ACS:Law copyright case must continue

THE INTERNET USERS' favourite law firm, ACS:Law has been told that it can't drop its case against filesharers, despite it apparently wanting to go and hide in a hole and forget all about the whole mess altogether.

The firm, which is lead by Andrew Crossley, had previously been happy to send out letters on behalf of copyright holders in which it asked home Internet users to pay up for alleged copyright infringing activities or face the consequences in court. Or, to make the allegations go away, they could stump up £500, payable to ACS:Law.

These thousands of letters might have made the firm unpopular with postmen, we don't know, but it definitely alienated the firm from Internet users. However not all of those it accused paid off ACS:Law, so it had to go to court in an attempt to throw the untested rules of the Digital Economy Act at defendants who might or might not have been engaged in the activities alleged.

Having had its computer systems hacked and knocked offline by more adept Internet users, the firm then faced more and more criticism. Faced with having to prove its allegations in court, ACS:Law attempted to dismiss its lawsuits just as the judge was steadying his wig and beginning to peruse the legal papers.

According to the BBC, the judge has criticised the firm for changing its mind about proceeding with the cases. "I cannot imagine a system better designed to create disincentives to test the issues in court," said Judge Colin Birss at the Patents County Court in London.

It appears that judiciary is keen to find out whether ACS:Law was only happy to take 'offenders' money when it faced no scrutiny. Now that the spotlight of legal inquiry and public awareness has been shined on it, the firm seems to want to forget all about the money that it wanted to extract for copyright holders - once it had wet its beak, of course - and just move on. Something that does not sound quite right.

The BBC reported statements from the judge, in which he seemed to suggest that the letters were something of a racket, that for obvious reasons was being covered up. "Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a portion of the recipients?" he asked.

Both ACS:Law and partner Mediacat have since wound down their businesses. But having filed lawsuits in the courts, ACS:Law will have to pursue them, possibly to encounter some consequences that it had not previously foreseen. µ