Ah the Pirate Bay case, may be that's why those guys think it is the time to get the money printing machine out again. Sorry to sweat "whether ACS is legit or exist" point again, if someone is employing lawdit to look at their case, it might be worth asking them whether they aware of the fact ACS Law in Hanover Sq. does not exist in Company House and the implications: http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/434a036d851307b91296134e126ea08b/compdetails Whereas there is another law firm with a similar name to ACS is Manchester which was dissolved in March 2009. ACS London must have been trading for a while: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Dubai_ruling_proves_our_innocence&in_article_id=417604&in_page_id=34&in_a_source= Very puzzling indeed..

The Slyck.com links make lots of sense, thank you Andy. Guys it is really worth reading.

Delta82, I must have missed some of the earlier conversation. Who do get this response from? ACS or Topware? I emailed Topware to see if they will response whether ACS:Law is real.

Some of you might have seen this: Acs-law.org.uk - Acs Law

Hmm I don't get it, why would Crossley and Beale (both are registered with the law society) be involved in a [problem] with this shady "Mr Tsang". This looks like a career-limiting moves to me. Having read the letter again, although they claim they work with their client. I think I would need to see stronger evidence showing that Crossley and Beale do have a mandate with their so-called clients. The plot thicken....

Thanks mate, for the benefit of the others, I have copied and pasted the articles (will I infringe any copyright by doing so)? May 2009 P2P Copyright Infringement - ACS Law Torrent Freak has today reported that the new round of letters being sent out by ACS Law alleging p2p copyright infringement are possibly scams. We deal with hundreds of people who have been accused of infringing copyright in works in the films, games, and music industry. This massive operation has been spearheaded by the law firm Davenport Lyons. Consequently, we were shocked to learn that a new firm of 'solicitors' has supposedly been instructed by some of Davenport Lyons's clients. For some background on this matter, Torrent Freak have provided a succinct summary on their website. They then report that the letters are now being circulated by ACS Law are almost identical to the ones which Davenport Lyons has sent out. It does seem odd, the documents and approach are identical although the costs have now increased. "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." The domain name is registered though not to Crossley and Beale but to a Mr Tsang who has had one or two internet spats over domain names and cybersquatting. It begs the question as to why Mr Tang is involved and clarity is required immediately. In the meantime, there is sufficient concern for us to advise all recipients not to pay any money and not to sign anything until this is clarified. Michael Coyle Please contact the P2P team at [email protected]

Thanks guys, anyway I won't part my money immediately.. Not that I endorse upload and downloading on P2P which bit is illegal?

I have also received the letter from ACS:Law y'day demanding £606. The firm certainly exists, I phoned up the firm after and got a voicemail and I believe what it says on the Law Society website. Have anyone actually emailed this [email protected] character to verify that his firm has not been hijacked?? As of some you have noticed, the domain name of the website and the email is different, this smells fishy. I did some web search, there is this fella called Mchael Coyle who allegedly is defending people ([email protected]). I am going to email him to see what he has to say. Setting aside whether this is a [problem] or not a [problem], let assmue it is genuine for a second. I don't want any trouble (I am going to be away aboard for a while), so I sent an email to ACS:Law yesterday to see if they are prepared to settle for substantially less than £600, something like 10x the costs of the game in question (£120). They said in their letter that they want to deter people, ask for a token compensation and cover costs. Deterrence is achieved by asking people to sign the undertakings, 10x the game costs should be the token compensation. As regard to costs, I don't believe it will costs them hundreds of pounds per claim for all the stuff they said they did in the letter. I am waiting for a response on this. I will only settle on the basis that I am not admitting any guilt, I am merely try to avoid a long drawn out process (I know some of you might object as a matter of principal). However, if they think by settling then they can keep on issuing letter for money then I will fight and employ a lawyer. As some of you have said, all they have is just an IP. I am not a lawyer but I think they will probably need more to prove that I have been distributing (i.e., upload and allowing others to download, rather than purely downloading) the game in question, for example, for how long it was available and how many bytes has been sent. I think the needs to prove that the game in question has been reside on the hard disk is also important in my view. I will probably lodge this incident with the Solicitors Regulation Authority on the basis of the threatening nature of the letter.