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UK Anti-Piracy Firm E-mails Reveal Cavalier Attitude Toward Legal Threats
Khyber writes "A recent DDoS attack against a UK-based anti-pirating firm, ACS:Law, has resulted in a large backup archive of the server contents being made available for download, [and this archive] is now being hosted by the Pirate Bay. Within this archive are e-mails from Andrew Crossley basically admitting that he is running a scam job, sending out thousands of frivolous legal threats on the premise that a percentage pay up immediately to avoid legal hassles."
Is this surprising at all? I don't think anyone would be shocked at this...
I've gotten, umm.. a dozen or so cease and desist letters over the years.. my response to every single one of them has been to ignore it. No response. They never follow up. Why would they? It's a fishing game, the only way they can get you on the hook is if you take the bait.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And probably all rendered inadmissible in court because they were obtained illegally. Way to immunise a guy against an awful lot of evidence.
I know someone who was threatened by ACS:Law. As with all things serious, we researched it and discovered it was likely a scam, and this was WAY before they were news-worthy. The threat was ignored, except for a polite response, and nothing else happened. If you pay up, you're a moron. If you think this will stop such companies, there are no shortage of other morons willing to pick up such easy work, and they don't even need to be anywhere near a lawyer themselves.
DDOS, hacking, etc. isn't doing anything but legitimising their actions should they go to the mainstream media. Just ignoring their threats and/or inviting them to court, as any sensible person would do (and have done - ACS:Law are under investigation by various high-level UK legal authorities for legal irregularities) does infinitely more.
The guys an scamming idiot, but it's like a playground fight here - I can guess how much a moron he is without having to break into his personal emails and just because they might reveal he is an asshole doesn't mean that you've "won" anything against anti-piracy lawsuits or even against legal threats with zero evidence. All you've done is become nothing more than a publicity generator. How long before I see on the news: "Pirates hack into law-firm's servers, distribute private emails, law-firm says it's represents the mindset of the people they are chasing".
From TFA: "Email evidence that ACS:Law deliberately does not target two UK ISPs, TalkTalk and Virgin Media"
That's interesting. I'm with Virgin so that's nice to know. I wonder why these two?
Perhaps they don't cave as easily as the others.
It's the sound of the copyright lobby having another heart attack.
/. had an article on the fact that RIAA spent $16m to recover $391,000 in 2008. It was worse in 2007, when they spent $21m and only recovered $516,000. I know it's been all over the place at various points. Add in the frivolous lawsuits, DDoS attacks and harassment of uninvolved individuals, and the whole copyright lobby looks like an organized crime syndicate.
When will the governments of the world finally say "Enough is enough" to these clowns?
It's not like all this litigation and threats are profitable or anything. I believe
The same happens with debt collection agencies. They buy huge lists of names and send threatening letters to them all, multiple times. Some people pay, some ignore, some fight.
I keep getting chased for debts that aren't mine. The lists get sold, I get a letter. The agencies have never replied to a CCA letter (a legal requesting for information). Bunch of criminal chancers.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
You get 3 points on your licence in any case
Sorry, yes, you're right. My only brush with the law was driving on a poorly-marked bus lane, which you don't get points for. Speeding offences do have mandatory points, yes.
An interesting point I've heard about speed cameras: To get permission for a speed camera placement, the police must show that a _majority_ of people speed at that location. How absurd is that? Surely if a majority of people consider it safe to speed there, it probably is. The police should be putting speed cameras where the dangerous _minority_ of people speed.
There was a big initiative launched here (Scottish Highlands) a few weeks ago, with the police clamping down on speeding motorists. The police took news photographers and TV camera crews out to village streets and roads near schools, showing officers with hand-held speed cameras. When was the last time you ever saw a police officer with a speed camera outside a school? Round here you only ever see them at the end of dual carriageways and overtaking lanes. They'd prefer to issue hundreds of fines to motorists driving safely over the 60mph limit, rather than catch the genuinely dangerous motorists doing 40mph past a school.
It sickens me that people are being killed by dangerous drivers while the police busy themselves handing out fines to safe drivers.
Not sure about the legality of their scam, but I do wonder if making this stuff available constitutes not taking sufficient care to preserve confidentiality and is enough for disbarment.
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Are you sure their 'idiot admin' is really an idiot? Maybe (s)he is a sympathetic techie that took a calculated risk based on confidence of the masses and plausible deniability.
Yeah, I know the odds aren't great for that, but it could be possible.
(Just imagine if you had a conscience and were the admin for those scum and a chance like that came up. What would you do?)
Actually I do get it, that was my exact point. If someone's making a threat it doesn't really matter whether it's coercion or extortion as you have no way of knowing if they're going to follow through with the threat.
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