‘New’ Anti-Piracy Lawyers Chase UK File-Sharers
Written by enigmax on May 08, 2009Over the last couple of years everyone has got used to hearing about UK lawyers Davenport Lyons and their campaigns against those it accuses of illicit file-sharing. Now everyone will have to get used to a new player – they’re called ACS Law and the similarities to Davenport are raising more than a few eyebrows.
A little bit of history. UK lawyers Davenport Lyons burst onto the anti-piracy enforcement/revenue generation scheme in 2007, a story originally broken here on TorrentFreak. Their clients – all second or third rate publishers – employed anti-piracy tracking companies like Logistep to enter BitTorrent or eD2k swarms of people sharing their titles and harvest IP addresses. These IP addresses were then filtered by country (to isolate the ones from the UK) and the corresponding ISPs identified. Then Davenport Lyons – by way of a Norwich Pharamacal Order – got a court to force the ISPs to hand over the names and addresses of the alleged file-sharers to them.
The next step was to write to the individuals and threaten them with legal action, unless an amount ranging from £450 to £700 was paid. Somewhere between 40 and 60% of recipients panicked and paid up, while the rest engaged in ‘letter tennis’ with Davenport, corresponding back and forth and getting nowhere – literally – those who stood their ground have not been taken to court.
Of course, due to the weakness in their system and poor evidence gathered against alleged file-sharers, it wasn’t long before Davenport accused the wrong people of file-sharing, including pensioners erroneously accused of downloading gay porn. One of Davenport’s clients, Atari, found it all too much, and withdrew from chasing file-sharers through the company. The mountain of bad publicity continued to grow culminating in the respected consumer magazine Which? reporting Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Then everything went a little quiet. Until this week.
During the last few days more letters, almost identical to the ones sent out by Davenport Lyons, have been dropping onto doormats around the UK. The claims go through all the usual legal jargon but amount to the same – give us between £550 and £750 or we will take you to court.
The letters are sent out by a company called ACS Law, who can be found on the web via their website. According to the site, the partners at ACS Law are Andrew Crossley and Nicola Beale. Many specialties are listed for the pair, but copyright law is not one of them.
Some of the company’s clients are listed on the site – games publishers Reality Pump, Techland, Topware and German ‘porn-protectors’ Digiprotect – and all of them are previous (or maybe even existing) clients of Davenport Lyons. The titles being ‘protected’ by ACS Law on behalf of these companies are the exact same titles previously ‘protected’ by Davenport Lyons. One could be forgiven in thinking these companies are connected, particularly since much of ACS’s documentation sent to the public and listed on their website is ‘cut and pasted’ from Davenport Lyons documentation. They even have a Microsoft Word document entitled Notes on Evidence, which was created on a version of Word actually registered to Davenport Lyons.
During our research some interesting things came up. Andrew Crossley, a partner at ACS Law (who recently defended the Dubai ‘sex on the beach‘ case), lists his email address on most issues unconnected to these anti-piracy cases as andrew.crossley@acs-law.co.uk – note the .co.uk part in the domain.
However, ACS-Law.co.uk as listed on the Law Society website is not the website address given to anti-piracy cases – that is ACS-Law.ORG.UK - and it was registered just weeks ago. Delving into the WHOIS information for the site reveals that the domain is not registered to ACS Law, but to one Terence Tsang. This same Mr Tsang is a known cyber-squatter who has previously locked horns and lost domain disputes with Morgan Stanley and others.
Of course, we sent Andrew Crossley at ACS Law an email (to both the .co.uk and .org.uk addresses) and gave him an opportunity to respond. We asked several questions (listed in summary below) but as yet we’ve received no response. When (if) ACS Law respond, we’ll publish their answers. In the meantime, recipients of letters should not worry and certainly shouldn’t feel hurried in responding to these allegations. Good starting advice can be found here along with a discussion thread here.
1. What is your connection with Davenport Lyons?
2. Why are you servicing so many (ex?) Davenport Lyons clients?
3. Why does ACS Law have two web presences – ACS-Law.co.uk and ACS-Law.org.uk?
4. Why is ACS-Law.org.uk owned by a known cyber-squatter and not your company?
5. How many of these cases against alleged file-sharers do you intend to pursue and who is on your client list?
6. These cases got hugely messy for Davenport Lyons and it’s only a matter of time
before ACS Law accuses a pensioner or child of downloading porn, or makes other errors. Are you concerned that you, your partner and/or your company will be bought into disrepute by taking these cases on?
7. If your client’s aim is to reduce copyright infringement (rather than simply generating revenue from it), why not give us a list of all the titles you ‘protect’ and we’ll publish them, to warn people away from downloading them?
8. Around the web, the specialties of the ACS Law partners can be found, but copyright law is not listed as one of them – why is that?
9. Considering your approach to these cases is almost (if not) identical to that of Davenport Lyons, do you anticipate contact from Which? and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority in the coming months? If not, why not?
Stay tuned for updates!
Previously: TV Exec Fired for Opposing Anti-Piracy law
Next: Vuze Goes Portable, With a Price Tag
127 Responses
Good job TF.
Maybe every UK file-sharer should follow ACS Law’s example and spam them with the nine points above. You know, just in case ;)
Mugs. Bring it on.
Strange lawyer types, thinking they can take everyone to court.
PS. First
Well done enigmax, thats one of the best researches peices ive seen around. Not sure what conclusions to draw as yet, i doubt they will answer your questions though, especially #7, as of course the aim is revenue raising and not copyright protection.
7. If your client’s aim is to reduce copyright infringement (rather than simply generating revenue from it), why not give us a list of all the titles you ‘protect’ and we’ll publish them, to warn people away from downloading them?
Surely this is the best way to reduce that copyrighted material from being in the public domain through file sharing…..except of course we know its all about generating money and that’s the only reason these organisations exist
Very nice article
TF you are really doing the community a massive service (even if i do think you failed on a massive skill with your anticipation of TPB trial….my predictions were 100% proved). I think ACS will have a big problem conducting business with the exposure you generate and i for one will ensuring all the file sharers i know are well advised not to pay up!….afterall its not uncommon for solicitors firms, trading standards etc to find offices/evidence “ransacked” or otherwise “destroyed” when dealing unfairly with people in the UK.
Finally, we have a very good news piece. Maybe you should consider more of this type stuff and stop beating that dead horse…TPB.
Good Job
From what I’ve read about this latest round over at Slyck.com, I can only conclude that ACS really stands for Ambulance Chasing Solicitors.
Just got one of these letter and to say I was terrified that I might lose my house was an understatement. With the advice that you have given I will get a decent nights sleep thanks for all your hard work.
http://www.acs-law.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=56
“For more information about how we can prevent further unlawful dissemination of you r or your company’s copyright works and how we can actually increase royalties lawfully due to you or your company, please use of Contact form in order to arrange a free of charge meeting or conference call.”
What kind of blind monkey have they got writing their website?
ooohhh ddos, yes I would enjoy that.
Nice detective work TF! Thanks!
@11
DDOS…. I’m pretty sure they deserve it! ;)
Well, this should erase any doubt that Davenport Lyons are nothing more than crooks running an extortion racket. So what if they were reported to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority? No self respecting criminals would let THAT stop them.
Why, just set up shop under a different name and go about business as usual!
Sometimes I think the MAFIAA and its umbrella companies really do purposefully take pages out of the actual Sicilian mafia’s playbook.
Taken from the document
‘Our expert IT consultants (the “Monitors”), use a sophisticated software program (the “Monitoring Program”) to locate an individual’s IP address’
lmao…..Oh no it’s ‘THE MONITORS’ with their ‘MONITORING PROGRAM’ Now were in trouble hahahahaaa
cheers guys!
As the world turns… .. really wondering why this type of sh* keeps popping up and still going strong in these democracies of ours. Unpunished ofcourse.
But, nice stand with the article.
They’re a FRAUD!!!
People will do almost anything for a quick buck. What better way then to hire to clowns fresh outta law school and paint their faces on a “temp” firm. Solicite as much as possible in the shortest time frame possible, then run for the high hills.
A measily attempt at pirating from the pirates.
I doubt they respond to that shit.. but not responding says all we need to know.
FACT:
They are a digital mafia and need to be fined and jailed.
Freaking lawyers! They have become a plague to this society.
The only way to beat them is to learn the system and keep informed.
Thanks TF for doing such a great job!
I would love to see these results :) , also fuck copyright , take me to court , what you gonna do? you could never prove it was me , somebody could have used my “unsecure” wireless network , or hacked my computer…
Excellent article! Thanks.
many thanks for this, I have been worried sick since I too received the letter from acs law yesterday and have never downloaded the game in question.
The http://www.acs-law.org.uk/ site looks like it was designed by a blind monkey while masturbating
You’d have to be stupid to use a company with such a dodgy looking site
This looks to be Terrences Twitter account; http://twitter.com/Tezimondo
I’m guessing he does their website for them. I wonder if he had permission to “copy” the Davenport Lyons content?
Now that would be funny!
Hey guys ! there is a new problem on pirate bay.I am not able to register it is showing that something is wrong always even though it is correct
plz help
hack-genius.blogspot.com
Sounds like the cybersquatter decided to try to make money another way, by picking up where the Davenport Lyons left off and using the investigation/extortion tactics himself so he can rake in the dough.
Interesting. Now the Nigerian and similar scammers are given their next clue on how to make money.
so they’re rebranding to get out of a bad reputation?
lol. Wow, this is… somewhat disturbing but I am sure a lot of people will apreciate tf’s efforts. way to go! THis type of business doesn’t even ahve a propper license… or does it? same for the indsutry. they don’t know jack ’bout music production or music itself and films, and so why are they trying to manage what they simply cannot? someone’s desperate…
DDOS, DDOS and DDOS again :D
On a quick note about the website looking crappy and being designed badly. Well I think that people should also take not, that the site design is not actually been done by anyone apart from the Joomla! team. So now if this is a big company they would have at leasted paid for a decent or semi-decent web designer to make there corperate image and not download a free content management system. That would take any idiot 5 minutes to setup.
But then again maybe as they are working with logistep, digiprotect, and devonporn and lyons. Then it is likely these are idiot, so using this for there site might be the only way they can afford it. Well thats until some other poor fools, fall for there letters and send off money.
I personally believe this is still a scam setup but a known domain squatter to earn extra cash for himself.
I too have received a threatening letter from ACS Law. I contacted Davenport Lyons and spoke to a secretary who would not give the name of her boss but promised he would ring me back today. She did state that Davenport Lyons have moved the copyright work to ACS Law very recently. When asked ‘are ACS a subsidiary of Davenport Lyons?’ she replied “not really …well it is complicated”.
Needless to say the boss did not ring!
I have taken advice from Micheal Coyle who is a copyright solicitor [google him]. He is currently dealing with over 200 cases like this and will represent recipients of one of the threatening letters for £200, he did and still does do cases for free. His advice to me was that Davenport Lyons have not taken a single contested case to court. They have won several cases against people who have not responded to the letters, such as polish migrants and students who have moved on. Once the paper victory has been achieved they then use a marketing company to publicize the result i.e. the result and the big compensation grant to generate fear.
He states that the best way to deal with ACS is to respond with a letter refuting the allegation. You will then receive a further letter stating you are responsible for the actions of others who have used your internet connection without your knowledge or authorisation. There is no UK law to support this claim. To get this to stick in court they would have to prove on the balance of probability [not beyond reasonable doubt as this is criminal law] that you knew or allowed your internet connection to be used for copyright breach. They are never going to show that in an English court.
Following the second frightening letter you should again respond denying the allegation. You should inform them that you will contest any action in a court of law, Micheals exact words were to inform them politely either ‘put up or shut up’
If you continue to receive threats you will be able to make a complaint to the Solicitors Regularity Authority who will investigate as they should not be writing more than two letters to enforce a civil claim without commencing court proceedings. If you do receive any sort of court summons then contact Michael who will take the case on.
These letters are just part of a money making scheme the solicitors are using. If you google the male partner of the firm very carefully you will come up with some interesting material.
The female partner listed in the firm specialises in family law and would not know a copyright case if it bit her. So this leave a one man band attempting to extract money from thousands of people with little or no evidence that would stand scrutiny under English law.
My last concern is that ACS Law are not registered with the Information Commissioners Office which they must be under the Data Protection Act and Law society rules to hold and process personal data.
Here is the paragraph I will be sending to ACS Law. I will not waste time and effort going through the wireless defense as I know I will get a second letter anyway.
Dear Sir,
With reference to your letter dated 5th May 2009 I totally refute the allegation that I have made available for download the game “Call of Juarez”. I have never owned a copy or downloaded a copy, in fact had never heard of the title until your letter.
I will not pay any compensation or fees to you or your client nor will I sign any undertaking. I will defend any action you may decide to bring against me.
There’s no About Us section on the website.
The telephone number also differs according to which document you look at.
If you look at their entry on intersolicitors.co.uk is 02072585177 the number apparent on the .org.uk website is 02078980571
I tried phoning the Fax number and it is a Fax. This can be done easilly right?
Black fax the number and ddos the website. Hate all these money grabbing lawyer scumbags.
You and me in a little toy shop…buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got…
I have to wonder if some of these letters Davenporn Lyons and now ACS are sending are as a result of the Pirate Bay’s tracker generating fake peers. I’ve encountered this behavior myself, even seeing my own IP address showing up in torrents from them. I’ve also seen IPv6 and even non routable addresses showing up in Pirate Bay torrents.
And as for the default judgements they’ve won, IMO, I do not think those people even exist.
It will be very interesting to see what the response is from ACS. It sounds a lot like this is a fraud scheme.
The two law firms are also within spitting distance of each other (1000 yards approx)
Good one ‘Knife edge’, good to hear that there is more than one thing linking these two ambulance chasing firms :-)
Interesting…
http://www.acs-law.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=56
is a Joomla powered site, I think I can dig up an exploit or two…what are the chances they havent even changed the default admin login ;)
Nothing like a bunch of bottom feeding, blood sucking attorneys to ruin the day! LOL
privacy-web.net.tc
It sounds like a scam to me, Take a pic of yourself throwing up the middle finger and mail that to them.
excellent article. well done. TF is playing a critical role in the battle to defend our liberties with research like this. We owe you a debt!
Details: CROSSLEY, ANDREW JONATHAN – Partner
ID: 150435
Admission Date: 15/07/1991
Higher Rights of Audience: No
Registered Foreign Lawyer: No
Registered European Lawyer: No
Insolvency Practitioner: No
Address: ACS LAW
18 Hanover Square
LONDON
W1S 1HX
ENGLAND
Telephone Number: 020 7898 0571
Areas of law: Civil litigation
Commercial litigation
Debt and money advice
Employment law
rude
http://www.acs-law.org.uk/administrator/
No need to wait anymore? ;-)
I maybe wrong but “Notes on Evidence” bit on there site isn’t correct either
5. Evidence of Uploading/Making the Work Available
…making a copyright work available to other users on the internet is unlawful under sections 16(1)(d) and 20 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Acts 1988
hmmmm….
CDPA 1988 16(1) The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom—
(d)to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service
and Section 20
Infringement by broadcasting or inclusion in a cable programme service
- section 16 refers to the owner of the works, and section 20 broadcasting Christ what arse will they try next! I don’t think anyone should be worried about these clowns.
also if anyone has had there details handed over to this company you should request a copy of the court order from your ISP, then follow it up with the court in question, see what evidence ACS has submitted to gain the order.
I got these answers from -
Andrew J. Crossley
Partner
ACS Law Solicitors
18 Hanover Square
London W1S 1HX
DX: LDE 1015
Tel: 020 7898 0571
Fax: 020 7898 0572
1. What is your connection with Davenport Lyons? NONE
2. Why are you servicing so many (ex?) Davenport Lyons clients? THESE ARE ALSO CLIENTS OF ACS LAW
3. Why does ACS Law have two web presences – ACS-Law.co.uk and ACS-Law.org.uk? IT JUST DOES
4. Why is ACS-Law.org.uk owned by a known cyber-squatter and not your company? IT IS OWNED BY US.
5. How many of these cases against alleged file-sharers do you intend to pursue and who is on your client list? AS MANY AS OUR CLIENTS INSTRUCT US ON
6. These cases got hugely messy for Davenport Lyons and it’s only a matter of time
before ACS Law accuses a pensioner or child of downloading porn, or makes other errors. Are you concerned that you, your partner and/or your company will be bought into disrepute by taking these cases on? NO
7. If your client’s aim is to reduce copyright infringement (rather than simply generating revenue from it), why not give us a list of all the titles you ‘protect’ and we’ll publish them, to warn people away from downloading them? WE HAVE NO INSTRUCTIONS TO DO THAT. WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO PURSUE INFRINGERS IDENTIFIED
8. Around the web, the specialties of the ACS Law partners can be found, but copyright law is not listed as one of them – why is that? INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND COPYRIGHT IS A ONE OF A NUMBER OF SPECIALISMS OF THIS FIRM
9. Considering your approach to these cases is almost (if not) identical to that of Davenport Lyons, do you anticipate contact from Which? and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority in the coming months? If not, why not? YOU WOULD NEED TO ASK THEM THAT.
@8 by Jeff
Ambulance Chasing Solicitors, like that one. :)
@ enigmax
7. If your client’s aim is to reduce copyright infringement (rather than simply generating revenue from it), why not give us a list of all the titles you ‘protect’ and we’ll publish them, to warn people away from downloading them? :D
Excellent, you just made me smile for the weekend, thanks for the great article.
valid XHTML and CSS. I beg to differ. You should be able to sue for false claims for that :)
It won’t work as anyone who searches the net will find that nothing happens if they don’t pay.
An excellent investigative piece TF, you put my investigation skills to shame :-(
well thats good to hear. I too received a letter from ACS LAW stating i must pay for legal damages game call of juarez.
Just replied to the email saying i refute all claims made against me, after finding this article. So what now wait for another letter to be sent?
I feel let down by my ISP as i feel my right of privacy has been breached. Also i tried to contact P2P team but it said failed mail delivery.
Would like more advice if possible thanks.
PS. My ISP is virgin media
yeah i am happy with it.
http://www.mobilebenz.com/category/nokia-applications/
you needn’t worry did some investigating the company ACS folded/got bankrupt/NO LONGER EXISTS as of three months ago.
I got one of these and I am really scared for the game two worlds, they want £700, if i ignore it will they leave me alone. Did they just leave the people alone in 2007.
@53 They’ll send a bunch of letters trying to scare you into paying up. The letters are full of flaws and hiccups, just be one tough customer and they’ll leave you alone soon enough.
I hope so, although I am guilty but I have one more thing I can throw into this mess. It could be coincidence they have caught me as they have the month when I downloaded it wrong(I downloaded it during the March holidays and they say I downloaded it in June) and the time wrong :), plus on the first page they say I downloaded it at “17:10″ and in the middle “18:10″ they shouldn’t have mistakes like that. plus I downloaded it through the night :o. My guess is its coincidence.
Plus I never fully downloaded it fully – does that count for anything.
@53 george. they cant really do anything expect send you letters…..if you don’t reply they might send you another letter,,if they do jus reply to them saying to never downloaded these files. They cant really do much cuz they don’t have strong evidence to take any1 to court, they will jus lose the case if they did…in 2007 people that got scared paid up,,but the ones who didn’t never went to court…so jus chill don’t pay them a penny
Cheers S, think I will just ignore it, all I cant do tbh.
George, and any one else out there, DO NOT IGNORE THESE LETTERS.
Not responding amounts to telling them you are unwilling to defend your case and are unlikely to show up to any court hearings. If you dont turn up, they win by default and can ask for whatever amount they like.
When this happened last time with Davenport Lyons they did take some people to court because they didnt respond, and managed to get £16,000 from one person who didnt turn up.
Yes, but they only took a few, it would cost a lot to take everyone and since I am guilty, I will ignore it now until the last minute and then I will pay, I don’t want a court hearing.
It may just blow over, hopefully :).
god tipple post, sorry I cant see an edit button. This hasn’t been proven if this is a fake yet, I will wait to find out if this is real. .
Does any one have an e-mail of this firm, I want to have a wee pop at them.
@ 59 George
It really isn’t relevant if your guilty or not. Any evidence they do or don’t have will not stand up in a court of law within the UK. If you reply refuting all allegations. N keep refuting it for the next few letters that they send. They will never take you to court.
If you ignore the threats then they will claim damages and you will have to pay, guilty or not.
I’ll say it again. They do not have evidence that will stand up in a court of law, and they will never take you to court.
All they are doing is scare mongering, trying to bully you into paying.
Just stand firm refuting all alegations and they will leave you alone eventually. Just google past cases with Davenport Lyons to see.
If on the billion to 1 chance they do try and take you to court. There is a lawyer that was mentioned in an earlier post, and I’m sure some1 will put up again as it escapes me at the mo; who, for a small fee (I believe 200 squids) will take your case and fight these robbing bar stewards.
Stand strong and don’t let the buggers bully you!!!
So even though I did it I should just keep sending letters claiming I didn’t, even though I did. Will that get me off with it.
fsg@acs-law.org.uk
that will get to the right person.
@ George
If you stand your ground and keep saying you didn’t do it, yes they will eventually leave you alone.
They will write you a few more strongly worded letters before they give up.
But if you follow the advice of other posters here, Deny everything and state that you are willing to defend yourself in court. They will back down.
I believe a law firm is only allowed to issue two letters stating intent before starting formal precedings. In the EXTREMELY unlikely event of this happeneing. Contact the lawyer stated above and he will defend your case, along with a few hundred others. Better to pay him 200 than these bullies much much more.
Under Uk law there is no way that they can prove that you have done what they say, short of you admitting it in front of the judge.
Just reply to the letters rufing it all, saying you will defend yourself legally if required.
After two (maybe three) letters. They’ll leave you alone.
But I can’t stress strongly enough the need to actually respond to these
Cant my PC be searched and the said file found via some backup or can they not search my pc under any law?
It’s not a criminal case as such. The police aren’t involved at all, and they are the only ones who have the right to do such things.
It wouldn’t make much sense telling you they are going to prosecute you, then coming in to take your stuff. Gives you time to destroy evidence. If that was going to happen, it would have already.
If you are paranoid about it, delete all evidence off of your hard drive then use one of many free to download programs that write and rewrite over the deleted areas to erase any evidence.
But again. This isn’t needed. I understand it’s a scary situation to be in. But it really is just a bunch of bullies trying to make you cough up by shouting loudly at you. They don’t have the right to take your stuff, and don’t have the evidence or power to make the police do it for them.
I think I will reply to these criminals, even though I am guilty should I defend I am innocent that is my final question?
Foa omeganed your reply’s have been awesome.
I have just emailed them, I cant wait for a reply.
All I will say is stop saying your guilty. From this moment on your innocent and there’s no proof otherwise O.K.? As you said, the evidence they claim to have agains’t you isn’t accurate and even then you have the whole unsecured wireless internet access point arguement. But DO NOT mention anything like that in any letters.
Just reply to the letters refuting everything. They will send another 1 or 2 letters. Keep saying your innocent and willing to defend yourself legally. Nothing more! You are not on trial and do not need to prove your innocence. These people are not the judge or jury. Again DO NOT make any attempt to defend yourself. They will back down and run away with their tales between their legs.
As I said. from this moment on you never did anything they claim you did. Stick to that and you will be just fine.
We pirates gotta stick together. Show these cowards we in the UK will not just lie down and take their crap!
details for Albo Da Kid aka AlbiBx
email is albibx@gmail.com Have fun with this
69.118.19.57
69.118.22.236
69.126.123.144
173.2.92.76
173.2.92.0
173.2.92.255
Great post. One of my best friends received one of these letters and was naturally pretty concerned. Thanks to your earlier articles on Davenport Lyons I figured it was probably a load of crap and after a bit of research found those same advice threads and we concluded that the best move was to refute the accusations and leave it at that. Shame this post didn’t come a little bit earlier but still it was very informative, thanks for the good work.
@72 Albosucks
What’s are those?
you needn’t worry here peeps, the company doesn’t actually officcially exist therefore they can’t legally take you to court.
suggesstion in case i’m wrong – just say that the computer you’re using now isn’t the same one that “downloaded” the game. they have no way to verify it. plus if the police do show up (which they shouldn’t) just make sure everything is on external hard drives and leave them at a friends.
@75 “plus if the police do show up (which they shouldn’t) just make sure everything is on external hard drives and leave them at a friends.”
Hello sir, we’re planning on raiding your premises 9am Thursday. Please can you make sure you’ve hidden anything incriminating at your friends house beforehand. Is that ok sir?
What do you mean the company doesn’t officially exist?
Obviously they are the same people running both companies they just don’t want their other company getting a bad name.
They are the criminals extorting people, the thing is they send out like 20,000 letter at a time and even if only 5% of people pay they earn big money 20,000 x £600 = :(
And they have to do nothing to get it but write some crappy letters.
Sorry that should have bee 1000 x £600 ^^
And I’m willing to be that 5% of people pay it because they are stupid.
You need to take this more seriously, and realise that the company involved is playing for millions and is a law firm. They have already made you ISP dance to their tune, so they won’t have much trouble with you. Homespun wisdom about innocence and guilt could cost you a lot of money. Firstly, it is not a criminal action, but a civil action – so the standard is not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, but is ‘on the balance of probabilities’. And against that yardstick you’ve probably lost already as the High Court has accepted that it should force an ISP to release your details.
You should immediately seek legal advice from a law firm with a good IP track record and who are versed in the Davenport-Lyons case – like Lawdit or DMH Stallard, to do what you can to hamper the legal challenge.
You should then make contact with your MP, MEP, the police and the press. There are some bigger issues where I believe this case can be won or lost. My understanding is that under EU law the company concerned needs to prove reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence, but their whole MO is based on threat of a civil action. As these orders are still going to the High Court, maybe a challenge can be made to one of them on this basis. Secondly, it seems that at least some of your personal data was obtained by Davenport-Lyons, but is now in the hands of ACS:Law, who don’t appear to have a Data Protection Act registration. So perhaps a challenge can be mounted on misuse of data.
Thirdly, you should write to the local and national press, BBC, Sky, etc. But be careful. Davenport-Lyons put their case to the press very eloquently, and you don’t want to appear as a grubby forger fighting their righteous crusade. Don’t make too much of your guilt or innocence, but the fact that this company stands to make £12m each round of threatening letters which is disproportionate to any losses that could have been incurred, and that because of the lack of legal clarification this is a blackmailer’s charter. Point out that the age of likely offenders means that parents all over the country are now in the blackmailer’s notebooks and stand to lose their savings. Point out that other EU countriess have outlawed this practice. ACS:Law WANT you to be little. Think carefully, and thing bigger….
PS – this company does exist. The reason they keep their limited status on the backburner is that they can use it if ever the going gets hot. That’s how clever they are. Wise up.
… and of course remember that they are almost certainly reading all of these threads too….
rofl @8
Sending a letter from a family friend who is a solicitor denying the allocations :)
how many of these letters were sent out?
YES, this web set is good,but do you want another style web? recently,i found a new hot dating se
_____ w w w . l a r g e k i s s . c o m _____ where you can meet more friends and chat with them!
Maybe she’s waitting for you now~~~~~!!!
^^GTF YOU
ACS:Law are a real and genuine firm of solicitors. They are a partnership, not a limited company. There is a company in dissolution called ACS LAw Limited under co. no. 05332373 but this has no connection to ACS Law Solicitors whatsoever. I know this for certain.
The reason they provide alternate contact details, is that they do not want their other ‘legitimate’ business communications getting swamped.
Thank U TF, for a great invistigative article. This article puts many other bigger and more “professional” news-organisations to shame!
Also thank U to the many comment posters, who follow up on the invistigation on these black-mailers and there obscure mafia-methods. U ALL RULE!!
– Pirates are Freedom Fighters!!
PS: F U C K all U spam-posters = Scum Of The Earth!
Its very noteworthy that the FAQ on the DL website makes no mention of trying to extract (extort) money from those on benefits or with limited means, my lordy, they must be such nice solicitors!
But ACS:Law clearly makes no distinction from those people trying just to make ends meet in these difficult times. DL while still hoping to profit by this, are quite clearly trying to limit their exposure to extracting cash from those less fortunate, whilst allowing ACS:Law to take all the heat.
The documents which prove an association between DL and ACS:Law have now been removed and replaced, they are still available on Google cache if you want a copy…grab ‘em quick!
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:Zap7b5UAk3gJ:www.acs-law.org.uk/+acs-law&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
The document you want is the one that isn’t there – Notes on Evidence. This was a Word doc, and in Properties the author was ‘ttsang’. Unfortunately I wiped mine, but was reading that someone else had kept a copy.
Domain name:
acs-law.org.uk
Registrant:
Terence Tsang
Registrant type:
Unknown
Registrant’s address:
ACS Law Solicitors, 18 Hanover Square
London
Greater London
W1S 1HX
GB
Registrar:
Total Web Solutions Ltd t/a Total Registrations [Tag = TOTALREG]
URL: http://www.totalregistrations.com
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 09-Apr-2009
Renewal date: 09-Apr-2011
Last updated: 08-May-2009
Registration status:
Registration request being processed.
Name servers:
ns1.dfsv61.com
ns2.dfsv61.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/acs-law.org.uk
Who is this Terrence Tsang and what does he have to do with this.
Just called my ISP – They have told me not to respond to the letter, and that is definately a scam.
Just so everyone knows – ACS Law are not registered under the DPA as a data controller and are committing a criminal offence. I have reported them to the Information Commission.
i have just recived my letter wanting £665 they have the wrong IP address for me …. i have also contacted my internet provider and they have told me not to reply. my letter claims that i have downloaded “dream pinball 3d”dated may 2008…. NOT SURE WHAT TO DO ARGHH DO I CONTACT THEM OR NOT
PLEASE HELP
Who is Terrence Ttsang and what is his involvement ?
#96 What I dont get is if its so easy to obtain peoples IP addresses and bring civil cases to alleged uploaders, why are the big companies like Microsoft not jumping on the torrent gravy train, who have more valueable pieces of work to protect and have the financial muscle to follow cases to conclusion
@98, if that does happen almost every house in the country would recieve a letter like this. Really scary if you think about it :(.
Any one know what i can do about this letter? I dont want to ignore it but damm if i am paying a 665 pound fine for something i have not done!
@100, Read post 31 in this thread :)
@ topov22
The date on the letters we received is 5/5/09 and it states 21 days to respond. This gives us until 26 May to reply, so I ain’t hurrying. I do not believe that they have any intention of reading the letters beyond if there is a denial or not. Those who have replied will, no doubt, get another stock letter doubling the claim amount in order to frighten people further.
I would wait at least another couple of days before doing anything.
if possible someone could create a website with all the damning evidence against ACS Law and the links with davenport lyons then let all the powers that be know about it. Just a thought.
You might want to read these…
http://www.p2pfreak.com/forum/torrent-sites/1581-infringement-copyright-notice-two-worlds-18.html#post3969
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/12/davenport_lyons_acs_law/
I received the “Two Worlds” letter today demanding £665. Is it ok to send them an email refuting their claim or should i write a letter to them? it seems a shame to waste the postage.
Ask for a read receipt and it should be fine. Emails are admissable in a court of law.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/198192-acs-law-14.html
check this out, could be good news, I hope
I had a look at Terence Tsang’s Twitter page (http://twitter.com/Tezimondo) and noticed he had posted the following on 2nd March.
Why would he be looking for this…? I didn’t think he he was a solicitor/lawyer.
‘Searching for law firm accounting software with project costing integrated… should really be sleeping! Sage suitable? Will call around…’
Hi,
Can i just say that i have had one of these letters posted through my letterbox this past Friday…at first i thought it was some Nigerian internet scammer as the letter is put together quite crappy…but the more i researched it the more it looked real. The file that i have been accused of SHARING is available on mininova where there are 4 diff versions of it along with a diff dodgy tracker that seems to use tpb via another site…when i copy n pasted the first site it came back with a website used for monitoring internet traffic data…which explains why in my letter it says “HIT”….
There is of course only one problem and that is that i never downloaded the file to begin with, you see it is a PC game they say was downloaded and a pretty recent one at that which wouldn’t run on the good old dell 550 i have here for browsing, don’t get me wrong though i do like my tv series and have downloaded the odd episode of LOST & Supernatural ;) but hey who hasn’t…i still get the dvd box sets from blockbuster when they arrive so no lose there and if its a really good episode me n a few friends still watch it on sky with adverts every 2.5 minutes ;)
Anyway to cut a long accusation short i have an appointment with a lawyer tomorrow [wed 13] and finding one of those that specifically deals with copyright was as hard as hell as i have no money and they dont do the legal aid thingy….but i got there in the end and this guy is pro, or so they say ;)
May i just say and anyone correct me if you think i am talking crap but on mininova where i searched and found this file a few days back i noticed that the tracker that is doing the hit counting was put there when the uploader placed the file there…i assume nobody can change that without re-upping the file ? so that would mean the guy who put it up is the same person monitoring for hits and who got the solicitors in question to send out letters…only problem is that they would need the permission of the copyright holder to legally place the file on the site and as it is a sharing site they knew the idea of what goes on there…so they legally place a file to be shared on a p2p site then harvested i.p addresses then accused people of illegally sharing it…but alas it cant be if it was real and they placed it there with the copyright owners consent…otherwise they put it there illegally and should also be prosecuted…or it was a fake file and so nobody can be prosecuted as there was no breach of copyright…
I dont mind discussing this as on this occasion i am completely innocent and have not downloaded, shared or even had a whiff of the said game they are talking about…oh and it’s a reality pump game by the way which my son owns on the 360 and is quite crap…he paid full price as well.
i’ll let everyone know the result tomorrow after i have seen my lawyer.
Thnx for reading & i’m sorry its long.
just e-mailed them and they have the balls to send back this possibly computerised message.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your email which has been safely received by us and will be considered and responded by a member of our File Sharing Group as soon as possible. Due to the high volume of enquiries we receive this may take several days and we kindly ask that you please bear with us. No further action will be taken by us against you in the meantime.
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
File Sharing Group
ACS Law Solicitors
18 Hanover Square
London W1S 1HX
DX: LDE 1015
Tel: 020 7898 0571
Fax: 020 7898 0572
ACS
what does it mean
No further action will be taken by us against you in the meantime.
this is very weird.
I have just returned from my consultation with the lawyer who ONLY deals with copyright and intellectual property cases and he has directed me to write to the said company [ACS Law] and tell them what i told him that i am completely innocent and have in no way, shape or form downloaded, uploaded or shared the piece of software they mention in their letter to me.
He also directed me to abide by options 1 & 2 in the letter but not option 3 [payment] as i have done nothing wrong and as such agreeing not to have anything to do with their client[s] software etc should be enough.
As he informed me they are just looking for a hit rate on people and if you have no money then you would still not have any money after a court case so it achieves nothing. The solicitor i saw deals with these things everyday and told me that even he has sent out letters regarding the same thing but not like the one i and others have received….he also knew about the Davenport lyons cases and actually mention the case about the pensioners and porn case in particular.
The first thing he told me to do was confirm that the firm is indeed real by going on the law society website and finding them and then secondly to email the firm using the address on the letter, remembering to CC yourself a copy, stating the facts and letting them know you will follow steps 1 & 2 but not 3 as you are innocent and as such you don’t need to pay the money requested.
Thank you for reading and i will update on any replies i receive….
ps: the files held by mininova under the name DOPEMAN seem to be the files that are affected…check the tracker info and you will notice somethings not right on a few…
Update : I have just had it pointed out tome that since i mentioned earlier this morning about the trackers on those files they seem to have been updated by someone and the ones that looked a bit dodgy seem to have vanished…so i guess who ever put them there to begin with reads TF ;)
Either that of mininova removed them while leaving the file up…the last comment on the said file on mininova states that someone has been sent a letter after downloading it and this is the same file that last friday afternoon had 4 trackers one of which was a data gathering website.
i hope my mate took screenies of the trackers…gotta stay one step ahead of these buggers dontcha, they acuse you of stuff and then try erasing everything that points to them putting it there themselves.
This was on Lawdit’s website:-
Copyright Infringement Apology to ACS: Law Solicitors
On 8th May we published an article relating to the recent activity of ACS:Law Solicitors (ACS:Law) in relation to letters sent by that firm in relation to alleged copyright infringement through file sharing. In our article we speculated about ACS: Law and implied that the letters sent by that firm were possibly scams. We also cast doubt over the authenticity of ACS: Law.
We were contacted by Mr Andrew J. Crossley, Senior Partner of ACS: Law, who has helpfully provided clarification on these issues and we are informed by Mr Crossley that:
ACS: Law Solicitors is a lawfully registered and properly regulated firm of solicitors, owned and operated by Andrew J. Crossley in partnership with Ms Nicola Beale. We unreservedly apologise for having given the possible impression that they were anything other than that.
The letters ACS:Law have recently issued on behalf of their clients, alleging infringement of copyright by uploading material to file sharing networks are genuine letters of claim, should not be ignored and definitely not “scams”.
ACS Law Solicitors have no connection with Messrs Davenport Lyons.
The domain http://www.acs-law.org.uk is a genuine website owned and operated by ACS:Law.
We apologise to ACS:Law and or its partners unreservedly and have willingly at the request of Mr Crossley, donated an undisclosed sum of money to the NSPCC.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Coyle
Director
Lawdit Solicitors Limited
13 May 2009
^^damn :(
It’s worth pointing that ACS Law’s letter contains an inaccuracy: they claim that they have no connection with Messrs Davenport Lyons when is obvious that ACS Law is using documents derived from Messrs Davenport Lyons. Furthermore, there is now evidence that it is the clients of ACS Law who are themselves sharing files in order to “catch” filesharers. This means that any claims for monetary compensation for copyright infringement due to file sharing of those files is utterly null and void – it is the owners (or their representatives) who have elected to share the files, and once they have elected to share those files, downloading those files becomes legal. This also means that ACS Law’s requests to ISPs for information on downloaders is illegal. It is also illegal for ISPs to comply with those requests.
@ziminoid
Since it was obtained by a court order doesnt that make it legal.
But court orders obtained by means of deliberately misleading the court mean that any evidence obtained cannot be accepted by the courts at subsequent hearings.
Who gives a shit about these law firms? They are all a bunch of tossers.
If anybody receives a letter from them, do the right thing and throw it in the bin. What they guoing to do? Send me another one?
Ha I will never respond or even acknowledge them.
Everybody should have a different person for each of your torrents eg music, videos and games. Use the pirate bay and only use trusted uploader, then you cant be stung into a trap,
Happy days, tell them to get to fuck.
Bin it!!!
the game its onabout is from a trusted uploader so you says use a trusted uploaders torrents lol
Thats very nice, people are getting sued and you crack that joke.
The game in question is from a so called trusted uploader and actually contained 1 iffy looking tracker that led to an online website for collecting data on each of the files, this has now been removed from the tracker list of each file as far as i can see when i checked yesterday. They can analyse my computer for this file and it wont show up as i never did what they say but if they wish to spend thousands of pounds wasting their own money then who am i not to let them as at least then the whole world will laugh at the silly losers.
ps : And we all thought nigerian lottery scammers were sly customers, i’m starting to think they have a secret training camp for scammers set up over there where these people learn their trade ;)
Personally i think this will all be over once it reaches main stream UK TV hopefully even the watchdog TV programme as they have been here before….
^^ When Devenport tried this, did the people who ignored it just get let off in the end and is that the same with the people who denied it – how many paid up etc??
I have received a letter from ACS as well and phoned my ISP (sky). They told me that the High Court order came from Davenport Lyons. And then they pretend they are not related? And does that not make the procedure faulty? ie court odrer from DL and letter to me from ACS?
Then DL and ACS are passing information to each other in breach of the Data Protection Act. Contact the ICO straight away and get them to initiate an investigation/prosecution.
Update :
£ days after posting an email to ACS law on the email contained within the letter i still have not had any reply from them. Not even an out of office response which all GOOD lawyers post as a matter of courtesy.
The email had a 7 day notice attached to it that after 7 days of no response then i would consider the matter legally closed and no further action would be taken…as of yet there has as i say been no response!
I stated in the email that i have proof that their alleged accusations are false and that at their own expense they can send my computer for analyse to search fruitlessly for the named file and only the named file as that is what is alleged to be there and as i have other sensitive private files and documents on there too i don’t want any old Davenport, Lyons & harry fooling around with it now do i ;) but as i say they can waste their time and money doing it as once proven that it isn’t there then they and NOT me owe somebody a lot of money….
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