Comments on: ‘New’ Anti-Piracy Lawyers Chase UK File-Sharers

By: Mr Innocent

Mr Innocent — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:08:15 +0000

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….

By: Zimnoid

Zimnoid — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:39:36 +0000

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.

By: Sbub

Sbub — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:07:00 +0000

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?

By: George

George — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:30:36 +0000

^^ 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??

By: Mr Innocent

Mr Innocent — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:39:39 +0000

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….

By: Meee

Meee — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:17:52 +0000

Thats very nice, people are getting sued and you crack that joke.

By: lol

lol — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:17:16 +0000

the game its onabout is from a trusted uploader so you says use a trusted uploaders torrents lol

By: Paul T

Paul T — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:13:47 +0000

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!!!

By: Zimnoid

Zimnoid — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:10:44 +0000

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.

By: Gregorz

Gregorz — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:46:41 +0000

@ziminoid

Since it was obtained by a court order doesnt that make it legal.

By: Zimnoid

Zimnoid — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:49:35 +0000

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.

By: Meee

Meee — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:20:48 +0000

^^damn :(

By: qwerty

qwerty — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:56:27 +0000

This was on Lawdit’s website:-

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

By: Mr Innocent

Mr Innocent — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:06:06 +0000

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.

By: Mr Innocent

Mr Innocent — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:38:41 +0000

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…

By: Meee

Meee — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:49:15 +0000

what does it mean
No further action will be taken by us against you in the meantime.

this is very weird.

By: Meee

Meee — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:39:26 +0000

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

By: Mr Innocent

Mr Innocent — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:19:30 +0000

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.

By: Tutti

Tutti — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:16:28 +0000

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…’

By: nobby

nobby — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:19:10 +0000

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/198192-acs-law-14.html
check this out, could be good news, I hope