Email threatening legal action

[awg]

A friend of mine received a email threatening legal action if they didn't stop using limewire. The reason stating that it was because they had over 1000 files in their share folder. Granted the filter isn't perfect. But still, with the filter turned on, shouldn't that have not been an issue?

Is the email simply a scare tactic to try and stop people from sharing all together? Or is there a legitimate reason for concern?

Unfortunately the scare tactic worked on my friend and now there's one less person sharing with the rest of the world.

I just wanted to share this with everyone, and remind everyone to share responsibly and to watch out for corporate terrorism.

[Lord of the Rings]

The same companies that sponsor spammers, such as RIAA, & movie equivalent get particularly concerned when newest releases of their material is found being shared on p2p sharing networks. They may track one such one, send an email to the ISP & the ISP 'might' pass that on to the user. Some ISP's will not react, some do. Also up to the ISP as to whether they pass on personal information. I would not stay with any ISP that did pass on personal information which I believe is a breach of their privacy agreement with the customer for a start (breach of contract & legal confidential laws), unless exceptions are stated in their policy rules on their site.

Yes, scare tactics are used all the time. Unless they find willing ISP's to pass on information, there's not much they can do AFAIK.