http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12253746

well done caggers!

dx

ConsumerGroupsFriends.... this is some extremely good news.

I cant thank the people on this forum enough for the held, guidance, advice, support, time, effort, research that has been put into it all.

Any one who has even participated with a post to any one victim to this should be happy inside. A lot of sleep was lost over this.

Much love

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Result is we have a very cross and upset Mr Crossley, how neatly the tables have been turned!

The Met have told the telegraph they have no record of threats (Bombs or otherwise) against crossley. Is he a consummate liar?

It also may not be the end of it... sorry. But until the ruling excludes MediaCAT for continuing to act on the NPO's already obtained then it's only ACS out of the picture. This needs to be finalised and MediaCAT prevented from continuing this harassment through other parties.

Those who received such letters may pursue ACS: Law for harrassment, said law firm Ralli, which represents some of the defendants

Don't look past this very important point and lets keep an eye out for any such follow ups.

To be honest, I am not that concerned about the probably fairly pointless idea of pursuing the odious Andrew Crossley or ACS:Law for harassment. I hope that Andrew Crossley crawls away into some deep, dark hole and if he has a wife, children, surviving parents, colleagues or friends they all get to find out about the disgraceful practice he has been engaged in and react accordingly.

I am very concerned about the precedent and the release into the public domain of the names and addresses and perhaps even the phone numbers and credit card details of tens of thousands of people.

Let us not forget that this was an exploitative attempt to obtain money through intimidation, the threat of significant financial loss or by means of exposure, the loss of employment and breakdown of relationships.

I would be far more interested if Ralli or others were to pursue the legitimacy of this sort of extortion and blackmail and if the ICO and SRA were to come down very heavily on Andrew Crossley.

Incidentally, I can't believe the sympathetic stance being adopted by the media who still seem to portray Crossley as some sort of victim of a gross injustice - a least the Telegraph appears to have chased up on his claims of bomb threats. What about the claimed accident that prevented his appearance at the first hearing, what is te truth behind that?

The little known Computeract!ve also deserves a round of applause

I agree that the outcome should seek to close the door on this kind of threatening behaviour in future, but I for one don't think Crossley & Bowden should be let off the hook so lightly. If nothing else it would set an example to others to considering to act in such a manner.

Personally, I'm not interested in an ambulance chase of being rewarded for being harassed. But to punish those who acted in such a way to the extent that they lose all their ill gotten gains is surely a justified act. I don't want to see these merciless cowards benefit by so much as one single penny for this act. I'd be quite happy to recover all collected damages into a charitable donation, just as long as AC & LB can't say this has funded so much as a car payment or one drop of fuel for his Jeep Compass (not quite the Lambo or Ferrari he was expecting)!

I am so pleased. I will never forget how I felt when I opened that letter. All the posts on here helped me make the right moves and I never sent the guy a penny. There are thousands like me. I hope he feels as bad as all of us put together. A first class S**T whose greed overcame any thoughts of the effect he had on people lives, hiding under a smokescreen of self righteous, hypocritical, double standards. Fortunately he became too arrogant, made too many mistakes and will now pay for it. Don't feel sorry for him, I hope he gets locked up

He wont feel bad. If only ten people sent him a cheque that's five thousand pounds, you can buy lots of smarties with five thousand pounds.

He wont feel bad. If only ten people sent him a cheque that's five thousand pounds, you can buy lots of smarties with five thousand pounds.

Yep, his conscience is as shallow as his wallet is deep.

"subbing" - Please ignore this post, Thank you.

It also may not be the end of it... sorry. But until the ruling excludes MediaCAT for continuing to act on the NPO's already obtained then it's only ACS out of the picture. This needs to be finalised and MediaCAT prevented from continuing this harassment through other parties.

Now Judge Birss has given MediaCAT and the copyright owners involved 14 days to join the action before it faces being struck out.

 

Judge Birss had been concerned that if the case was simply allowed to drop when ACS Law pulled out, the defendants could have had the action resurrected by another firm representing the copyright holders.

The judge wants to drive the final nail in their coffin.

Judge Birss said he had considered making an order preventing Media CAT from issuing more proceedings, but as the company had been declared insolvent this was not necessary.

 

Instead he set aside notices filed by Media CAT to discontinue the case and said: “I will hear counsel as to whether in the circumstances as they now are there if anything would be served in requiring Media CAT to apply to join the copyright owners.”

 

A spokesperson for defendant solicitors Ralli said the cases were stayed until 16 March. The claimants must discontinue within two weeks if they wish to do so.

 

Ralli and Lawdit are both applying for costs orders against ACS:Law. Coyle said he expected the judge to decide on costs in the near future.

 

In an emailed statement Crossley confirmed he had closed down ACS:Law and informed the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Crossley said he would not comment further.

 

A spokesperson for the SRA said it had not yet received notification that the firm had closed. The spokesperson added that it was pursuing its misconduct case against Crossley.

There has been some speculation that some of the material that people have been invoiced for was not even owned by the copyright holders that MediaCat had an agreement with. One poster commented that they had looked into it and found that the film title that was on the invoice letter, was actually owned by a Dutch company that was no longer trading.

Makes you think that the copyright owners MediaCat have an agreement with are unlikely to join the action. Even if they could prove that they had copyright for the material in question, I doubt that they would wish to incur any costs, when the current actions are looking doomed. Surely if they had received positive legal advice that they could take legal actions themselves with a good chance of success they would have done this themselves, rather than allow somone else to do so, with the consequences we are currenly seeing.

I think that the ISP's that so willingly gave the information to ACS Law should be criticised also. What loyalty did they show to their customers?