ACS:Law turns back on file-sharer court case

So... lets think about this

>>"I have ceased my work... I have been subject to criminal attack. My e-mails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats," he said.<<

You went out, and chose to target people known for things that.. lets say are not on the fluffy side of digital law. Kinda like a kid kicking a hornets nest - kid gets stung till he's swollen up like a big blueberry.

Thats the funny thing about lawyers. They screw everyone over, but can't understand why they get screwed back by those that can. I don't approve of anyone being hacked, but I don't think for one minute he did not deserve a little retribution..

Couldn't have happened...

...to nicer bloke!

Ok. Who's next?...

The scores just in....

Anonymous :1

ACS-LAW : Nil

eeeeeeextraordinary

Read a little closer El Reg

You missed the most significant part of that story with regard to here on out...

From the sidebar comment :

"But among the debates about the competance of ACS: Law and its real motives, is some evidence which could provide an interesting test of such cases in the future.

Both barristers for the defendants have questioned whether IP addresses - the numerical code which identifies individual computers - can be used as evidence and Judge Birss has raised doubts about whether accusing someone of "allowing" their network to be used for illegal file-sharing is a watertight argument."

Thats a fundamental legal issue there - the owner of a network being responsible for the action committed to the outside world from it. If this was to pass as it looks like it might, then companies/large networks would be able to just shrug off claims that whatever damage might have been caused by their users (even illegal users - eg unauthorised wireless users) is not their fault and that they have no obligation to identify perp users.

At the moment, if you can't serve up who did it, then the board members are personally liable.

I suspect these legal clowns have no idea what they are about to do here... good news for some though :thumbs:

question

"I have ceased my work... I have been subject to criminal attack. My e-mails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats,"

does he have to prove that those things did happen? Shouldn't there be a police report on those incidents? Will it matter if they are true or not?

No day in court!

Pity it would have been nice to see them get thrown out on their arse.

If they had of got thrown out on their arses could others that just paid up to avoid the hassle have asked for their money back?

Andrew Crossley... remember that name. For sure he will pop up again. Maybe in a Private Car Park Scam or some other extortion racket.

Had you life invaded. Good!

pwned!

See title.

Freetard comments aside...

These "people" are quite obviously criminals i.e. ACS and their new setup. It seems pretty obvious Crossley and his cohorts should be locked up for extortion, or does the law allow for legitimised rackets like this?

Scum like him deserve all they get. Nice to see him get the same treatment back. I see no difference between "pay up or be dragged through the courts" and "pay up or have your legs broken". Porn films are obviously chosen for the lesser likelihood that someone would publicly challenge it, assuming it wasn't just made up troll the guilt-ridden.

Bottom-Feeder Buggers Off

Ah, is this when I start believing in some sort of deity?

Nah, but it's still good news - the shitehound hounded out by the pack.

He gives lawyers a really bad rep. 'Screw you, where's my fee?'

Since they also targetted people they knew were innocent....

...... I find it hard to have any sympathy for ACS Law.

It seems he's a victim of his own incompetance. Unlucky, Mr.Chancer.

Idiots like this

give the legal profession a bad name.

Shame the Law Society didn't issue an "Oi, you, Stoppit!" directive instead of generally acting like a superior load of tw*ts - as is their custom.

Do you remember what he said about the "website" issue?

"It was only down for a few hours. I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish," he said.

He was so out of his depth and didn't have scooby :) Probably read a copy of some pc mag and thought he was some sort of IT expert, how many times do we come across people like that walking into the IT department :)

Grounds to be counter-sued?

Given that the judge has expressed reservations, what's the chances of him being counter-sued for libel? E.g. making false accusations?

title goes here!

No longer going for the high score Mr Crossley ?

U mad?

Evidence

The "evidence" in these cases is usually just a tracker listing of IP addresses - which is nothing more than a list of numbers. The people who run the trackers have repeatedly said that they inject random IP addresses - past research has shown roughly one third of all IP addresses are random values.

What this means is that in order to obtain evidence the techies for the ambulance chasers have to run a torrent client (with auditing and obtain at least one checksummed) chunk of a pirated file AND show/log that the tracker showed that this IP downloaded to 100% AND continued to "seed".

What really happens is that these techies try every dirty trick in the book, including force loading pirated content into any torrent server they can find so they can pass on prosection details.

The effort in creating irrefutable evidence is far too much effort for the revenue these IP hunters get ~10 to 50UKP per successfull "threat"... The IP hunters take the easy route and simply scan every torrent tracker out there for any files remotely similar to the owners content and

pass every IP address to the vultures. Because of the nature of the content most decent families and lill ol' ladies just pay up. Easy money.

Real experts cost a lot and I assume this is what ACS::Law is trying to avoid having to pay - the defendants legal and expert witness costs of these outstanding cases.

The judge didn't have to allow ACS:Law to withdraw

Withdrawing from the case is at the discretion of the judge.

The defence lawyers could have asked that he not be allowed to. If they were working pro bono they may well have done so, but it does drive costs up and there's no guarantee Crossley would be forced to pay costs/damages at the end of it.

Does anyone know if the judge made any mention of "without prejudice" ?

Aww.... Poor guy!

So this is the tough guy who was threatening so many people with all-out thermonuclear heck? Who would have thought he'd turn out to be such a whiney little bitch?

Party Time

Party is at my place

Wake up at the back, please

C'mon El Reg. Wake up at the back. Your latest update is just a leetle lacking in, er, detail, viz:

1) The Judge has tumbled to what's going on and is Not Impressed.

2) Those who once sought fortunes out of all this are now in deep, deep doo-dah. This is because Lee Bowen, formerly associated with everything from psychic telephone line services to being the Public Relations representative of a drunken bonker on a Dubai beach, has claimed his oddly-named Mediatwat represents the rights holders of materials claimed by Crossley's ACS: Law to have been downloaded illegally. . . But Bowen has never proved it. (Nor was ever asked to, the Norwich Pharmaceutical orders to pressure ISPs into releasing customer data being pushed through without any question of proof being sought from Crossley and his associates.)

3) If Bowen's Mediatwat has not been specifically instructed by each specific rights holder, or if it does not own the rights itself, that would mean, er, that ACS: Law has not necessarily been acting for any rights holder when sending out its threatening letters. And that's really, really naughty, tst tst.

4) If Bowen / Mediatwat had been able to get away with this sudden attempt to withdraw from the proceedings, then no doubt the whole issue of who-owns-what would've been swept under the carpet. Thankfully though, here's a Judge with a functioning brain. Not only has he refused to allow Mediatwat to vanish into the undergrowth, he wants to know who the real rights holders are and proof that each and every one has instructed Bowen's 'enterprise' to represent it.

5) Mediatwat and ACS:Law have gone from being flavour of the month (when racking up all those lovvly lucrative NP Orders) to being distinctly unpalatble where M'Lud is concerned, particularly in regard to Crossley's description -- in his pay-up-or-else mailings -- of mediatwat as "a copyright protection society", as if it's some kind of trade association rather than the work of the Beach Bonking Public relations agency. His Honour thinks a lawer (Crossley) falsely describing something as a 'Society' is really not very good at all, hmmm?

6) Meanwhile, Crossley has suddenly gone from being Britain's most brilliant lawyer to one of the most accident prone (and victimised.) Where the latter is concerned, even bomb threats have been involved. Oddly, the police seem to have no record of any such threat. As to the recent car crash which Crossley suffered, perhaps in his Ferrari en route to his home in Monte Carlo (it's all in his background stuff scattered over the Web) then it's truly sad that this should've happened just at the time when he would have so liked to appear in Court himself, instead of having to leave poor Bowen to go it alone. Just where, when and how the car crash happened isn't yet known, but perhaps M'Lud will delve into that, too.

7) Crossley let it be known to the Judge that ACS:Law has nothing to do with the mysterious GCB. Yet letters issued by Crossley in December to many on ACS:Law's hit list are stuffed full with details about GCB and how to pay 'em.

8) Such is the panic surrounding this that the firm of accountants who set up GCB for an unnamed client now say they know nothing about its antics (and have published a disclaimer on their home page.) And now Crossley says GCB isn't chasing anyone, either.

9) So. . . Ye situation is this: Crossley faces a long, long, long overdue Court scrutiny, as well as the SRA, as well as the ICO, and now -- last but not least -- another firm of lawyers, Ralli & Co, acting for what they describe as "hundreds of consumers in relation to a group action for harassment following letters from ACS:Law accusing those individuals of illegal filesharing and copyright infringement".

The several fates that seem now about ready to befall him are so various and so severe that it'll take more than sudden illness (which occurred the last time he was fined by the SRA) or motoring accidents to side-step. Naturally, he has the sympathy of every reader of El Reg.