Anti-Piracy Lawyers 'Knew Letters Hit Innocents'

nk497 writes "A UK legal watchdog has claimed lawyers who sent out letters demanding settlement payments from alleged file-sharers knew they would end up hitting innocent people. The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.' The SRA also said the two lawyers lost their independence because they convinced right holders to allow them to act on their behalf by waiving hourly fees and instead taking a cut of the settlements. The pair earned £150,000 of the £370,000 collected from alleged file-sharers. Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed."

Comments

Re:Trash

[natehoy]

So the accepted method of dealing with letters such as these of filing them in the trash is justified.

It all depends. A second or third letter might prompt your ISP to cut your connection, so if you've received one of these letters "in error" (1) it's probably best to contact your ISP immediately and ensure that they know you did nothing, and have them check your usage logs to make sure there's no evidence your connection might have been used, in case it was without your consent. Might also help to change your WiFi password and make sure you're running WPA2/AES as a precaution.

If you actually are pirating materials, then please do go ahead and throw the letter away. In fact, you should return it with a death threat just to be sure they are aware of your contempt for them. I hate the current state of copyright law as much as pirates do, but I also see pirates as part of the problem and not part of the solution. So, please, be as blatantly self-righteous about it as possible. The more actual pirates we can kick off the Internet, the more likely it is that the grown-ups can have rational discussions about reasonable copyright laws and reasonable enforcement.

(1) I use the term "in error" loosely since knowingly sending letters to people who have obviously not engaged in piracy is pretty far from an "error"

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Dishevel]

So you like mostly Lawyers that get you out of agreements you have made.

Divorce and bankruptcy. I am wondering if people should believe anything you say?

Re:I think Shakespear had it right

[Dishevel]

What rough times I have had in my life have never resulted in me looking to the government to make it ok for me to never pay back money lent to me by others.