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."
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.
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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.
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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...
But the scare game is what it has already been about for almost 50 years! I remember when videos used to ship with an "FBI WARNING" that scared people (except when you actually read it, all it said was that Interpol had met and decided that copyright infringement was against (at the time) CIVIL law - what Interpol or the FBI were doing discussing civil issues in the first place is another matter). Boo.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
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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.
"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."
Indeed, at every step of the way ACS:Law has been trying to scare people into just giving them money, it was becoming common knowledge that their demands had no teeth and that they weren't really taking people to court, and so ACS:Law decided to up the game and see if actual real substantial threats of court action would turn that tide. What ACS:Law didn't count on was people not actually bowing down and settling, they didn't count on people actually trying to fight their case in court, and this is why they are now shitting bricks.
It's a high stakes bit of brinkmanship - one side would be set to pay hefty fees if they lose, the other would see their entire business model destroyed. ACS:Law appears to have folded first, and lost the game.