Slashdot Mirror
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."
Any lawsuit filed, even one you can successfully defend against, is a pain to deal with and causes emotional stress. It's good to see practices like these become less popular.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Logic? In the justice system? Please let this continue!
Yeah, death threats. Sure, buddy *snicker*
Free Martian Whores!
It wouldn't be the first or last of "brilliant" lawyers to find ways to abuse the spirit of the law while following the letter of the law. Defamation, copyright, patent, trademark, licenses, brands, contracts, a number of things are created which ultimately are applied in such a manner as to become a legalized form of censorship.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Filesharing is terrorism!
Huh? Well, we needed a new strawman. The old one has been reduced to a source for caricature and ridicule.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If they are not going to be prosecuted, and therefore not found guilty, no one should be labelling these people or their actions as "illegal". You are only illegal if a court finds you breaking the law. Accusations don't make anything be illegal. Let's stop playing into this scare game.
metageek
A totally criminal scam if I ever heard of one. File sharers were threatened with court, and told if they 'settled out of court', paid up 500 quid, then the case would be dropped against them. Meanwhile the media in the UK and USA are full of stories of people being sued for millions by music companies etc, and everybody knows it costs thousands of pounds to hire a lawyer. So what are you going to do if you don't know your rights and you're not particularly assertive? Probably get frightened and pay up 500 pounds which is a lot of money but most people can find it somehow. I can imagine a number of people thinking that's their cheapest and easiest way to end the nightmare.
A pure criminal exercise, no more than blackmail and extortion I'd say. The company has sat down and said "well I reckon if we pull this stunt 10% (or whatever) people will just get scared and pay up, let's send out a few thousand letters and watch the money roll in, and ignore anybody who fights back, just move on to the next poor victim". Easy money. Just a step up from a gang of muggers sitting outside a bar on a Saturday night waiting for easy targets to come past...
As for the legal firm getting death threats? well put up or shut up. Here in the UK that's taken very seriously. If they have received death threats, well turn over the evidence to the police and the police will duly investigate and arrest anybody who has being making these threats. And if the law firm is lying about this, well making false claims like these are also considered serious offenses. If there have been such threats, I would have thought a law firm before anybody else would know their rights and call in the police. I am not convinced...
I don't think it was losing cases that scared them so much is actually having cases appear in court at all. There seems to have been no small risk of some sort of censure out of all of this.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The stage has been set for a turning point in human society. Governments and the Powers-that-Be will fight the process, but they will be overcome, at last, by Justice.
Yeah, kid, I thought that when I was young, too. Didn't happen, even though my generation made a few inroads like ending the Vietnam war, getting equal rights for minorities, getting environmental legislation passed, etc. I don't see any real activism at all with your generation; you kids seem to not give a shit about anything but what the celebrities are doing and what the next shiny toy will be.
Free Martian Whores!
Probably your parents thought you didn't care about America too.
Intimidation is a two edged sword. You can't expect to try to ruin someone's financial life and not expect some kind of retaliation in return. When things are completely out of balance you will see more of one than the other, and there are certainly more poor people being sued than those rich ones doing the suing. Those that are more inclined to file share for financial reasons have little to loose in the high stakes legal arena, and they are therefore much more prone to engaging in such anti-social behaviour. Its human nature to want to fight back, and if all you have is email and a phone then that is what you will use. They are after all emotionally compromised. If you are going to try and sue a Jane Doe, don't expect her to just sit back and take it. For these people sitting back and 'enjoying it' is never going to happen, even if they know they should not do what they are doing. The threat just justifies their cause in their own mind and makes them want to fight back even more, by file sharing more. Emotionally speaking, intimidation by threat is a loosing move.
This case illustrates it's sufficient for a clued-up subset of the masses to learn. The main issue in going after filesharers is that your dragnet is likely to scoop up a lot of people who are a) net savvy, b) are pretty clued-up on IP and filesharing or c) both. In this case they obviously annoyed enough of group c to scare them off - it's not so one-way when you're not specifically going after single mothers who don't know about filesharing or octogenarians who don't even own a computer.
Well, the firm is probably tainted, but like any scamster, you ride the horse until it drops dead, then you get on another horse.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Kind of makes me wonder if the porn accusations were all smoke and mirrors in a barely-legal extortion attempt. As in "Our data shows you downloading 'Naked Underage Midgets 3'. You wouldn't want your friends and family to find out you've been sued for downloading this movie, would you? Just pay our settlement fee and this can go away quietly."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I really wish you'd stop beating about the bush and tell us how you really feel.
Cast your net too widely and you run the risk of ensnaring a genuine psycho.
That's the problem with violating the number one legal principle: Only sue solvent parties.
Solvent parties are far less likely to go Unabomber on you.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
http://acsbore.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/acslaw-letters-issued-by-gcb-ltd/
and
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/364501/exposed-file-sharing-lawyers-collect-fines-using-dormant-company/2
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There are no statutory damages in the UK so they would have to prove actual damages, which would be in the region of the cost of a DVD since their evidence is only of one infringement. But that assumes the IP address is accepted as satisfactory. Moreover the leaked ACS law emails included advice to Crossley to this effect so the plan was never to take this stuff to court
I remember being young and impressionable, once, too.
Cynicism is the goopy shit left over when idealism curdles.
A totally criminal scam if I ever heard of one. File sharers were threatened with court, and told if they 'settled out of court', paid up 500 quid, then the case would be dropped against them.
Here in America, we call that "plea bargaining". Hey, freedom ain't free!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!