ACS:Law copyright file sharing claims, Gallant Macmillan - and probably some others along the way...

[smiler876]

Right, it seems the second letters from the Media cat set are on their way, i got mine this morning

I ignored the first letter on the advice of local trading standards and Citizens advice, but im off to citizens advice again tomorrow and will prob be going to one of those drop in hours at my local solicitors on saturday to get a legal view of it.

The Internet is in my mothers name but i did download what im accused of, shes listening to the advice people but i would have preferred her to make an offer of £50 or £100 pound in a full and final settlement...bloody women

[zero_flight]

I've been waiting quite a while (not quite 3 months yet though) for my 2nd letter to come too.

Don't know if I've been lost amongst the sheer number of claims they've issued, or if I've been specifically singled out (either they've dropped the case, or planning a more specific 2nd letter for me)?

 

devonwoman - was your claim regarding Media Cat? Mine was.

 

My claim was regarding Media Cat and I received my second letter about four weeks ago, sent off a second LOD three weeks ago. As of yet have not heard anything else. I am hoping that it will stay that way.

[Valuev]

Haha, yeah. I couldn't have said that at a worse time:p, letter was there when I just got in from work saying I havent yet paid:D

 

Ah well let the letter ping pong begin, I'll send off an LOD in 14 days time.

[Valuev]

Erm no....then if they decide to take you to court they could win automatically as you failed to reply to the letter and didn't defend or deny the accusations....Seems pretty obvious to me it is better to reply and say you did not do it.

 

Im not sure if they could win by not responding to a letter that could have been lost, I think it would be if I failed to show up in court then they could. Im not too sure though:idea:

[zero_flight]

I have just had a follow up letter. I ignored the first as instructed on here. They are now saying to seek legal advice with regards to the matter. I am unsure if I should respond. I have had lodgers staying with me, and have an unsecured network as well, so anyone could have DL'd this.

 

Any ideas?

 

I advise you to seek legal advice and send a LOD off to them if you are innocent. As far as I am aware they have never taken anyone to court that has done this. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[HenriIV]

I have had lodgers staying with me, and have an unsecured network as well, so anyone could have DL'd this.

 

It doesn't matter if you had 200 lodgers, nor whether your network was secure or not. It's irrelevant.

 

a) Did YOU yourself make the file(s) available for sharing?

b) Did YOU yourself AUTHORISE someone else to do so?

 

If the answer to both the above is 'no', then you should deny the claim.

 

If the answer to either of the above is 'yes', then you should (imo) make an offer to settle - not just blindly accept the amount suggested by ACS Law.

[danny:boy]

bbc news has picked up on this case again

 

BBC News - Court questions net pirate hunt

[Caimbeul]

Dear Andrew Crossley,

 

Please find enclosed your questionaire kindly returned to you which we have no intention of completing as we are not obliged to.

 

Sincerely

 

Everyone

 

*Surely given their questionable reputation, i would certainly not be happy to submit any harware to them for "Forensic" examination. Who is to say they would not just

plant something on your HDD??

Edited June 30, 2010 by Caimbeul
typo

[Valuev]

Anyone know how long it would take to get me into court?

 

I am very tempted to just write back saying "OK, see you in court' but have a holiday booked and really dont want to sacrifice the hard work in overtime and money saved and paid to have to go to court.

 

Could I (if said court date was within my holiday period) supply the evidence I am going away and have it postponed?

[devonwoman]

I've been waiting quite a while (not quite 3 months yet though) for my 2nd letter to come too.

Don't know if I've been lost amongst the sheer number of claims they've issued, or if I've been specifically singled out (either they've dropped the case, or planning a more specific 2nd letter for me)?

 

devonwoman - was your claim regarding Media Cat? Mine was.

 

Yes it was a porn film i was in the batch that had the court order in Feb.

[bob92101]

bbc news has picked up on this case again

 

BBC News - Court questions net pirate hunt

Mostly relates to the USA. The bit relevant to the UK reads

In the UK, consumer watchdog Which? has been highlighting cases where people have been wrongly accused of file-sharing.

 

The allegations have come from law firm ACS: Law which has sent thousands of letters identifying illegal file-sharers and offering them the option of a one-off £500 fine or court action.

 

Which? reports this week that the firm is now sending questionnaires to alleged file-sharers who deny they were responsible for illegal downloading.

 

The questionnaire asks users to submit their computers to a forensic examination and answer other questions about their computer connection.

 

"We believe this is the latest example of bullying behaviour by ACS Law, which says that if people don't complete its questionnaire, it has no option but to consider them guilty. Declining to fill in a form is not evidence of guilt," said Deborah Prince, Which's head of legal affairs.

 

ACS: Law has said its actions are legitimate, given how big a problem illegal file-sharing is for the music and film industries.

 

"It is the equivalent of someone stood outside HMV with a pile of the latest albums, handing them out to people who were intending to go in the shop and buy it," ACS: Law partner Andrew Crossley told the BBC.

I don't understand what ACS:Law hope to learn from what they describe as a forensic examination of someone's computer :-?

[smiler876]

well my other post got removed for some reason...anyway has anyone here ignored all the letters?

 

Ive ignored the first or rather my mother has and i got letter number 2 this morning (its been around 80 days since letter 1 so im guessing theyve cleared the media cat set of letters)

[8of9]

Mostly relates to the USA. The bit relevant to the UK readsI don't understand what ACS:Law hope to learn from what they describe as a forensic examination of someone's computer :-?

 

 

The claims in th USA regarding "The Hurt Locker" were only issued a matter of weeks ago, but already civil rights groups are in the courts challenging these claims.

Here in the UK where this has been going on months (or years if you include Davenport Lyons similar claims), Consumer watchdog, Which, are still "highlighting" and "Reporting". The SRA are doing .... don't know - what are they doing? ISP's are doing nothing. There have been speeches made in the House of Lords. There have been many complaints to MP's and Government Departments have exchanged correpondence on the subject. All these, and probably more, know whats going on and yet no attempt has been made to sort this out!

Meanwhile ... it goes on.

[peppylapenguin]

Well i received my second letter yesterday, in fact a recieved 2 of them. I guessing that ACS are going back to the MediaCAT letters from April. I ignored the first one but it seems that it will be a ping pong battle afterall and i've sent my LOD and im waiting for the inevitable refusal to accept a template letter. I few things i've noticed is that the second letter is not that different to the first they sent me. It's pretty much the same except the the spreadsheet to and from my ISP aren't there and it came with a pretty poor FAQ. I tried to ring ACS to question the info they had on me and was pretty much fobbed off with the "You'll have to put that question in writing" Of cource i did and all i got was yet another copy of that stupid FAQ which answered nothing. Could i e-mail the LOD or does it have to be sent by mail? It would make the responding to the following letters easier.

[smiler876]

@peppylapenguin

As i said above i recently got my second letter with regards to the mediacat set. Sounds like ive got the same as you come through my letterbox. I went to local council advice centre this morning who have made me an appointment with the CAB again. Im also off to see a solicitor on saturday to get a proper legal perspective on it as the council advice people told me to ignore it again as their lawyers say its got [problem] written all over it and wouldnt stand up in court as ACS:Law's method of collecting the data is, in itself, illegal.

[HenriIV]

Smiler876

 

From your earlier post, I assume your mother is the acccount holder?

 

Therefore, it is your mother who is the target of ACS claim (not you).

 

If your mother isn't directly responsible for making the file(s) available, nor authorised anyone else (including you) to do so, then she should issue a LOD. I'm sure she will appreciate your help, but it is she the claim is made against.

 

This completely illustrates the total weakness inherent in what ACS are doing.

 

ACS issue letters to Account holders, utterly irrespective of who might be actually responsible (if anyone) for the alleged infringement. Of course, they can do nothing else, because they cannot know (unless you give them the information) who was actually responsible for the infringement.

 

They do not know how many computers may access any given IP address, nor how many users, there may have been, at any time.

 

They have no idea, apart from the named Account Holder who MIGHT be able to access the IP address (legitimately or illegitimately). Even then, it may be that the named Account Holder is not even a computer user - just someone pays for the connection as a parent or guardian, etc.

 

Hardly surprising then, that given ACS cannot even hope to target their letters accurately (because they only have the names of account holders, and do not know who the actual users are), no contested cases have ever come to Court is it?

Edited July 1, 2010 by HenriIV

[peppylapenguin]

Well i went to both the CAB and a solicitor recommended by the CAB and unfortunately neither were much help and neither deal with this. The CAB told me to ignore it which i did the first time, however this time i went to the Solicitor they told me to go for more info, and she told me that it's legit and under no circumstances to be ignored. Basically just cover your back as much as possible and wait for them to give up.

 

Also today i rang SKY up and after threatening to cancel my SKY package got put though to the legal department and was indeed told that my details had been pass on. I asked them what evidence and what offence had ACS given them and they said nothing. All they got was a list of IP's and a copy of the Court order that's it and they don't question it. I asked why i wasn't informed and they claim that ACS request that customers aren't informed as it may effect the case. Needless to say after that conversation i told them where they could stick their package.

[NitrousOxide]

Unfortunately all they need is a court order, this applies to any ISP as well.

[captain-123]

If anyone is interested if you head over to the slyck . com forum there is a chance for inocent people to have thier chance to feature on the One show and get this into the mainstream. I don't know all the details but it seems that they are looking for inocent people to feature on the show.

 

A users on the forum 'Webspacker' is the person I think who is organising this look on page 360 a couple of posts down.

 

This could be an excellent opportunity to warn other people of what is going on.

[captain-123]

Unfortunately all they need is a court order, this applies to any ISP as well.

 

 

This is true but none of them with the exception of Talk Talk have said that they would fight the court orders or at least ask to investigate the methods and software used for this.

 

While it may be able to grab a list of IP addresses does it check to see if the work is being offered and if it is does, does the software actually make sure that the whole or a substantial part of the work was made available which is a requirement under the CDPA.

 

What if even in the case of the work being available only bytes have been collected? While these types of questions and costs are out of the reach of the public I'm sure that an ISP could afford to spend something like 20k or whatever to check the system out.

 

Imagine the positive publicity it would get and amount of extra revenue from new customers. Even 'IF' the sytem worked as they say it does just because an ISP had taken a stand for the little guy. I'm not sure how much the big ISPs spend on advertising but I bet this would be a whole lot cheaper and more effective. Viva La Talk Talk at the moment.

[johnsmith999]

You may be interested to note that a customer of the ISP Plusnet has been pushing them to give details of a report that ACS Law must provide by law, showing how many people from the list given to them by the isp, have been taken to court.Plusnet will give your personal details to ACS Law with not informing you!! | Community Site

 

If any one is a subscriber of BT, O2, BE unlimited then they should contact their ISP and demand they also publish the details as they should also receive a copy. if they havent received it you should request they contact ACS Law and remind them of their obligation.

 

This may be a way to get this practice stopped if we can proove that no one has been taken to court, then perhaps the judge will not grant the next batch of court orders

[Caimbeul]

@ Peppylapenguin: I sent them an e-mail with a read receipt and delivery confirmation request attached...months later i got the notification bounce back through outlook saying it had been deleted without being read! Nice! thank you very much i will keep that nice and safe!

[peppylapenguin]

Hi guy's i'd like to ask a question on the behalf of a work friend. Today i found out that he also got one of these letters but like myself kept quiet because of the nature of the film we'd been accused of downloading. Well anyway at the alleged time that ACS claimed he downloaded the flim he was only holiday and whenever he goes on holiday he switches off most of his appliances including his router. So he is baffled on how ACS claim his internet connection was used when it wasn't even turned on and no one had access to his house to switch it on. He tried contacting SKY and asked them to provide him with details on his internet connection on that day, but they refused. Seems they put up more of a fight with their customers than with ACS. So what can he do? He defiantly knows his internet connection was off but had no way to prove it thanks to SKY.

[NitrousOxide]

Anyone read about when ACS tried to accuse Slyck of libel. ACS got shot down in flames and were never heard from again. It's hysterical to read.

I don't know if I'm able to link to it though?

[kiptower]

N-O i think this is the link

 

talk about an idiot

 

http://www.slyck.com/story1923__****_Plan_Goes_Wrong_ACSLaw_Threatens_Slyckcom_With_a_Lawsuit