here a judgement in the US is not collectable and I would have to be sued locally. "

I'd be asking a lawyer that question regarding what's collectible or not. If your country is a party to the Hague Convention.. they can.

And yeah in the USA they can sue you just like that and flow it right thru the court system, your presence is not required.

Read up on the case: WILLIAMS v. ADVERTISING SEX LLC

Basically a celeb sponsor said they had a sex tape, affiliates went out and promoted that.
The person the sponsor said it was, was not the person in the Video.

She went to google and pulled up the first two pages of links, and sued everyone, "54 affiliates" from all around the world.

One USA webmaster fort it in court, and got let off for lack of jurisdiction.

But she continued the case against 52 others.. out of the USA

No one went to court, just her and the judge

Finally it was throw out of court "lack of jurisdiction"

So she took it to 4th circuit appeals court... and won.

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions...d/091412.U.pdf

And thast how they can fuck you over in the USA if you ignore it..

Yes, I'm not saying you can't be sued in the US. I'm saying to actually collect any judgement is much, much more difficult and requires a local court to do it (in which case you could then defend yourself)

Well that's an in theory thing, reality is all they have to do is take the Judgement to the local court and if due process has been done, the court MUST inforce that judgement.

In my case I can show multiple instances where due process was not done, American court was lied too and I had VERY good reasons to believe that I would not get a fair trial... Person suing me was a fucking intern to the Judge just being one...

OP might not have that and could be guilty as charged, just in my case.. I wasn't and what's more, I can easily prove that. Just be fucked if I was going to try in a red neck court in Charlottesville VA

Not this pertains to the OP's original question but I need to correct this...

If you have domain names that are .com, .net, .org or any of the other US based domains then you do have assets in the US that can be taken. Its called an In Rem action.

Once there is a judgement, a smart creditor can ask the courts to seize the domains and place them into an auction to satisfy the judgement. You can lose the domains of your most important sites.

Second, if you have billing (or an affiliate site) through a US based billing company, then your money flows through a US bank and can be attached and taken before they are deposited in your bank.

If you have a trademark or copyrights in the US, those are also tangible property that can be seized and sold to satisfy the judgement.

To believe you can sit back and do nothing because the Plaintiff will have to come to my country is just incorrect.

Granted the value of those assets may not be enough to satisfy the judgement but losing all of your domains, especially the domain of your most profitable site might be enough to force you to deal with the judgement before your entire business is decimated and you have to begin all over with new domains.

You arent getting fucked. You didnt show up and defend yourself. When you dont bother to defend a lawsuit in the US, the plaintiff usually wins everything they are asking for.

Read this part of the decision...

You could have defended the case and it is very likely she would not have won nearly everything she had asked for - or you might have prevailed.

Now she has a default judgement and if she finds a smart attorney she can attach whatever assets you have in the US - see my above post.

Are all com/net/org domains considered to be US assets in such a case, or does it depend on where the registrar where you purchased them is located? I mean, that sorta seems like one can fire up any kind of completely frivolous lawsuit that has absolutely no merritt (or is just something that is a really weak case) and if the other party doesn't spend potentially 10s of thousands defending themselves against it from abroad by hiring US lawyers you can take their domains. Seems like there's a ton of room for abuse here, especially if the defendant cannot afford to defend themselves abroad. Does the losing party in the US at least have to pay the winners legal fees?

Attachment of 248 .com and .net domains in Northern California to satisfy a judgement based on Verisign being located in San Francisco... they are also located in Virginia.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1509526.html

Verisign is actually the registrar for all US based domain names.. others are just resellers. It doesnt matter where the reseller is - Verisign is US based.

So Verisign is the important part of this puzzle not Godaddy or eNom or Moniker.

https://www.verisign.com/en_US/chann...ar/index.xhtml

In the US, its usually each party pays their own attorneys unless there is a contract between the parties that says loser pays or there is a statute that says loser pays.

As for billing companies - almost all credit card processing is based in the US and for the most part - all wire transfers touch US soil at some point.

We also got sued by Williams, was a huge hassle. We are in Europe so we kept ignoring us but she kept going after us. Eventually we settled to make it stop.

In regards to the Subpoena for the OP. They are not after him. If they wanted him they would have Subpoenaed his host and/or domain registrar to get his info.
They are most likely after the info of who uploaded/provided a certain video. Like an ex-girlfriend that got her video uploaded by her ex-bf or her phone/computer was hacked.

This makes it seem incredibly risky to operate at all using a .com domain regardless of if your business is completely legit. Big business could easily bankrupt smaller foreign competitors

Which is why I posted in this thread to the OP saying don't ignore it and hope it will go away.. I already did that.

In my case the person pursuing the charges "is an attorney" so she just prevailed to fuck over everyone no matter how slightly they were involved. You can't fight these things from out of the USA, and even if you do you need a lawyer in the same state, or aware of that states law. And back then when I looked in to lawyers in that town, there were two, and she'd worked at both, plus was later picked up as an intern for the judge hearing the initial case. Local home town hunny, vs the evil pornographers

And all that was based on something that had never made me a cent and I was expected to fight that...

That is why I took no action and I'd guess it was the same reason for others.

I seriously did not believe that justice would be served... and it wasn't

Waves Hi! I don't think people realize how relentless she was, the piles of paperwork sent thru and how she basically just setout to screw everyone. I got done twice, she went for me and my company.

The main problem is everything she was doing from the USA, was done on her own time and cost her zippydoo. Every time someone did anything.. another 1000+ legal page's would arrive in the mail.

Yes. And we havent even talked about lawsuits involving causes of action for "unfair competition."

In California (where I have been licensed for 20 yrs), if your competitor is somehow violating a statue or regulation, and this is costing your company money to compete, you can bring a claim against them for unfair competition for not following the law. And attorney's fees may be awarded.

A legit company can literally drive their competition out of business.

https://www.lexology.com/library/det...6-d459c0686837

Years ago I used this law to file against hundreds of mass torrent uploaders in a copyright infringement case.

You dont need to hire an attorney from the same town. Any attorney in the state can practice in any state court or even an attorney from out of state can be admitted to practice in a different state for a limited purpose such as defending a local lawsuit.

Im General Counsel to a few corps in porn and I will either handle local cases myself or find a local attorney to handle the case and then supervise their work.

Two weeks ago I had to find a local attorney in Seattle to handle a litigation case while I was in Italy.

What about outside of domains etc that can be considered US assets? I would imagine in that case you need local judgement against the foreign defendant in their home country? What is illegal in the US might not be illegal in that country.

Read my post above... #79 - I already answered this question.

No I wouldnt need a judgement in the home country to seize assets in the United States.

It doesnt matter what is legal or not legal in your country. As long as your website is available to US consumers and you do business in the US - hosting, billing, affiliates, members, models, photographers, videographers, content producers, clients ect.

For example, you have 4 .com domains listed in your sig - all US based. You have a DMCA policy on your TOS - a US law. I am sure you have clients in the US you have sold to. You post on GFY.com and advertise here - a US based adult industry website. By those actions you have made yourself subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the United States.

If you dont like that, change all your domains to .pl and geo block all IPs from the United States and do not sell to anyone in the US. Do not post on GFY. Then you would not be subject to jurisdiction of the United States courts.

Good luck with making money without the United States, its citizens and other companies located here.

By email? And did you reply to that?

They can't say you refused defense if they can't prove you had received the subpoena and therefore you knew about it.

You probably replied to that.

Which you can appeal at the local court and say fuck off to them :2 cents:

Here they can use police to deliver you the subpoena if the official letter is not delived and they don't know your current address. A court can ask police to find out your current residency.

Using email is a bad joke, ignore.

I was asking what about assets NOT located in the US. So besides domains and stuff that would be considered US assets. What I was asking is would you need a local judgement in that country to seize cars, property, etc that is located outside of the US. We obviously do alot of business with the US - but hypothetically if you were litigating against me, I had all .pl domains, hosted outside of the US, and got paid by clients primarily with bank transfers and not VISA etc. If you sued me in the US, and I lost by default, would you be able to go after property owned by me in PL to satisfy the debt from the judgement without a ruling from a PL court?

The answer is - it depends on what country and the specifics of international treaties. In short - in some countries it would be easier than others. In others a US judgement cannot be enforced. It would have to be determined on a country by country basis.

http://www.proskauerguide.com/litigation/18/III

Email Subpoena was not served to me, I was part of a class action, and that was used on others.

For me there was no need, as I had correct Whois information, was fully contactable, and removed what was considered to be the infringement in seconds.

Which incidentally means shit, in a class action as they cherry pick out the worst offenders, and then lump everyone else into the same category.

As for not fighting it, yeah it becomes the 1.7 million dollar question
To fight this from Australia, as a company, I really needed an Australian lawyer, which I have but you cant just use any Lawyer, you need one that's Schooled on Australian and American law.

Those guys are big bucks! But you have to pay because my interest is how I can be charged in Australia despite what went on in the USA.

The first thing I'm presented with is a disclaimer, saying they are not liable for any information they give me. And the reason for that is I need a specialist in Australian and West Virginian law and at that time there was NO ONE in Australia offering that service.
There advise then was wait until she trys and brings Judgment to Australia, and we can try and fight it then. But there's no guarantees there either.
-
I researched the city where the charges had been laid and online I could only find two local law companies, however the person doing the Suing seemed to of worked at both and as I later learned had also worked as an intern for the Judge.

I guess I could of gotten an out of town lawyer to appear, just understand it was a trail by Jury, the trial took 7 days, it could of taken several weeks.
The costs involved in even considering that were astronomical.

Then consider I had a text link on a webpage, it had made me NO profit, it was uploaded and made by someone else, just happened to be sitting on my server. The link was removed immediately on notification, I was fully contactable via whois information. I operate as a company.. She sued me and the company and won 850k each... for a text link, that had never made myself or company a cent.

My replies in this thread were based on most of the replies/ comments being "ignore it" and using myself and an example as to why maybe you shouldn't ignore it."

My comments are also made while I'm Thailand/ China, for any "other" lawyers who may be reading ;)