ACS:Law gets kiss of death from Big Music
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- ACS:Law, currently under investigation by Britain’s Solicitors Regulation Authority, and infamous as a launching ramp for extortion letters aimed at alleged file sharers, has received the kiss of death —-
—- from no less than Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry).
The BPI is “putting clear water between itself and ACS Law,” says PC Pro.
“More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing,” said the BBC recently, continuing ACS:Law had sent “thousands of letters to people claiming they have illegally downloaded material and offers them a chance to settle by paying around £500″, going on:
“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.”
Indeed, on its web page, “we are beginning to receive the new data from the ISP’s following the court orders of 19 November 2009,” it says, promising a “fresh wave of letters of claim” for “early in January 2010″ and that “we will continue to send letters of claim out at various points in 2010. With new clients adding their works to our roster of titles, we feel we are succeeding in demonstrating that the fight against internet piracy is winnable, and will we will continue this pursuit into the next decade.”
But “We don’t favour the approach taken by ACS:Law to tackling illegal file-sharing, which is at odds with the proportionate and graduated response advocated by BPI and proposed in the Digital Economy Bill,” says the BPI, according to PC Pro.
“We uphold the highest standards of evidence, and our view is that legal action is best reserved for the most persistent or serious offenders – rather than widely used as a first response”, says the BPI.
‘Graduated response’ is corporate parlance for the three strikes and you’re off the net element of the entertainment industry’s international ACTA campaign.
Under it, Big Music and Hollywood are trying to suborn governments into acting as copyright agents, and local ISPs as enforcers, working against their own customers.
ACTA is far worse than anything ACS:Law can come up with.
(Cheers, Tiz)
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
under investigation – New ACS:Law shakedown letters, January 27, 2010
PC Pro – BPI distances itself from file-sharing lawyers, January 27, 2010
BBC – Piracy letter campaign ‘nets innocents’, January 26, 2010
ACTA campaign – ACTA documents: official and leaked, January 26, 2010
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January 28th, 2010 at 11:11 am
no probs, Jon.
just giving ya a heads up in some news.
P.S. been a reader of your articles for about a year now, and i find them highly enjoyable, better than that boring rupert murdoch trash.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I don’t take it.
That’s a PUBLIC kiss of death, they can continue to collaborate privately.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
For me, the interesting questions are:
How did ACS:Law create the list of people it is suing?
How will the ACS:Law process differ from the planned “three strikes” system in France, and possibly elsewhere under ACTA?
As a first cut, from the numbers provided, ACS:Law seems to be producing a one percent error rate. If “three strikes” regimes generate a one percent error rate, or even a 1/10 of one percent error rate, things are going to get noisy.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
“We uphold the highest standards of evidence, ”
This is why they sued printers and refrigerators and people who does not even owe a computer that can run the incriminating software.
Oh all these parasites! Let’s kill them all!
I wonder why nature invented the parasites. She must be smoking something.