British Law firm goes after Pirates

[Djay187]

Hope this is the right place to post but has anyone heard of this British Law Firm, ASC, going after file sharers and trying to get them to pay up to £500 to keep themselves out of court.
They've basically gone round internet providers in the UK demanding IP addresses of customers and then this information is passed on to a third party and they look for possible infringements of music and film copyright.
Here's the link to the story on the BBC News website Link
Hers's a link to the original story that broke earlier this year Link

 

[Thoob]

The basic rule of thumb is that only the copyright holder can take you to court over infringement. If some random law firm is asking you to cough up to stay out of court, then that is quite simply fraud.

 

[gifi4]

lol does this count for AUS or what??? Anyway when I saw the title, I thought it meant pirates on the sea, but that's probably cause I'm watching One Piece right now lol.

 

[Djay187]

I didn't actually realise this story was quite old the reason they're in the news today is that their company was hacked into and all the details they held where leaked over the internet.
But in reply to Thoob it's whether they seek the pirates first then try to blackmail them with court unless the person coughs up or do they inform the copyright holders then go after the person who has caused the infringement.
It's all very dodgy.

 

[Schizoanalysis]

Someone should sue them.

Damn greedy lawyers.

 

[trumpet-205]

I highly doubt this law firm will inform copyright holder should pirates not pay 500 euros.

This is just fraud.

 

[Jamstruth]

Worst part of this is the ISPs giving up the customer details. That's gotta be against the Data Protection Act (though maybe the Digital Economy Bill screwed that up a good bit)

 

[xist]

Read the story again....seems that ACS Law (the company in question) is in deep **** for having all that data in unencrypted form so it could be stolen and redistributed so easily. If they're really unlucky the weight of the British Legal System will be hammering on their doors!

 

[BlueStar]

It's basically a thinly veiled protection racket and they make the money out of fear and intimidation, especially by accusing people of downloading things like pornography and hoping they'll pay up, guilty or not, out of fear to what it would do to their reputation (an elderly woman was accusing of pirating gay porn for fuck's sake). If you get one of these letters the most important thing is NOT to pay up, they don't even seem to be bothering following up anyone who's savvy enough to question their tactics.

The hack is the latest legal problem for this group of shysters. Sucks for the people who've had the accusation made public though, especially seeing as how most of them seemed bogus in the first place.

 

[elmoreas]

@BlueStar: "Shysters"? Are they all Jewish? If not then that is the wrong slur. If you know more about each one or them as a whole I can provide the appropriate slur for that type of attorney. (My Dad is one so I know all the jokes/names/etc..) Of course I will have to charge a fee for each slur provided in that I must be compensated for my efforts. j/k

What do you call a thousand laywers chained together at the bottom of the sea?

A Good Start!

Oh let the bad lawyer jokes start...

 

[The Pi]

It's a known con, many other law firms do the same, some even go to peoples doors who have no internet

 

[Stewy12]

Good job I'm with Sky as now it seems they want bugger all to do with them........

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=2064

 

[alidsl]

on the index it says

"British law firm goes after Pi"

 

[BlueStar]

@BlueStar: "Shysters"? Are they all Jewish? If not then that is the wrong slur.

Hey, I aint no anti-semite

QUOTEA shyster (pronounced /??a?st?r/) is a slang word for someone who acts in a disreputable, unethical, or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law and politics

...

The etymology of the word is not generally agreed upon. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says it to be based on the German Scheißer (literally, defecator),[1] but the Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "of obscure origin", possibly deriving from a historical sense of "shy" meaning disreputable.[2] Various false etymologies have proposed an anti-Semitic origin, and some people continue to regard the word as referring particularly to Jews or Jewish lawyers.[3]

 

[elmoreas]

Well technically speaking you win, but having grown up in legal circles, That one was used for Jewish attorneys, for each other ethnic/gender/whatever group there was a different term. But I was J/King anyways.

How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

No one knows, its never been done, if they had to do it they would just hire another secretary!