Pirate-pursuing lawyers get DDo$ money transfer slap

P2P-ers furious over the Pirate Bay case are being asked to get back at lawyers for the entertainment industry via the counter-intuitive route of ostensibly giving them money.

By sending very small amounts of money of 1 SEK ($0.13) to Danowsky & Partners, who brought the prosecution, through the Swedish web-based payment service internet-avgift, the ruse could make lawyers lose out after fees for the transaction are taken into account. The cunning so-called Distributed Denial of Dollars attack (DDo$) is apparently the brainchild of Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm.

Blog Pirate reports that the bank account to which the funds are directed allows only 1,000 free transfers, after which a surcharge of 2 SEK per transaction becomes payable. So after the first thousand internet transactions every 1 SEK donation to the law firm will actually end up costing it 1 SEK instead.

The effort could also tie up the briefs in red tape, thanks to the time-consuming process of handling payments of such a small amount as well as fielding possible request for repayment, Blog Pirate explains:

Additionally if after paying the internet-fee you determine that your payment was erroneous, Swedish law states that you can request the money back, putting an additional load on Danowsky’s law firm.

Danowsky & Partners acted for the music industry during The Pirate Bay trail, which ended last month with guilty verdicts against the four defendants. They were each sentenced to a year behind bars and ordered to pay fines of 30m SEK. The defendants are planning to appeal the verdict while maintaining they have no intention of paying the fines, even if they lose. ®