You'll never work in this industry again - Microsoft 1994
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ACS:Law gives up
A LAWYER who sent thousands of letters to alleged filesharers threatening to expose their porn downloading in court unless they paid him money has withdrawn from pursuing alleged illegal filesharers in the middle of a court case.
The patent court in London is hearing 27 cases brought by ACS:Law on behalf of its client Mediacat.
However in the middle of one case Andrew Crossley said he had ceased all such work, claiming that he had suffered criminal attacks and bomb threats.
"It has caused immense hassle to me and my family," he added.
Surely it's merely coincidence that the law firm Ralli, which represents some people who received letters from ACS:Law, has recently threatened to sue it for harassment.
In September ACS:Law was the victim of a cyber attack that exposed thousand of its e-mails online. He might still face a fine for that.
Although he has been criticised for running what might be viewed as an extortion scheme, Crossley didn't address that issue directly but rather obliquely, telling the court that it had always been his intention to litigate and he would have done so if he had not decided to stop doing this sort of thing.
But things have not been going well for Crossley. The actions of ACS:Law this past year on behalf of Mediacat remain under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Judge Birss also was unhappy at the way the litigation was going. He was miffed that granting permission to discontinue the cases was not a simple matter, due largely to the fact that the actual copyright holders were not in court.
He said that he had the impression that Crossley was trying to avoid any judicial scrutiny for his actions.
Judge Birss is considering banning Mediacat from sending out any more letters until the issues raised by the cases have been resolved.
Then there was the small matter of an outfit called GCB, which has also started sending out similar letters on behalf of Mediacat, including some to those who ACS:Law had dropped cases against.
The judge said he was keen to find out what the relationship was between GCB and ACS:Law.
Crossley said that he had no connection with GCB beyond the fact that the founders of the firm had previously been employed at ACS:Law.
According to the BBC, Judge Birss is expected to deliver his ruling on the case later in the week. µ
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1. Bully a few gullible ISPs into giving up the names of some users who might possibly perhaps have engaged in copyright infringement. Or not. That doesn't matter, really.
2. Send extortion notes to thousands of the people "identified" in step 1.
3...
4. Profit!
What's missing here? What could possibly go wrong?
"It has caused immense hassle to me and my family"... Now you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of one of your "fishing" threatening letters then.
Rather poetic.
He hasnt quit being a prick because what he was doing was immoral and (apparently) possibly illegal as well.
He has quit being a prick because of "threats" for which, I notice, he has not presented one single scrap of actual evidence.
The only redeeming feature of the case is that it looks like the judge is not taken in by Crossleys posturing. I sincerely hope he pursues it. (Its a great shame he cant use Crossleys own persecution techniques against him; that would be poetic.)
What BS. Love the ways he is trying to make people and future prosecutors feel sorry for him. The threats idea is BS, he stopped because his position has become untenable, with case after case failing and upcoming prosecutions of him coming.
I won't go into how someone who has legal threats to thousands is now not happy about getting threats himself.
And the idea that his company has nothing to do with this new company, except for it being setup by old employes. It is just slimy all the way.
And my comments are not due to being a piracy advocate, if you have proper evidence against a person for piracy then fine drag them to court. Still would like to see the police in charge of investigating these things rather than private companies making stuff up.
ACS Law was not "the victim of a cyber attack that exposed thousand of its e-mails online"
ACS Law's website was subject of a Denial Of Service attack which prompted ASC Law to take down their own website. When they were putting it back up again afterwards, ACS Law placed unencrypted and mail files on their website, and left them available for everyone to see and download, exposing the inner workings of the company.
There was no hacking involved beyond the initial electronic sit-in that happened after Crossley himself taunted the DDOSers. The exposure of private data was down to ACS Law's own incompetence.
"Ding dong the witch is dead, which old witch? The wicked witch! ding dong the wicked witch is dead!"