In my opinion this is an extortion racket pure and simple. Obtaining money with menaces and threats. If this was being done by anyone other than a law firm, they would be facing criminal prosecution and a prison sentence.

In 2010 to 2011 ACS sent out 27,000 letters demanding £500 to £700. I should point out that CDP was not ACS’s only client, so not all those letters were written on behalf of CDP. The basic gist of the letters was ‘pay up or face further legal action.’

So 27,000 letters were sent demanding £500 to £700 but ACS did not bring a single case to court.

From this little racket ACS estimated that they would make £10.2 million in gross profit for the year, with Andrew Crossley himself pocketing £3.2m. This information came to light after ACS’s email system was hacked by members of 4chan.

It should be obvious by now that taking a case to court and losing would bring the entire money-making scheme crashing down around their ears.

In fact when people tried to bring their cases to court to prove their innocence, ACS and MediaCat (the firm providing torrent tracking ‘evidence’) tried to have their cases dropped. I’m not sure how much clearer it can be that this has nothing to do with the law and is transparently an extortion racket.

This is Judge Birrs questioning MediaCat’s barrister about his client’s decision to drop the case. “I want to tell you that I am not happy. 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,” he told its barrister.

In Feb 2011 rather than actually going to court and having to present their so-called evidence both MediaCat and ACS closed down. No doubt the people behind MediaCat have set up another company and have partnered up with some other dubious law firm to do the same thing again. Andrew Crossley? Well he’s OK, he’s personally made at least £3.2 million from running a protection racket for a year.

Knowing all this I’m not sure how CD Projekt can claim that they are ‘only taking legal actions against users who we are 100 per cent sure have downloaded our game illegally.’

CDP, after the ACS debacle, you must be aware of this. Innocent people have spent thousands trying to clear their names, but they can’t because your law firm and companies like MediaCat are doing everything they can to avoid going to court and risking a definitive judgement which would destroy their money-making scheme. No doubt, CDP, you went into this originally in good faith but it must be abundantly clear that by continuing to engage firms such as ACS and MediaCat, you are in effect enabling an extortion racket.

I find it astonishing that the ruling that you are responsible for securing your own internet connection and thus any actions carried out by other parties on your connection, means that in Germany, the law actually supports firms obtaining money by menaces and threats.