But as blashey has already admitted guilt the argument over the cost of damages would likely have needed to involve a legal professional, which would far outweigh the cost of making their agreement at £200. I agree the actual damages would likely have been in single figures, but to argue it in court whilst paying by the hour would have been more costly.

 

This is quite inaccurate, for the legal company to get this money through the Courts they would have to issue proceedings and claim an amount "£".

Even if one pleaded guilty to the downloading in Court they could still contest the amount claimed and put the claimant to proof that this amount claimed is fully justified and not some figure plucked out of thin air to unjustly enrich the claimant.

As Bashey has formally offered £100 which represents 140 times the cost of a song downloaded legally on itunes, I believe Bashey has a good case for putting to any judge that 140 times the amount the track should have cost (don't forget the artist would only get a %age of the itunes fee anyway not the full amount) probably represents 200 times the perceived loss to the claimant and was a fair and very generous offer.

If I were Bashy I would now write back stating that his initial offer 200X the rights holders perceived loss was a most generous offer, but the claimants representatives greed in asking for several times this amount now leads him to formally recind this offer with immediate effect and invite them to put the matter before a judge where you will take some pleasure in presenting a copy of this most generous of offers which the claimant has greedily refused.

Don't think you would see a summons in a hurry.....

good post

dx

siteteam

dx waves to the 5 spies..sorry guests

Cheers dx.

Might be worth pointing out that under "The Bill of Rights 1689"**:

"That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void";

** BOR 1689 is Constitutional law ie takes precedence above statutory law unless the statute expressly revokes such rights (copyright laws don't btw).

BOR1689 is still in force and was famously used in the Metric Martyrs case.

IMO and this is only IMO:

BOR is quite clear, speculative invoicing may not be unlawful but fining somebody without first obtaining a conviction is "illegal and void".

Would it be difficult to persuade a judge that the other £499.11 or similarly large sums (left on the claim after deducting the actual cost of a song) that these companies wanted represents a penalty or fine rather than a fair and proportionately representative compensatory demand????

A problem ACs etc have is that they have asked everyone for a similar sum not for downloading but for UPLOADING the media.

let's pretend for a minute that *li's software is accurate and two fictitious letter recipients really did download the media. One must assume that these recipients would only download the media once but that's not an offence so look at the uploading for which they claim these vast sums.

recipient one downloaded once and it uploaded once

recipient two downloaded once but left the file on his pc for six months and uploaded over 100 times.

recipient one is asked for £500

recipient two is asked for £500

To be proven proportional recipient two must be asked for £50,000.

By asking for a flat rate sum regardless of how many times an offence was committed ie the multiple of perceived damages suffered by the rights holder, it must hold that the sum requested does not represent compensation but is instead a penalty charge or fine.

Of course their logging software isn't capable of proving how many uploads either recipient made so no wonder none of these Co's can afford to step near a Court and have it put to forensic analysis.

Hello. This is my very first post. On Wednesday 20th October I received a letter from ACS:Law stating my IP address had been identified as having downloaded a musical work entitled 'Fever' ("The Work"). They are after £295 and me signing to say I would destroy the dowloaded copy(s) and promise not to distribute it. I went into initial blind panic as it meant nothing to me (even now I have no idea what 'Fever' is though I suspect from the name it is some sort of modern dance music. For the record, I am a 50 year old male whose musical tastes are classical and jazz!

After I calmed down somewhat, I googled ACS and this site came up. I couldn't believe there was over 4600 posts and have spent the past 5 hours reading from page 200 onwards (figuring that I'd get enough good advice from the later posts). These posts have covered the fiasco of ACS's data security - and that has made me feel a lot better. I would like to say thank you to all the posters with your numerous viewpoints and tomorrow night I will be composing a LOD which will be brief and professional -as advised by many of the posters on here.

I just wanted to let you all know that ACS are still trolling for customers and perhaps are now using a different artist (or musical work?) as the basis of their claim. I've not seen in the last 30 pages of posts any reference to 'Fever' and wonder if any other posters on here have come across this one.

pers

i make ref to the prevoius post to yours and advise to do nowt.

not ONE person has ever been taken to court.

dx

siteteam

The SRA sent me an email back in Sept saying ACS Law are under investigation and will let me know their decision in due course. Regarding the 2nd letter you are right there are various views and like you I will ignore this letter.

Harbs

---- 8

Don't think you would see a summons in a hurry.....

Might be worth pointing out that under "The Bill of Rights 1689"**:

 

"That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void";

---- 8

 

Some VERY good information there. I love forums for just this wealth of community knowledge.

Hello. This is my very first post. On Wednesday 20th October I received a letter from ACS:Law stating my IP address had been identified as having downloaded a musical work entitled 'Fever' ("The Work"). They are after £295 and me signing to say I would destroy the dowloaded copy(s) and promise not to distribute it. I went into initial blind panic as it meant nothing to me (even now I have no idea what 'Fever' is though I suspect from the name it is some sort of modern dance music. For the record, I am a 50 year old male whose musical tastes are classical and jazz!

The friend I'm helping has received the same. Never even heard of this "Fever" bollox! Looks like they're now reducing the blackmail figure in the hope more peeps will likely fork out the 295 quid than the 500+ previosly offered. Don't worry and most of all don't pay. Probably a last ditch attempt to line their greedy pockets before the impending big fine they are likely to get from the data breach.

£295 is the standard "charge" for music. £500 for pornography, or so it would seem.

Hi guys im new here too! Had no idea this forum existed until last week when I too received the letter regarding the song 'Fever'. It seems these parasites have made their way to N. Ireland now! I have been worried out of my mind since it happened I cant sleep i am so stressed! You guys seem to have a wealth of knowledge on the subject and it has made very interesting reading.

I have sought legal advice through online sites and they all say not to even bother replying and throw the letter in the bin! then from reading the many forums that are out there dedicated to this subject others suggest that If you dont reply you run the risk of them applying for a default judgement against you, it is suggested from advice on these forums that I should reply with a basic Letter Of Denial (LOD) as required by the pre-action protocol. So tbh my heads wrecked as to what approach to take, the prospect of facing months of threatening letters is filling me with dread!

Thanks for listening and for all the advice that you provide here.

Hi all,

new to this site myself. "fever" would appear to be flavour of the month and i recieved my letter from ACS on 15/10/10. After initial panic i scoured the web and found sites like this which have been greatly suppotive. They are asking for £295

and i am about to send my LOD. After the initial fear i am so angry that they suggest something of which i am innocent of.(who the hell are "fever"anyway?) I feel for those who are perhaps more vulnrable who have paid in the hope that it will all go away though i read that they tend to come back for a second bite at what they view as a"cash cow" if you do what they ask.I will keep in touch to let you know how things proceed. Once again thanks for the support

Is fever the name of the track or the group,

pretty sure its the group. I think they may be scandinavian by the names of the members but i aint sure on that one. excuse spelling if incorrect.

Hi guys im new here too! Had no idea this forum existed until last week when I too received the letter regarding the song 'Fever'. It seems these parasites have made their way to N. Ireland now! I have been worried out of my mind since it happened I cant sleep i am so stressed! You guys seem to have a wealth of knowledge on the subject and it has made very interesting reading.

 

I have sought legal advice through online sites and they all say not to even bother replying and throw the letter in the bin! then from reading the many forums that are out there dedicated to this subject others suggest that If you dont reply you run the risk of them applying for a default judgement against you, it is suggested from advice on these forums that I should reply with a basic Letter Of Denial (LOD) as required by the pre-action protocol. So tbh my heads wrecked as to what approach to take, the prospect of facing months of threatening letters is filling me with dread!

 

Thanks for listening and for all the advice that you provide here.

Only chance they would ever get judgement by default is if they filed court action and you ignored official documents sent from the court. TBH I wouldn't even bother waste a stamp on these lowlife turds, and who's to say you actually received their letter of claim anyway. They mass mail thousands by 2nd class post. I'm of the view that if you ignore them they will move on to easier pickings. Their letters don't even comply with pre-action protocols so IMO you don't even need to send a LOD.

exactly

well said

dx

siteteam

Only chance they would ever get judgement by default is if they filed court action and you ignored official documents sent from the court. TBH I wouldn't even bother waste a stamp on these lowlife turds, and who's to say you actually received their letter of claim anyway. They mass mail thousands by 2nd class post. I'm of the view that if you ignore them they will move on to easier pickings. Their letters don't even comply with pre-action protocols so IMO you don't even need to send a LOD.

Has anyone on this forum, that can speak from experience, have actually ignored ACS letters and they have stopped pestering them?

Is fever the name of the track or the group,

Got a gut felling it the artist and the song is Cascada: Fever.

They seem to be milking this artist for all its worth due to the poor album sales by this Euro pop CR*P.

God help if this artist comes to the UK........the fan base due ACS Law would out number there true fans..........

From the Siteteam........

We refer all members to this excellent post by Car.......

"Now, I'd say there's enough evidence in this thread alone to suggest that ACS (and their counterparts) are abusing the Legal System, so I'd be saying to a Court that I ignored the letters for that very reasoning - any Judge that hears a claim for this is likely to consider their behaviour inappropriate.

Remember that the Civil Procedure Rules are flexible enough for a Court to apply them in the real World - discussing whether you should or shouldn't reply, according to the Rules, is irrelevant, as it's for a Court to decide if what was done in the circumstances was reasonable. I can't see a reason for considering a lack of response unreasonable given the feeling of emotion in this thread and the numbers involved.

Now, if they were taking everyone that had threats to Court, that would be a different matter.

Ultimately, CAG is a forum for airing views and advice is given based on experience - hence the different approaches suggested. It's for the readers of this thread to have sufficient awareness of their own situation to make a decision on how to proceed with it, although hearing differing viewpoints definitely assists with this process."

We suggest sending one LOD and then not replying further.

we are closing this thread now.

if your issues are not answered by the wealth of info in this massive thread then start a new one in this forum

DX

siteteam