Since 2007, the UK has seen thousands of postal threats to take alleged file-sharers to court. But aside from getting default judgments against a handful easy targets who didn’t try to defend themselves, the majority of threats have come to nothing. Lawyers ACS:Law are now promising to step up to the mark and bring their first court cases in Britain.
Lawyers ACS:Law and their anti-piracy partners Logistep are currently harassing around 6,000 alleged file-sharers, demanding £665 from each to make threats of legal action go away. In yet another blow to their tenuous claims, ISP association ISPA says that its members are “not confident” that the evidence accurately identifies infringers.
Over 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.
Lawyers in the UK are obtaining the personal details of over 25,000 alleged file-sharers for the purposes of sending them a £500+ bill accompanied by threats of being sued. Read why the government’s Information Commissioner has let down every single one of them and why each disclosure could be a serious breach of the Data Protection Act.
When TorrentFreak broke the news that lawyers had started going after alleged downloaders of gay porn, we knew that this time the anti-piracy dynamic would be different. Named in Forbes’ Web Celeb 25, Violet Blue, a sex columnist and educator has surprisingly added her dissenting voice into the mix, unwittingly highlighting similarities to a story put to paper years ago by writer Roald Dahl.
After Atari received some bad press recently for mistakenly accusing an elderly couple of pirating one of its games, the company has now stopped the anti-piracy campaign in question. The “witch-hunt”, carried out by the UK law firm Davenport Lyons on behalf of Atari, based on spreadsheets full of IPs gathered by a company named Logistep, continues to lose credibility.
After going after thousands accused of sharing video games in the UK, lawyers Davenport Lyons are now branching out into other areas. This week sees them start going after those it accuses of sharing the movie “Army Fuckers”, hardcore gay porn featuring ‘farm boys’ and Gestapo officers. Accusing the wrong people this time could prove very costly indeed.
A married couple with a combined age of 120 have been accused by UK games lawyers Davenport Lyons of pirating an Atari game, and faced demands for over £500. However, the shocked couple enlisted the help of a popular consumer magazine, and unsurprisingly, the lawyers have backed down.
All the media reports about cracking down on file-sharers in the UK are starting to annoy me. I’m sick of hearing about Topware, their 2nd rate pinball game and their hired-gun lawyers. This needs sorting out, once and for all. Is it time to make file-sharing a police issue in future, one for the criminal courts?
Two major UK ISPs have been ordered by the High Court to hand over the identities of several thousand alleged file-sharers. BT has confirmed it is involved while Virgin Media was less direct in admitting that lawyers Davenport Lyons, working with Topwear Inc., are about to start threatening thousands more people.
Over the last year, UK residents accused of sharing games like Dream Pinball have been threatened by lawyers Davenport Lyons. Stuck in a trap of not having enough money to defend themselves, many choose to pay compensation demands – guilty or not – fearful of a much bigger punishment if things go bad. Now a UK IP lawyer says he will defend as many people as he can – for free.
