this is the section of the civil procedure rules governing allocation to one of the three tracks: small claims, fast track and multi-track. PART 26 - CASE MANAGEMENT – PRELIMINARY STAGE

I've just had a quick trawl through this thread. I'm not sure that I agree with all the advice set out. one or two of my thoughts: 1/ on an economic basis they are less likely to pursue a non-communicating party than one who engages in correspondence. take care in not responding to registered or recorded mail however. 2/ lack of funds does not seem to be a deterrent. save your hard luck stories as they are irrelevant to the legal assessment of the merits of the case. these cases are, after all, primarily deterrents rather than money-making exercises. 3/ set out your defence clearly at an early stage once you have been engaged in correspondence. ideally you are trying to make your case a difficult one for them to prove: perhaps they will not issue on your file and choose an easier target. defences with some prospect of success include: multiple persons with access to a home computer; insecure wireless network; dispute that copyrighted material present on home PC - which could be backe up with an offer of access for examination of the computer. there may be a basis for technical disputes in respect of IP masquerading/ allocation but I am not sufficiently tech savvy to comment on these points. 4/ dispute the basis of the assessment of loss. suggestions that loss is limited to purchase cost are simply wrong: the correct basis for an IP claim is loss of profit. all these cases arise from dispute the implied assertion that one download = one lost sale. request proof that you personally uploaded material to others apart from the p2p tracker employed by the applicant. 5/ try to ensure that the matter is allocated to the small claims track. this is the normal track for cases in which the subject matter is less than £5,000. Interestingly in the Barwinski case the damages claimed were some £6,000 - which cynically I would suggest was not coincidental. This is important: the costs in that case were approximately £10,000 - significantly more than the damages.