ACS:Law emails stolen, shown to knowingly threaten innocents with litigation

[CaptainCrash]

From what I've seen ICO generally don't mess about tbh, but as he said, he can't do much more than fine them, but who's going to hire someone who causes so much embarrassment and damage again?

Exactly. I think this time the publicity in itself will do immense damage to ACS, and in particular I can't see Big Content (whose stupidity admittedly sometimes seems impossible to overestimate) risking guilt by association in future, at least not if they want to retain the sympathetic ears of our elected lawmakers.

[kalniel]

Unless somebody managed to actually steal the rights to the content, this was not copyright theft - it was copyright infringement.

Copyright theft is a broad term that encompasses counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements - and the term is perpetuated by groups such as the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

It doesn't refer to the literal theft of the rights themselves.

[Steve]

Copyright theft is a broad term that encompasses counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements - and the term is perpetuated by groups such as the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

It doesn't refer to the literal theft of the rights themselves.

True. Perhaps I should have clarified that the term "copyright theft" does not exist in law, only in material produced by the likes of FACT.

[CaptainCrash]

Copyright theft is a broad term that encompasses counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements - and the term is perpetuated by groups such as the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

It doesn't refer to the literal theft of the rights themselves.

What narks me though is the egregious abuse of the term "theft" - it's simply a cynical (and, it seems, largely successful) attempt by interested and influential parties to establish copyright infringement as being the moral and legal equivalent of actual "theft" in the public eye, regardless of the specifics of the infringement and the losses suffered (or not).

Why not go the whole hog and call it "copyright rape", after all, the alleged victims could claim their rights have been "violated"...

[peterb]

I hope The Law Society might tajke it up - if someone complains to them - and that could result him losing his licence to practice as a lawyer.

(and Point taken Steve - thank you)

Edit - quoted from wikipaedia:

The main partner of the company, and its only registered solicitor,[3] is Andrew Crossley. Crossley has twice been found guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, in 2002 and again in 2006.[4] In August 2010, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that Crossley was being summoned to his third disciplinary tribunal, in response to ACS:Law's action against suspected file sharers.[5]

[mcmiller]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-customer-data

does the last paragraph mean that SKY, o2, BT Plusnet are basically making money outof potentially fraudulent claims and leaving their customers high and dry?

[Steve]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-customer-data

does the last paragraph mean that SKY, o2, BT Plusnet are basically making money outof potentially fraudulent claims and leaving their customers high and dry?

No, it means to provide ACS:Law with the customer data they've requested (based on IP and timestamp, probably), there's a fee for putting the data together, as it requires work to be done on the part of BT.

But whether what you think can be inferred from that, well, maybe. I guess it depends how much work they have to do, and the cost is for the time taken by the people doing the work (and I don't mean their hourly wage).

[Georgy291]

doesnt them spying on torenting also means they were downloading the torrent them selves? or am i miss understood on how they were obtaining peoples IPs

[mcmiller]

No, it means to provide ACS:Law with the customer data they've requested (based on IP and timestamp, probably), there's a fee for putting the data together, as it requires work to be done on the part of BT.

But whether what you think can be inferred from that, well, maybe. I guess it depends how much work they have to do, and the cost is for the time taken by the people doing the work (and I don't mean their hourly wage).

is £500 an hour a realistic figure?

[oolon]

doesnt them spying on torenting also means they were downloading the torrent them selves? or am i miss understood on how they were obtaining peoples IPs

Yes but they would have had a dispensation to be able to do it. Also they could have hacked a client so it would not supply much data before stopping talking, it only really needs to download the machines from the tracker and perhaps sample the first 10 seconds from each victim, not download a complete track. When asked for data it might be hacked so it is unusabily slow or transmits poison data.