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

[paranoid_fish]

So are you telling me not to respond to the 2nd letter?

[shenme]

No, I am saying that people on here will give you different advice. You need to either decide for yourself or seek legal advice.

Personally, I responded and after a small round of letter ping-pong the correspondence stopped, though I didnt reveal any details further to my initial partly-templated response.

Others didn't respond and have had the same lack of correspondence since. If you do respond then give no personal details away, you may just want to simply state that you didn't do it and that now you've made that clear further correspondence will be regarded as harrassment.

 

Up to you though!

[wonkyfunk303]

Ok so my dad got one of these through today............ although it is not him they should be chasing........

 

got the letter of claim stating they are acting on behalf of media CAT for 4 films that were allegedly downloaded.

 

bt have given his ip address and information to them.

 

i have 5 pages detailing things 4 of those saying about evidence etc... and the out of court settlement fee of £1200 and the 5th page asking for a signature and the payment and a i wont do it again plee.

 

they have also enclosed a Draft Order (with the draft crossed out) from the High Court of justice @ chancery chambers (lol @ chancery..)

 

so what do i do?? several people use this comp so how can they prove it was my father who allegedly downloaded these films and surely £1200 is a bit steep..........

 

thanks in advance!¬

 

wonkyfunk303

[cashins]

they have also enclosed a Draft Order (with the draft crossed out) from the High Court of justice @ chancery chambers (lol @ chancery..) If I recall that is simply the order to your provider to release the info to ACS. So what? you already know that.

 

so what do i do?? several people use this comp so how can they prove it was my father who allegedly downloaded these films and surely £1200 is a bit steep.......... Errr.....they can't and there is no law in the UK that requires you to keep your computer secure. (As they would have you believe)

 

Send the the LOD and after that they can go sing for it.

 

David

[zero_flight]

Sounds very similar to the court order that they sent me, it had so many crossings out on it, that it must be false. I was beside myself with worry until I read the posts on this site and found out that there are thousands in the same boat. When was the court order dated from ?. Have you checked with your ISP to establish if they were issued with a court order ?. I did and was told that there had been no court order, which really concerned me. It seems that they have moved from sky customers to BT now.

If your dad has not done it, then he needs to send a letter of denial as suggested throughout this forum. He should seek independent legal advice as well. Also complain to the SRA, etc, to try to stop this from happening to others. This company is well known for its bullying tactics and underhanded practices. However, as of yet they are still under investigation.

[TADDOX]

Anyone know what the average running time is between allegedly committing the offence, and getting a letter?

 

Also, BT users seem to be taking a lot of heat- any other IP providers that are particularly targeted by the companies in question?

 

Thanks team

[BARFLY]

There have been instances where the alleged filesharing was between 18 and 24 months prior to receiving the letter from ACS. However, it seems that more recently the alleged filesharing was from last year, particularly May onward. BT had the largest proportion of alleged filesharers from the November NPO, but on the most recent NPO there are many ISPs listed. Virgin seemed to be particularly prevalent a few weeks ago. Perhaps they were the first to provide the details to ACS. If BT are now more prevalent perhaps they have just provided the details to ACS?

Edited May 23, 2010 by BARFLY
spelling

[captain-123]

Hi,

 

I might be wrong but I don't think Virgin have been on any court orders pertaining to digiprotect titles, scooter, guru josh and adult films.

 

They also were not included in the MediaCat adult films either

 

I think they where on previous court orders for the games call of jurez, dream pinball etc.

 

Like I say I could be wrong though someone who has been following the situation closely will be able to say for definite.

[dazed_and_confused2010]

If an ISP is contacted to supply contact details by court order, shouldn't they have a responsibility to advise the customer concerned? Surely a warning at an early stage would prevent possible further copyright infringement (or alert customers to potential hacking of their IP address)?

Edited May 24, 2010 by dazed_and_confused2010
Grammar

[wonkyfunk303]

Yeah that's what I thought and was the reason I gave to bt for my complaint and kick out the door!

 

I've sent the denial letter, reported to T.S and the sra, they have a dedicated form to use for acs which I found amusing. She almost fell over when I said how much they wanted as she had one earlier that day that was less than half they wanted from my dad and she thought that was steep!

 

Well let's hope this ongoing saga ends soon with the demise of acs!

[dazed_and_confused2010]

Something I'm confused by and I'm sorry if it's been covered before.

 

Previous posts quote sections 16-1 (d) and 20 of the CDPA.

 

Section 16-1(d) quotes

 

" The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom—(d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see section 20);

 

 

(3) References in this Part to the doing of an act restricted by the copyright in a work are to the doing of it—

(a) in relation to the work as a whole or any substantial part of it, and

(b) either directly or indirectly;

 

 

So, in summary "to broadcast the work"... "as a whole or any substantial part of it"

 

 

With regard to P2P, surely you can only broadcast (upload?) the work as a whole (or substantial part) if you've downloaded the whole thing (or a substantial part)? Unless they can prove someone has done that, surely the parts of the CDPA they quote don't apply? From previous posts, it seems that people are being accused after a "snapshot" has been taken by the forensic software at a particular time, to the second.

 

So how are they using this legislation as the basis for these letters? Does anyone see it differently?

[tp123]

• Section 16-1(d) - This is saying that only the copyright owner has the exclusive right to broadcast it, and no one else.
  

• "as a whole or any substantial part of it" - This is where I feel ACS Law are chancing their arm. Their IP gathering software does what it says on the tin, it just gathers an IP address at a specific time. It can have no way of determining how much of the "work" is being made available to third parties. It could be the whole "work", "a substantial part of it" or a tiny fragment in the region of a few kilo bits. It is impossible to say unless they could have seen the contents of the hardrive at the time of the (alleged) offence. And, who is the arbitrator of how much of digital file constitutes a "substantial part". What would be helpful here is a test case. Oh, I forgot there hasn't been one!
  

[dazed_and_confused2010]

• Section 16-1(d) - This is saying that only the copyright owner has the exclusive right to broadcast it, and no one else.
  

 

• "as a whole or any substantial part of it" - This is where I feel ACS Law are chancing their arm. Their IP gathering software does what it says on the tin, it just gathers an IP address at a specific time. It can have no way of determining how much of the "work" is being made available to third parties. It could be the whole "work", "a substantial part of it" or a tiny fragment in the region of a few kilo bits. It is impossible to say unless they could have seen the contents of the hardrive at the time of the (alleged) offence. And, who is the arbitrator of how much of digital file constitutes a "substantial part". What would be helpful here is a test case. Oh, I forgot there hasn't been one!
  

 

So, unless they've accessed the hard disk at the time of the alleged offence to find the whole work, or substantial part of it there, they've no case? And even if forensics proved that the torrent or the alleged upload had been on a hard drive, could it determine how much of it there was, especially after several months? I don't think so...

 

So why have DL, ACS and the other bunch been able to drag this misrepresentation of the law out for so long? It's worse than a disgrace....... how can the SRA let them away with this?

[tp123]

"So, unless they've accessed the hard disk at the time of the alleged offence to find the whole work, or substantial part of it there, they've no case?"

 

• Thats my understanding of it.
  

"And even if forensics proved that the torrent or the alleged upload had been on a hard drive, could it determine how much of it there was, especially after several months? I don't think so..."

 

• Depending on the quality of their IT Forensic experts and the techniques used, they could potentially determin what, when and how much was on the disk even after many years. You can format a disk many and times and even "zero fill it" (where 0's are written to every segment on the disk) and still be able to recover the data.
  

"So why have DL, ACS and the other bunch been able to drag this misrepresentation of the law out for so long? It's worse than a disgrace....... how can the SRA let them away with this?"

 

• Good question!
  

[Scooby Doo69]

"So, unless they've accessed the hard disk at the time of the alleged offence to find the whole work, or substantial part of it there, they've no case?"

 

• Thats my understanding of it.
  

"And even if forensics proved that the torrent or the alleged upload had been on a hard drive, could it determine how much of it there was, especially after several months? I don't think so..."

 

• Depending on the quality of their IT Forensic experts and the techniques used, they could potentially determin what, when and how much was on the disk even after many years. You can format a disk many and times and even "zero fill it" (where 0's are written to every segment on the disk) and still be able to recover the data.
  

"So why have DL, ACS and the other bunch been able to drag this misrepresentation of the law out for so long? It's worse than a disgrace....... how can the SRA let them away with this?"

 

• Good question!
  

 

Those sent letters are being accused of uploading, not downloading. With downloading you can retain (I believe, although I am no IT expert) a work for 24 hours for evaluation purposes. With P2P when you download you also upload at the same time. It's during the latter that a whole batch of IP addresses have been collated.

 

So whether the work is still on a persons HDD, memory stick or DVD, etc is totally irrelevant.

[zero_flight]

Well up to now ACS Law are getting away with bullying innocent people into paying money. I am not sure if some are still paying out, but its just unbelievable with what they are getting away with it. I wish that the appropriate authorities would put a end to it quickly. I do not know how long their investigations are going to take. Its just ridiculous.

[Scooby Doo69]

Well up to now ACS Law are getting away with bullying innocent people into paying money. I am not sure if some are still paying out, but its just unbelievable with what they are getting away with it. I wish that the appropriate authorities would put a end to it quickly. I do not know how long their investigations are going to take. Its just ridiculous.

 

The quickest way will be to have a case taken to Court and their "evidence" ripped to peices by an expert and the case thrown out.

Of course it could also go the other way and that will give them and other a green light to really hammer the population.

 

All the time people pay up and the cash cow is delivering ACS will not take that risk.

[captain-123]

Hi everyone,

 

With regard to the digiprotect titles scooter guru josh porn etc. what's the timescale from suposed offence to letter.

 

I know in a lot of cases it appears to be a long time but has anyone received a letter for a supposed offence which happened just a few months before or are they all a year plus?

 

Just curious really

[dazed_and_confused2010]

"So whether the work is still on a persons HDD, memory stick or DVD, etc is totally irrelevant."

 

CDPA section 16-1(a) and section 17 cover storage of copyright material on storage media, so relevant if a drive was found to contain the material, surely.

 

Of course the CDPA doesn't actually mention P2P, only "broadcast" - coming up with that clause as cause would seem to be as much of a stretch as trying to prove "whole, or substantial part" from an IP address time-specific hit.

[paranoid_fish]

Great looks like they are up to their weird and wonderful fishing tactics again.

 

Every body google Acs law questionnaire if you haven't already heard.

 

I am still wondering should i even reply to the 2nd letter. If so what do i write?

[smiler876]

ACS Law uses questionnaire to chase pirates - Which? News

 

The hell with ACS, how many people who are worried sick anyway through this are going to rush into filling the form in....

[smiler876]

ACS Law uses questionnaire to chase pirates - Which? News

 

The hell with ACS, how many people who are worried sick anyway through this are going to rush into filling the form in....

[Scooby Doo69]

ACS Law uses questionnaire to chase pirates - Which? News

 

The hell with ACS, how many people who are worried sick anyway through this are going to rush into filling the form in....

 

Check the latest Torrentfreak article on ACS. The article claims ACS have collected £1,000,000 from saps who have paid up within the first 11 Months of the mail shot.

 

Now ponder on this and think why ACS pursue people so much and why they haven't run the risk of taking people to Court...

[zero_flight]

Yeah good money, not much work involved sending thousands of letters accusing innocent people. I wonder how much of that money that ACS Law get. I am sure that it will be a hefty sum, so they will not want to lose any sending people to court. With the probable risk of losing, if they did do. Its still unbelievable what they are getting away with.

[Scooby Doo69]

Yeah good money, not much work involved sending thousands of letters accusing innocent people. I wonder how much of that money that ACS Law get. I am sure that it will be a hefty sum, so they will not want to lose any sending people to court. With the probable risk of losing, if they did do. Its still unbelievable what they are getting away with.

 

Remember though that not everyone is innocent. Having said that, the monies claimed is not in line with the offence(s) claimed. Either way, ACS will be claiming the lions share of the monies, if based upon the Davenport Lyons model it probably is lucrative money.

 

Why would they give up?