Partner David Gore and former partner Brian Miller claimed that their evidence showed that letter recipients were guilty of copyright infringement. The pair demanded around £500 in compensation to make highly expensive legal action go away, demands which left many of those targeted bewildered and distressed.

The highly controversial scheme was later brought to the attention of the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) by consumer magazine Which?, a move which in hindsight signalled the beginning of the end.

The subsequent investigation found that Gore and Miller – who has since left Davenport Lyons – knowingly targeted innocent people, failed to act in the best interests of clients, acted in a way likely to diminish trust in the legal profession and had entered into banned contingency fee arrangements.

Between 31st May and 8th June this year the pair faced the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and were found guilty of professional misconduct on all six counts presented.

Yesterday Gore and Miller received news of their punishments. Each lawyer will have to pay a £20,000 fine and will be suspended from practising for 3 months.

“The SDT found that Miller and Gore became too concerned about making the scheme profitable for themselves and their firm, and their judgment became distorted, so that they pursued the scheme regardless of the impact on the people receiving the letters, and their own clients,” reports the Law Society Gazette.

Payment of interim costs totalling £150,000 was also ordered.

“Some of those affected were vulnerable members of the public. There was significant distress,” said an SRA spokesman welcoming the SDT’s decision.

“We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a conclusion and hope that it serves as a warning to others.”

The warning will come too late for ACS:Law’s Andrew Crossley. When Davenport Lyons grew tired of the so-called Speculative Invoicing controversy it was he who picked up the baton and took the project to a whole new level. The resulting failure bankrupted his company.

Crossley himself will face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal later this year.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The letters sent out by David Gore and former partner Brian Miller claimed that evidence showed that the letter recipient was guilty of copyright infringement and demanded around £500 in compensation to make highly expensive legal action go away.

However, the highly controversial scheme was drawn to the attention of the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) by consumer magazine Which? when it became clear that the letters, which made some baseless and outlandish claims, were targeting innocent people and were “bullying” in nature.

The subsequent SRA investigation found that Gore and Miller – who has since left Davenport Lyons – knowingly targeted innocent people, failed to act in the best interests of clients, acted in a way likely to diminish trust in the legal profession and had also entered into banned contingency fee arrangements.

In March 2010 the pair were referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) and last week their hearing began. After a shaky start (as detailed in the excellent report from ‘Speculative Invoicing’ expert Will Gilmour) and a certain amount of pessimism that the tribunal would reach a conclusion which would satisfy victims of Gore and Miller’s scheme, after 7 days it was all over.

As reported by ComputerActive, in summing up Timothy Dutton QC for the SRA said that the scheme was designed to make money and “browbeat people into submission”, whether they were innocent or not.

Mr Dutton added that Miller and Gore’s conduct represented “a wholly inappropriate discharge of professional duties” and described the campaign as “a debt collection scheme but no debt was owed.” IP address evidence, Dutton noted, was the “flimsiest” of all evidence.

The hearing ended with the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal finding both Gore and Miller guilty of professional misconduct on all six counts presented. The fate of the pair, which could range from monetary penalties to being disbarred, will be announced next month.

As reported earlier this week, Andrew Crossley from the now defunct ACS:Law will also face the tribunal later this year.

In advance of that hearing, last week Crossley asked the Solicitors Regulatory Authority to cover his costs in the upcoming tribunal, even though they are the body that sent him there.

He is said to be concerned that without being able to compete with the £85K the SRA has set aside for his prosecution, he’d suffer an “inequality of arms”. On the same cost-cutting grounds (Crossley is now a declared bankrupt) he requested that all expert evidence be excluded from the Tribunal.

Crossley’s demands were denied across the board. His tribunal will be heard in October, see you there.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The case, which turned out to be something of a damp squib, was the metaphorical head-on-a-pike the company needed to kick-start a new scheme.

The plan was simple enough. Capture IP-addresses of alleged file-sharers, discover their identities through the courts and send them letters demanding money to make non-existent court cases and huge fines go away. Profit.

However, with the help of online forums and consumer groups like Which? and BeingThreatened.com, letter recipients mounted an impressive fight back. Instead of continuing ahead unhindered, Davenport Lyons found themselves the subject of a Solicitors Regulatory Authority investigation. The SRA later referred the case to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

That hearing will go ahead in May next year, but thanks to papers seen by the Solicitors Journal, today we have a sneak preview of the claims being made against partners David Gore and Brian Miller.

According to the SRA, Gore and Miller – who have since left the company – were responsible for litigating against thousands of Internet users they claim were illegal file-sharers, even though they were aware that they had no reliable evidence to support their claims.

“Each of the respondents knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach,” says the SRA’s statement.

Interestingly, although Davenport Lyons and their copyright-holding partners in this business such as Topware, DigiProtect, CodeMasters, Reality Pump, Techland and Atari were all in these schemes together and knew precisely how they operate, the SRA has decided that Gore and Miller put the interests of Davenport Lyons before the interests of their clients.

By sending out letters to people they knew could be innocent, Gore and Miller disregarded the harm their actions could have on their clients’ reputations. This constituted a breach of the Solicitors Code of Conduct say the SRA. For those familiar with how these schemes operate, the irony here is overwhelming.

Furthermore, as has become apparent in recent months through various leaked documents, around 20 to 35% of letter recipients paid Davenport Lyons the money they asked for. The SRA claims that Gore and Miller encouraged litigation in order to secure revenue for their company.

Referring to a letter Davenport Lyons sent to one of its clients where it was discussed how money would be shared, the SRA statement says: “The reference to ‘revenue share’ indicates that the respondents were regarding the scheme which they were operating as a revenue generating scheme.”

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing will go ahead in May 2011 and will last for 7 days. ACS:Law owner Andrew Crossley will be watching more closely than most – the date when he has to face the Tribunal is yet to be decided.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“The damages and costs ordered by the Court are significant and should act as a deterrent,” said David Gore, a partner at Davenport Lyons who pioneered the “pay up or else” schemes multiplying in the UK and elsewhere.

Had the UK gone mad? £16,000 for sharing a single game? Why hadn’t we heard about this case in advance? Surely this wasn’t a ‘proper’ defended case? According to the “independent” IP barrister David Harris quoted by the BBC, it was just that.

“This is a proper Intellectual Property (IP) court that has made this judgement,” said Harris. “The previous ones were default judgements where defendants never turned up.”

So who exactly was this David Harris and who prompted him to make this announcement to the BBC? We don’t know, but one thing is certain – something felt wrong with his comments.

The hearing in the IP court meant the case had been rigorously analysed and the law properly understood, said Mr Harris, as quoted by the BBC. “It’s a much more interesting case in that respect,” he said.

It was indeed interesting, but for all the wrong reasons. It has long been suspected that far from it being a contested case, Miss Barwinska never turned up to defend herself and we now know for sure that she didn’t. Contested case? Not at all Mr Harris, whoever you are. There was absolutely zero defense.

Nevertheless, in common with Davenport Lyons before them, ACS:Law used the Barwinska ‘precedent’ in their ‘marketing’ to show what happens to people who choose not to settle for a few hundred pounds and cases end up in court.

But far from being a perfect illustration of a successfully litigated case, according to an advisor to ACS:Law’s Andrew Crossley the entire process was built on perilously weak foundations that only stood up because there was no defense. How do we know? From the emails that ACS:Law accidentally published on their website last week, of course.

In an email dated 19th August 2010, Adam Glen, who advises Andrew Crossley at ACS:Law, explained to him in no uncertain terms how weak the Barwinska case was.

He began with a statement that we have known to be true for a long time – it is almost impossible to prove damages to a copyright holder beyond an infringer making a single copy of a work on his hard drive. Under UK law, this is a big deal as damages awarded must reflect a proven loss.

“Unfortunately, except for Barwinska, there have been no cases involving P2P based infringement, except for those involving statutory damages, which provide some direction as to the method of calculation,” wrote Glen to Crossley.

“I have always been [of] the view that Barwinska is a difficult judgement and should not be relied upon for a number of reasons.”

The Barwinska case has always been completely shrouded in mystery, but Glen clearly knows it inside out. The reasons he gives for not relying on it are listed below and make quite remarkable reading:

a. The claim was not defended so there was no challenge to the submissions by Davenport Lyons

b. The court accepted the Davenport Lyons quantum calculation without challenge

c. The model submitted by Davenport Lyons was based upon, in my opinion, an extremely poor understanding of the underlying technology of P2P interaction

d. The Davenport Lyons model, in my opinion, failed to apply accepted and fundamental mathematical principals in its calculation, including queuing theory, and would have difficulty in passing an applied mathematics assessment if submitted in an “A level” statistics paper.

e. There are a number of factors in any model for calculation of the quantum of damage resulting from a making available via P2P which it is impossible for the monitoring software to establish and the model relies upon unsubstantiated, and in some cases erroneous logic, assumptions.

f. There are a number of factors in any model for calculation of the quantum of damage resulting from a making available via P2P which, for technical and commercial reasons, that the monitoring software fails to record and the model relies upon unsubstantiated, and in some cases erroneous logic, assumptions.

g. There are a number of factors in any model for calculation of the quantum of damage resulting from a making available via P2P which, for commercial reasons, means that legal disclosure has not been requested that could substantiate the multipliers and the model relies upon unsubstantiated assumptions based upon seriously flawed logic, to complete other assumptions necessary for predictive analytics and the quantum is predicated on the results of all these assumptions.

h. The Davenport Lyons model was developed by a person with no academic qualifications or experience, of a technical or mathematical nature, that would be accepted by the courts as being of a standard sufficient to be classified as “Expert”.

And Glen’s damning assessment goes even further.

“I believe that Barwinska should not be used as a reference to justify a quantum of damages as, it is my opinion that, a first year undergraduate learning applied statistics could easily challenge the model to a level which would create sufficient doubt in the court’s mind that the court would ignore or substantially discount the Davenport Lyons model. This may also risk the courts view of other evidence,” he told Crossley, adding:

“Barwinska might make nice headline reading but it has, in my opinion, about as much legal force as a Sun newspaper headline regarding the licentious behaviour of a D list celebrity.”

Glen then goes on to explain in detail that it is hugely problematic to prove any damages to rightsholders other than the single copy an infringer has on their machine and being made available on BitTorrent.

“Even this is problematic as the monitoring software was the agent of the rightsholder and therefore no damage can be established,” he notes.

“Because of all of these factors I believe that it would be extremely difficult to establish with any accuracy that there has been sharing except with the monitoring system which is an action by the infringer for which no damages can be accrued.”

Just in case you missed that – “no damages can be accrued.”

“Therefore, it is my belief that the rights holder can only rely on the damage resulting from making a single copy of the work in infringement of the rights granted to the rightsholder under s16(a) of the CDPA 1988.”

So, while Andrew Crossley talks of people making available his clients’ copyright works to “potentially thousands” of other people, according to his advisor he can’t even prove a single filesharing-related infringement which results in a loss.

Furthermore, while he also endlessly speaks of taking cases to court (but never does), we now know why. It’s just too damn risky, costly and for what best result?

Recovering the price of a single DVD or music track.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Often when people are wrongfully accused there is speculation that the individual’s wireless router could have been compromised and used to carry out an infringement. However, many other instances of wrongful accusations go unexplained.

Understandably fingers then get pointed at the quality of evidence being gathered. How foolproof are these systems? How much time and effort has gone into their creation? Do they live up to their ‘forensic-quality’ claims?

In the vast majority of cases these questions go completely unanswered, since the innards of such software and systems are never opened up for public scrutiny. This is naturally a concern for those trying to protest their innocence.

Many times here on TorrentFreak we’ve covered the activities of ACS:Law, the lawyers making a huge noise in the UK right now as they chase BitTorrent users for hundreds of pounds each. One person involved heavily in this work at ACS:Law is Terence Tsang, who previously worked on similar file-sharing cases with lawyers Davenport Lyons.

Tsang is also involved in other online businesses, including Japanese car sales and other computing-based projects and regularly requests work from freelancers, as can be seen from these examples on his Freelancer.com page.

One of these – Nonpublic project #245939 (account required, screenshot) – is of particular interest.

“Create a bit-torrent client for me which will obtain details about file sharers of certain torrents. Server is Linux. The torrent client just needs to monitor IP addresses and take information which is then placed in a database,” writes Tsang in his request.

“The information needed is as follows: Host IP, Hit Date and time (GMT time), Provider network name (i believe whois search will help with this – can you think of a better way?), P2P Client, File name, File size, MD5 of file,” he adds.

“So we need to get the software to monitor a number of specific torrents it needs to create a database of the above information. The database needs to be able to import into a database file like csv. I am only interested in UK IP addresses. Easy job if you have the skills,” he concludes.

We cannot confirm if Tsang bought this code on behalf of DL, ACS:Law or indeed himself for some kind of lone operation. Since no information is ever offered about the tracking systems used to gather evidence, we cannot say which cases, if any, this code was used for either. What we do know is that there were 4 bids for the work and the job was eventually awarded.

The average settlement from a single letter recipient is $900, so how much was paid for this valuable piece of code which must clearly perform perfectly?

Between $250 and $750.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

We’re used to receiving these type of emails – we’ve been having them in one shape or another since Davenport Lyons (DL) started sending them out in 2007, and more recently from recipients of letters from ACS:Law.

Founded in 1841, Tilly Bailey & Irvine (TBI) are a law firm based in the North East of England and from what we’ve seen thus far in respect of this business, their modus operandi appears to have much in common with those of DL and ACS.

On January 27th/28th 2010 in the name of Media & More GmbH & Co, TBI successfully obtained a court order against ISP BT who, as usual (and unlike ISP TalkTalk which refuses to comply with these orders), simply rolled over and complied, handing over the personal details of their customers to TBI in super-quick time and charging £12,500 for the service.

In common with ACS, Tilly Bailey & Irvine are in bed with pornographers.

One outfit confirmed as a client of TBI is Golden Eye (International) Ltd, a company connected with the Ben Dover porn brand in the UK and one that has already been pursuing alleged file-sharers in Germany for the movie “Fancy An Indian – Five Spicy Dishes Covered In A Hot Creamy Sauce.” Media & More GmbH & Co have disputes in Germany with the movie “The Babysitter # 8 Cute Cock Craving Girls!”

Unusually for these type of cases, TBI send their letters by recorded delivery, an expense avoided by DL and ACS. TBI want more money than their counterparts too – £800 – but like Davenport Lyons threaten to enforce the debt against a non-payers property. They also suggest they have criminal remedies open to them which is typical of the usual heavy-handed and disproportionate psychological warfare tactics we’ve come to expect in these cases.

Those who choose to pay up are asked to sign ‘undertakings’ that they will refrain from certain things in future, one of which is to keep the terms of any settlement “secret”.

The claim letters also contain selected pages from a 160 ‘expert report’ created by
Projective Expert Group on behalf of Media Protector GmbH, the company whose ‘FileWatch‘ system was used to capture evidence used in the claim. In all cases we’ve seen thus far the allegations are connected to the eD2K network. The system appears to differ somewhat from those used previously to log alleged BitTorrent infringers and will be dissected in a future article.

TorrentFreak contacted Amanda Mitten, a lawyer in the ‘Intellectual Property Team’ at Tilly Bailey & Irvine dealing with these cases. In addition to asking how many letters the company intends to send out and a request for a list of movie titles to be claimed on, we asked some other key questions, including;

- Will TBI really “commence proceedings” within 14 days if people don’t pay up? [ACS has claimed the same but thus far has taken no-one to court]
- Can we have a full copy of the ‘expert’s report’ on the FileWatch system?
- How will the evidence identify an infringer behind an IP address and not just a bill payer? How does TBI justify claiming against a bill payer when they’re not certain he or she is an infringer?
- How do those accused go about proving a negative, i.e they didn’t carry out the infringement TBI claim they did? [this point was raised by the Lords recently]
- The letters being sent out by TBI are similar to those sent out by ACS and very, very similar to those sent out by Davenport Lyons. We earlier asked ACS if they were connected to DL – they said “NO”, but that wasn’t exactly true. We asked TBI if they are in anyway connected to either ACS or DL.
- Taking into consideration that when operating almost identical schemes both ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons became the subject of SRA investigations, coupled with the Lords labeling this type of scheme “legal blackmail“, are Tilly Bailey & Irvine concerned about tarnishing their hard-earned reputation?

After emails back and forth, mostly spent talking about TorrentFreak and the nature of this website, Tilly Bailey & Irvine refused to answer any of our questions.

Nevertheless, as expected their activities haven’t gone unnoticed and are already the subject of discussion by the Lords in the Digital Economy Bill debate, with Tilly Bailey & Irvine being mentioned by name yesterday. Lord Clement Jones labeled them, ACS:Law and the Logistep data-gathering outfit “an embarrassment to the rest of the creative rights industry.”

Baroness Howe of Idlicote said that the problem “has to be dealt with and is disgraceful,” adding, “If these firms really are law firms, they are bringing their whole profession into disrepute.”

Lord Lucas gave a very accurate overview of the schemes noting that they “must not be allowed to continue.” His contribution is detailed in its entirety over on our sister site, FreakBits.com.

We will follow this post up in due course with a closer look at the companies, people and tracking system involved in this business model, so if you have any information and would like to contribute (German contributors and eD2k specialists especially welcome), please contact us in the usual manner.

Worried letter recipients can visit BeingThreatened for more advice.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

DL then wrote to the individuals demanding several hundred pounds to make the threat of a lawsuit disappear. Some paid up, but many did not, and the only cases DL took to court were against those who didn’t defend themselves.

Generating revenue from porn proves controversial

Then the law firm overplayed its hand and got into bed with DigiProtect, the German piracy exploitation outfit with a catalog of hardcore porn titles to its name. The rights were signed over to the company by the copyright holders so that DigiProtect could use them to generate revenue – lots and lots of revenue.

After mountains of bad publicity, DL withdrew from this business model. In May this year, the exact same scheme reappeared with UK lawyers ACS:Law. TorrentFreak asked company owner Andrew Crossley about the connections between ACS and DL – his reply: “NONE”. However, it was crystal clear that there were many links, not least that staff from DL were now working at ACS:Law directly on these cases – known cyber-squatter Terence Tsang as one example.

We’ve known all along that if those threatened put up a spirited defense and refused to be cowed they were never taken to court, but we had no proof as to the mechanism employed. Then, out of nowhere, months ago someone from inside either Davenport Lyons or DigiProtect leaked lots of sensitive documents to German news outlet Gulli.

Having remained secret until now, the documents made very interesting reading and along with a helping hand from TorrentFreak and armed with the leaked personal details and email addresses of some of the letter recipients, Firebird77 at Gulli was able to confirm the authenticity of the documents.

Document 1 – Ranking alleged infringers in order to decide who to pursue

The first document reveals how the targets are ranked based on an estimation of how likely it is that they will pay up. Each alleged infringer has their details filled in on a form (download here from WikiLeaks). The document shows that despite the claims that an IP address alone is irrefutable evidence of an infringement and will lead to being taken to court, the reality is rather different.

Letter recipients are given a ranking based on many parameters. Does the law firm want to continue to pursue the person? What are the chances of success? A zero would mean “no action” up to ten which would mean the respondent is ripe for maximum pressure. One letter recipient hired Michael Coyle at Lawdit Solicitors to defend him and this earned him a “three”.

One part of the form is entitled “Circumstances” and this is a very surprising section indeed. Despite the “fact” that the law firms supposedly already have solid evidence of infringement that they say will lead to court action if recipients don’t comply, the section seems to show that they make their decisions on who to pursue based on the recipients’ personal circumstances.

One circumstance is labeled “impecuniosity”, i.e the letter recipient is flat broke. Another is whether the recipient is on state benefits – this is expected to be proven by way of copies of benefit books and/or letters. TorrentFreak has evidence that one gentleman was asked to prove that he was indeed disabled in order to make the claims go away. Other circumstances include whether the recipient is a pensioner, a student or a child.

One other circumstance is an eyebrow-raising “out of jurisdiction” (no rightful claim could be made the against the recipient) along with whether or not the individual was aware of that fact.

The form also lists possible defenses that recipients rely on, including the breach of their wireless router, a virus infected PC, not being at home when the infringement occurred, no knowledge of infringement or the possibility that someone else in the location carried out the infringement.

Document 2 – Letter from lawyer Dr Kornmeier from Kornmeier & Partner to Brian Miller at Davenport Lyons

The 14 page document (download from WikiLeaks) details the agreement DigiProtect enters into with rights holders in order to exploit their copyrights for profit.

Included is a section which confirms that the original rights holders sign over the rights to DigiProtect so that they are legally allowed to make the works (hardcore porn movies) publicly available on P2P networks such as BitTorrent. Dr Kornmeier asks: “Does this constitute any problem under UK law?”

According to page 2 of the letter, when the recipient of these letters pay up, the spoils are divided up as follows – 51% to DigiProtect, 37.5% to Davenport Lyons and 11% to DigiRights Solutions. The remaining pages detail the exact business arrangement along with a list of the hundreds of porn movies covered by the agreement.

TorrentFreak discussed the documents with staff at the excellent BeingThreatened.com, a site set up to support and inform those targeted by Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law in the UK.

“These documents confirm what we have long suspected,” they told us. “This scheme is not about getting justice for the rightsholders at all; it is there to fill the pockets of companies like DigiProtect by exploiting many innocent people. Everyone with an IP address has reason to be worried about becoming a victim of these exploitative practices, whether they use P2P networks or not.”

Indeed, John Stagliano, boss of porn company Evil Angel which also worked with DigiProtect, admitted to earning less than £50 from each infringement and told the BBC the scheme “…was completely misrepresented” to him.

Uk consumer magazine Which? earlier reported Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for alleged “bullying”. It will be interesting to see how these documents develop that case.

Thus far just two documents have been made public. Stay tuned for further updates.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The next phase was to write to the individuals and threaten them with legal action, unless they paid several hundred pounds. Some panicked and paid up, most did not. Only a handful of these cases actually went to court and DL won them all, because the individuals didn’t defend themselves.

After masses of bad publicity peaking in a controversy over gay porn, Davenport Lyons appeared to have had enough, and withdrew from this business model to limit the damage to their brand and reputation.

In May, new kid on the block ACS:Law appeared and promptly took over where DL left off, and again, hundreds – maybe thousands – of threatening letters went out, demanding cash payment from alleged file-sharers. But this time things wouldn’t be quite so easy for the lawyers and their clients.

The scheme wasn’t new anymore and various support structures for letter recipients flourished, including forums and dedicated sites such as the excellent BeingThreatened.com. Due to the increased knowledge and awareness brought about through news articles such as those read here on TorrentFreak and on the aforementioned platforms, pay-up rates from those accused fell to as little as 15%, as it became clear that the chances of actually being taken to court were minimal.

But now, after months of being told to “put up or shut up”, it seems that ACS:Law are, if they are to be believed, about to flex their legal muscles and actually litigate against certain individuals. They need their symbolic “head on a pike” to ensure the overall pay up rates make the scheme worthwhile.

“The first batch [of] claims have been prepared and were filed at court on Friday, 4 September 2009. Service of the proceedings will be made by first class post and will be with defendants by Tuesday, 8 September 2009 at the very latest,” the company said in a statement, adding, “The second batch of defendants will be selected on Monday, 14 September 2009.”

While many recipients may have ignored previous correspondence from ACS:Law or DL, individuals receiving documents in the post today or tomorrow (presuming the threats actually come to something) are strongly advised not to ignore them, especially if they are court documents.

Failure to respond to court documents could result in a default judgment being issued in the future and this could prove very costly indeed – possibly mounting to several thousand pounds.

So what should recipients of court documents do? Firstly it would be prudent to seek legal advice – Lawdit Solicitors can offer advice and guidance since they have been assisting people against these claims for some time now, but any lawyer with a sound knowledge of copyright issues will prove invaluable.

For those individuals who maintain they are innocent, a vigorous defense can be mounted against any allegations. In the majority of cases, all ACS:Law will have as evidence is an IP address harvested by an untested system in a foreign country, and that may not be enough to prove their case.

Indeed, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) recently told Which?, “We’re not convinced of the efficacy of the software and not confident in its ability to identify users.”

However, ACS:Law will select potential defendants very carefully and will likely focus on individuals with the weakest cases, have compromised or damaged their defense in some way, or have chosen not to respond to previous letters.

If you receive court documents in connection with an ACS:Law case during the next few days, do not panic. Please feel free to get in touch with us here at TorrentFreak in complete confidence. Your privacy will not be breached and we will point you in the right direction.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The hypocritical law firm – who were recently shown to be copyright infringers themselves – partner with Swiss anti-piracy tracking company Logistep (and another company DigiProtect) in order to demand settlements of around £665. However, time and time again there have been allegations against individuals who have absolutely no idea why they are being accused of copyright infringement.

Last year, in the most prominent case of mistaken identity and when Davenport Lyons were working with porn companies, they incorrectly accused a retired 64 year-old man of sharing the hardcore movie ‘Euro Domination 5′ via BitTorrent. The man received an apology and the demands for money ended.

Eventually the actions of Davenport Lyons, Logistep and DigiProtect attracted the attention of consumer group Which? who made a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Although that action is still ongoing, Davenport decided – at least on the surface – to withdraw from the business.

But of course, ACS:Law were waiting in the wings and they are now conducting business with Logistep in much the same fashion. Unfortunately for them, Which? is now on their case too.

In their most recent print edition, Which? published an article which casts an even darker shadow over the issue. They say they have been contacted by 20 individuals who say they have no knowledge of the games in question – Dream Pinball 3D and Two Worlds.

Which? quoted hospital ward clerk Deborah Hughes who said: “It’s distressing to receive such a letter. I’ve never heard of this game and I’ve no idea how to share it. I’ve searched my computer but it’s not there.”

Of even greater concern and embarrassment to ACS:Law are the accusations they leveled at Colin Dixon, Technology Director at a UK software developer. “My wife and I are middle aged (51 and 49) and work from home, and the computers here are owned by our employer, and are strictly controlled for pirated software – that’s my job!”

Which? also spoke with the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) about the issue. They replied: “We’re not convinced of the efficacy of the software and not confident in its ability to identify users.”

Up to now, this hasn’t worried Logistep, DigiProtect, Davenport Lyons or ACS:Law since they say in their claims letters: “We do not claim that your computer was used to commit the infringing act (although we do not exclude this possibility), nor do we claim that you downloaded our client’s work. Our claim is that your Internet connection was used to make our client’s work available via one or more P2P networks. The file may not, therefore, be on your computer.”

So, in a nutshell, they admit that the people named in their letters may not have carried out any infringement. Absolutely priceless.

Neither ACS:Law nor Davenport Lyons have ever won a contested case against a UK file-sharer, despite all their bluster. Hundreds of people are “let off” after simply digging in their heels, denying the accusations and refusing to pay.

Thanks Hickster

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.