ACS Law : GCB Limited

[andydd]

Given the woes currently befalling ACS and Mediacat....

 

I wonder if it would not unreasonable for the 27 claimants to apply for one of those deposit things - whereby ACS/Mediacat have to deposit what presumably could be quite significant funds into the court, in case the defendents win costs etc?

 

I don't know if thats only something that is involved with employment tribunals, or if it does apply to wider cases/law.

 

I've had various small claims cases recently and seem to recall the law requiring amounts to be paid into court were dropped.

 

In any event the defendants lawyers did push for costs and these could be quite high, I thoughht it was mentioned in the original hearing that the solvency of both ACS and Media CAT were in question.

 

Good report on the case by the BBC by the way (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12253746)

 

Andy

 

Andy

[Enron]

http://www.clickliverpool.com/business/business-news/1212254-illegal-file-sharing-consumers-to-launch-harassment-case.html

[anonanon]

Hello,

 

I have also been targeted by ACS Law (replied immediately with letter of denial as I had never downloaded or authorised anyone to download the material in question) and then GCB.

 

I have a few quick questions regarding the recent news about ACS:Law stopping the speculative invoicing practice and GCB abandoning their efforts.

 

1) Legally, can MediaCAT continue to harass me with regards to the alleged copyright infringement through yet another speculative invoicing company? How can I conclude this matter once and for all?

 

2) Do ACS Law and their sort have any power to put black markers against my credit rating?

 

3) Ralli solicitors (who represented a number of the defendants at the recent trial) are putting together a case to sue ACS Law for harassment. Would anyone recommend pursing this or would it require time and effort?

 

4) How can I find out if my personal details were leaked in the ACS Law website hack? Is there an online list? (i don't want to have to download the data via torrent). Is there an email address for the government dept investigating this data protection breach?

 

 

Many thanks for all your help. This and other sites have been a great help throughout this ordeal.

[kurvaface]

Welcome anonanon.

 

You should definitely pursue this.

 

How much you can make? - I have no idea however I think you need to decide fairly quickly because this will surely Bankrupt Mr Crossley.

 

Your credit file - I would be very suprised if Mr Crossley tried this. You can check by signing up to Experien for 1 month free of charge.

 

If ACS law was a reputable company, they would have written to you to tell you your data was at risk. If they haven't, I would certainly not take that as confirmation your data is safe. Contact the ICO who are investigating this.

 

ACS law have certainly shared your data with GCB, which is not registered with the ICO to process this kind of data so it likely that your data is at risk. The accountants associated long term with GCB Ltd say the company has been "Lent to a friend" which in itself is a highly dubious act which will surely have implications re The Companies Act 2006 - so you can be sure that handling your data securely is probably not at the top of their prioriy list. Perhaps sending Mr Crossley a Section 10 notice as set out in the Data Protection Act would help.

 

There must be an angle with the ISP too for releasing your data to this bunch of cowboys.

 

I think there are many fronts on which you could fend off Crossley's fraud and even more on which you could claim compensation.

 

To be quite honest, I am jealous of you guys that have been hounded by crossley because I would love to have a piece of this action!!

Edited January 27, 2011 by kurvaface

[andydd]

Hello,

 

I have also been targeted by ACS Law (replied immediately with letter of denial as I had never downloaded or authorised anyone to download the material in question) and then GCB.

 

I have a few quick questions regarding the recent news about ACS:Law stopping the speculative invoicing practice and GCB abandoning their efforts.

 

1) Legally, can MediaCAT continue to harass me with regards to the alleged copyright infringement through yet another speculative invoicing company? How can I conclude this matter once and for all?

 

EErr..Pay up, that will stop them !. More seriously though, MadiaCAT have made a claim against you and the only actually way to stop it is to be in court and prove them wrong, of course we all know their reluctance to go to court, however I would be very surprised if ACS or MediaCAT carry on with this charade, but we will have to wait for to see what the Judge has to say, there was talk of banning them from sending out more letters.

 

2) Do ACS Law and their sort have any power to put black markers against my credit rating?

 

Nope.

 

3) Ralli solicitors (who represented a number of the defendants at the recent trial) are putting together a case to sue ACS Law for harassment. Would anyone recommend pursing this or would it require time and effort?

 

Are they ?. Im aware they are asking for wasted costs which could be substantial, this would appl for just the 27 though. Actually suing for harrasment would be very hard and its unclear as to how much harrassment is caused by a few letters, this would vary from person to person though, for some it has been very distressing.

 

4) How can I find out if my personal details were leaked in the ACS Law website hack? Is there an online list? (i don't want to have to download the data via torrent). Is there an email address for the government dept investigating this data protection breach?

 

There is no offiial online list (and surely you should be more worried if there was !), but many thousands of people have the emails and the excel attachements, i think ive still got them somewhere on my pc. Its the Information Commisioners Office (ICO) investigating the breach, im sure they must have a website.

 

 

Many thanks for all your help. This and other sites have been a great help throughout this ordeal.

[ENDEAVOUR65]

You do seem to be well informed but are missing quite a few facts

[Michael Browne]

You do seem to be well informed but are missing quite a few facts

 

Perhaps you would care to enlighten us then

[andydd]

You do seem to be well informed but are missing quite a few facts

 

Perhaps you would care to enlighten us then

 

Yeah..was that for me ?

 

Andy

[caledfwlch]

You do seem to be well informed but are missing quite a few facts

 

An Employee of ACS or GCB by any chance?

[ENDEAVOUR65]

Not at all, just an innocent whos daft son downloaded some films and im the idiot that pays the bills. Needless to say ive done some digging on this crowd.

[caledfwlch]

What facts are missing then?

[kurvaface]

Let me guess.....

 

In the films you downloaded:razz:, Andrew Crossley is the main"Performer"?!?8-)

[ENDEAVOUR65]

A fact a day helps keep the cowboys at bay...

An important fact is that from my experience over the last 12 months the correct ownership of copyright within the porn industry is dubious at best, especially if its material that is called a "compilation" which a lot of porn is made from. Old film clips recycled under a new title. This is even more prevalent within the online industry. All films sold within licensed sex shops in the UK are registered with the BBFC and the title ownership is clearly stated on their website so there really is no confusion here but the site which my son fell foul of is exclusively uncertified film clips and so you tend to get all sorts of folk coming out of the woodwork claiming copyright ownership. I in fact spent the money and tracked down the absolute owner of the films in question in my case and it came to light that the rights were actually owned by a dissolved Dutch company that the administrator was still waiting to offload the titles in what they termed as a "back catalogue bundle"

There was me with all this information waiting for these guys to take me to court.

 

More facts to follow regarding these chaps business practice.

 

PS. Can we please pay more attention to Mr Bowdens roll in this as he seems to be in the shadows on this thread and after all hes had quite an impact on my families life over the last year I would hate for him to feel lonely, after all with the amount of correspondence ive had from his company he is almost part of my family.

[ENDEAVOUR65]

OK I will take it, that I downloaded the films as im the bill payer. Please pay attention, if I said my son then thats exactly what I meant. You have obviously been dealing with the likes of Crossley for far to long and cannot recognise an honest person any longer..

[PGH7447]

You do seem to be well informed but are missing quite a few facts

 

Like the fact the crossley was trying his luck at speculative invoicing perhaps. or that he did not know when to stop his greedy little [problem], or the fact the proving someone downloaded something purley on the basis of an ip address is exceedingly hard to prove - perchance

 

and as for not recoginising an honest person, its a bit difficult on a forum that is prone to troll attacks

[unclebulgaria67]

The info from Endeavor is probably correct that many of the porn titles to which breach of copyright is being claimed, are not owned by MediaCat, as they appear to only have an agreement to make claims only on behalf of the company holding the distribrution licence. I would have thought therefore that any agreement between MediaCat and a company holding a distribution licence would be worthless. Surely only the company holding the copyright for the material can actually take any action through the courts ?

[cirian75]

a lot of which have probably phoenixed and are under totally new names now with no claim on the titles.

[ENDEAVOUR65]

Thats the idea. Amazing what 12 months of slog will get you. From a porn novice (apart Mayfair and Penthouse of course) to a, well you can guess where we are going with this one. Can I stress to all that a bit of home work on the same piece of kit that initially coursed this problem eg. the internet will put anyone that has had a letter, in a much better position to work out if they are indeed in hot water.

Must have seemed like a great idea at the time but now?

[Jasper1965]

ENDEAVOUR 65

 

If you are able to prove what you say then have you considered forwarding a copy of your findings to the SRA? Crossley has yet to face a disciplinary hearing there and for the SRA to learn that Crossley and co might have been pursuing cases where they have effectively stolen (the perceived) right to action without the knowledge of the copyright holder, well this could be the final straw for the decision makers.

[ENDEAVOUR65]

Ive got one of the Partners from our Firm that is pretty much up to speed on this now after working on it for several weeks which is why we was hoping and praying for an invitation to join the other 27 "unfortunates" in court. Needless to say our findings will be winging their way to the proper authorities in due course. If Mr. Crossley and Mr. Bowden are under the illusion this will disappear by simply withdrawing several claims then they are mistaken and if anything else springs to light with regards to this and any other company linked to this set up then that to will be placed in the brief aswell. Its staggering how much information is in the public domain these days.

One important question springs to mind and that is, if I found that a company that I had registered at Companies House had in fact been used for a purpose I had no knowledge of I would have taken it upon myself to inform the powers that be, even if that was the police.

[Chumly]

So McLean Reid have applied to wind GCB Ltd up.

 

They submitted form DS01- Striking off application by a company, which was received at Companies House on 25th January. It was signed by the director - David Fisher on 20 January.

 

I'd be very interested to hear McLean Reid's views on Section 1004 of The Companies Act 2006.

Sections 1004 and 1005 of the Companies Act 2006 set out the circumstances in

which the company may not apply to be struck off. For example, the company may

not make an application for voluntary strike off if, at any time in the last 3 months, it

has:

• traded or otherwise carried on business;

To me renting offices, sending out letters, opening a bank account to receive payments all seem to be trading!!

Edited January 28, 2011 by Chumly

[sillygirl1]

That bit is about voluntary strike out, which is usually used by a director of a non trading company. Crossley seems to be definately trading - especially if he has collected any monies for his alleged clients from the poor uninformed people he has caught in his net.

[ENDEAVOUR65]

Seems to me that now the lights turned on the rats will all be trying to hide behind LTD trading status so as not to pay a penny, now theres a surprise. On another point ive just read the latest BBC report on this case. Where oh where is our old friend Mr Lee Bowden in this article when Mediacat is mentioned or are we to assume Mr Crossley set the whole thing up by himself?

[ENDEAVOUR65]

Seems to me that now the lights turned on the rats will all be trying to hide behind LTD trading status, now theres a surprise. On another point ive just read the latest BBC report on this case. Where oh where is our old friend Mr Lee Bowden in this article when Mediacat is mentioned or are we to assume Mr Crossley set the whole thing up by himself?

[Chumly]

I think that there's an answer to both of your points Endeavour65 - hiding behind Ltd company status and where's Lee Bowden.

 

He's a director of recently formed:

Company Name: 100 MILE MEDIA LIMITED

Registration Number: 07503354

Registered Office: 2 ND FLOOR, 43 WHITFIELD STREET, LONDON, W1T 4HD

Date of Incorporation: 24 Jan 2011

 

Now there's no actual time of day when this was set up but I would imagine on the 24th it would have been just after Judge Birss wanted to know more about what GCB was all about - and probably about the time Crossley decided to cut and run.