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UK Anti-Piracy Firm E-mails Reveal Cavalier Attitude Toward Legal Threats

Posted by timothy on from the who-would-have-thought dept.

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."

12 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by Cryolithic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is this surprising at all? I don't think anyone would be shocked at this...

    1. Re:Wow. by gilesjuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What is surprising is that it seems that there is little or no involvement of the police or law enforcement agencies in this.

      What appears to have happened is private companies have been granted permission to sample Internet traffic and this information is then made available to these dubious legal firms who just spam people with demands for payment.

    2. Re:Wow. by Khyber · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What, you didn't bother downloading the TORRENT and READING THE EMAILS FOR YOURSELF?

      I'm on ~3200th e-mail right now. This man is GOING DOWN HARD.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  2. Duh by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  3. Pointless. by ledow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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".

    1. Re:Pointless. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's actually an excellent question - is a file that was visible in the root directory of a web server for download, illegally obtained?

    2. Re:Pointless. by James_Duncan8181 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In UK law, this would be admissible in the court. Even if the police break the law obtaining evidence, it is still admissible. The punishment for the methods used is, unlike the US, a separate issue from admissibility.

      --
      "To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
    3. Re:Pointless. by NotBornYesterday · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if this would meet the threshold for "making available" that RIAA et al base their lawsuits on.

      --
      I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
  4. ...deliberately does not target TalkTalk or Virgin by bobstay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Can you hear that? by Torinir · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's the sound of the copyright lobby having another heart attack.

    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 /. 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.

  6. Re:Common strategy by Inda · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  7. Re:has resulted? by meerling · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?)