ACS: Law Withdraws Pursuing Illegal File-Sharers

Necroloth writes "As mentioned previously on Slashdot, ACS: Law has been sending out letters to thousands of alleged file-sharers on behalf on its client, MediaCAT. However, solicitor Andrew Crossley has now ceased all work on such cases, citing criminal attacks and death threats. Judge Birss doesn't seem to be taken by this, and comments, 'I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny.' Judge Birss is expected to deliver his judgment on the case later in the week... perhaps all is not lost in the British judicial system."

Comments

Re:It's good news

[Andy_R]

Part of the problem in this particular case was that these cases couldn't be defended against, since the accusers didn't actually take the cases to court, preferring instead to send more threats, or just move on to the next potential victim leaving the threat hanging. The hearing in the article was the first time a judge ever saw a contested ACS:law filesharing case, and even then ACS tried (unsuccessfully) to drop all the cases before the the court date.

It get's worse

[Locke2005]

The new company pursuing the claims, GCB, is a dormant company that was "borrowed" from a friend by none other than... Andrew Crossley. It's real owner, David Fisher, now disavows any connection and advises anyone who received a demand letter from GCB to ignore it. (See the techdirt article for more info.) So while publicly proclaiming he was "no longer persuing" file downloader, Crossley was in fact still persuing them, but trying to obfuscate who was actually responsible.