New ACS:Law shakedown letters
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P: Blackmail tactics introduced by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA are “creating a cottage industry for unscrupulous lawyers and the people who hire them,” said p2pnet the month before Christmas, 2009.
The RIAA is a past master at firing off subpoenas and following them up with threatening ‘pay up or else’ letters, we said, also noting Britain’s ACS:Law is pretty good at it too.
With the season of goodwill approaching, “Around 15,000 suspected pirates may soon get legal letters accusing them of illegally sharing movies and games,” said the BBC.
“ACS:Law plan to send notes to the accused in the New Year offering a chance to settle out of court for ’several hundreds of pounds’.”
Now, “More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing,” says a new BBC post, continuing >>>
ACS:Law has sent thousands of letters to people claiming they have illegally downloaded material and offers them a chance to settle by paying around £500.
Which? says it has been approached by some – including a 78 year-old accused of downloading pornography – who have no knowledge of the alleged offence.
ACS:Law said its methods were accurate.
The London based firm said that it would send more letters soon.
However, since the latest letters were sent two weeks ago, ten new people have come forward saying they have been wrongly accused.
One told Which?: “My 78 year-old father yesterday received a letter from ACS Law demanding £500 for a porn file he is alleged to have downloaded.
“He doesn’t even know what file-sharing or BitTorrent is so has certainly not done this himself or given anyone else permission to use his computer to do such a thing.”
Run by Andrew Crossley (right), ACS:Law is currently under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, says the BBC.
In the meanwhile it’s clearly bidniz as usual.
If you’ve had an ACS:Law missive, you might want to check out Beingthreatened.com, “established to collate all the relevant information regarding the letters of claim sent out by Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law”.
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – ACS:Law: ‘It’s Christmas. Time to sue’, November 27, 2009
BBC – Lawyers target thousands of ‘illegal’ file-sharers, November 27, 2009
BBC – Piracy letter campaign ‘nets innocents’, January 26, 2010
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January 27th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
ACS:LAW ‘Well sue you, Even if your not the right person’
EPIC FAIL.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:31 am
Seems like I should go to law school. That might be the only job left after the government finishes running the economy into the ground.