TorrentFreak Email Update |
- ACS:Law (Gay) Porn Letters Target Pensioners, Married Men
- ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails
- US ISP Disconnects Alleged Pirates for 6 Months
- Producer Sues BitTorrent Users, But Doesn’t ‘Own’ Copyright
| ACS:Law (Gay) Porn Letters Target Pensioners, Married Men Posted: 25 Sep 2010 03:36 AM PDT Last night, the private emails of anti-piracy law firm ACS:Law were spilled onto the Internet. Today, as we continue to dig through the mountain of information, we take a look at some of the human victims of this scheme. From poor people pleading for clemency, to bewildered old age pensioners accused of sharing adult movies, to married men who have been confronted with allegations of sharing gay porn, the cost is significant. Since they appeared on the scene a year or two ago, lawyers ACS:Law have made a lot of enemies. This week the rage of the masses boiled over and the hordes of 4chan, Anonymous and those simply wishing to dig the knife in, helped to DDoS the company’s site from the Internet. Then, in a huge screw up, ACS:Law managed to expose backups of its entire website and email database to the outside world. Last night they were all over the Internet for everyone with a huge amount of patience to decode and read. As we read yesterday, company owner Andrew Crossley was happy to brag of how much money he’d been making so today, in the second of what is likely to be a long string of articles, we take a look briefly at the human cost of what ACS:Law have been doing. On one letter a married man explains how he, his wife and his family have been affected by wrongful allegations that he downloaded gay porn movie ‘Bareback Britain’. Despite denials of any infringement, ACS:Law persist on behalf of client Media CAT and send back in response their template letter known as “Sensitive template”. A single mother of two explains how her husband who left her the previous year could have been responsible for the infringement and offers to pay the ‘fine’ of £495 in instalments for £20/£30 per month. Despite ACS:Law accepting that the lady did not infringe, a company employee advises “I believe this [the offer to pay in instalments] should be accepted.” Another case where a woman wrongfully accused finds out her son carried out the infringement was forced into paying on his behalf, despite the fact that she was neither liable nor responsible. Another reads:
While noting that many letter recipients seemed very confused by the letters, it was particularly interesting to see that many simply refused to be bullied and had clearly been using the advice issued by both BeingThreatened.com and that available in the discussion threads on Slyck.com. Many seemed to very aware of the limitations of the evidence and also their obligations under the law – if it couldn’t be proven that they infringed or authorized others to do so, ACS:Law had nowhere to go except send out their “Bare Denial” template letter, which basically asked people to prove a negative, i.e that they didn’t do anything. A ‘bare denial’, however, is accepted on other occasions. As this huge mass of emails makes abundantly clear, this scheme is all about money and when people don’t have any, Crossley and friends aren’t interested. A woman who denied sharing anything but provided documents proving she was bankrupt was immediately left alone. ACS:Law use an internal form titled ‘Action Points’ which charts the progress of a claim. An example is shown below where someone appears to be pursued based on a telephone confession: We have hardly reached the tip of the iceberg with these emails, there are many hundreds left to go but even at this stage, things are certain. Nearly all emails revolve around money. Money being demanded, money being transferred from one company to another. Emails promising employees of more money if they do this, that. Emails to companies telling them how much money they can make by becoming a partner in all of this. This is not about copyrights and reducing piracy. Copyrights are simply being used as a method to generate money. Thus far, we have not seen a single email or piece of correspondence which talks about reducing piracy. The only thing we see is money. And misery. But now, due to this email leak, that pain is being more evenly distributed out. More to come. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails Posted: 24 Sep 2010 04:54 PM PDT Earlier this week, anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law had their website taken down by a 4chan DDoS attack. Adding insult to injury, owner Andrew Crossley was harassed at home in the middle of the night by prank phone calls. Now, through a fault with his website, hundreds of megabytes of private emails have been exposed to the public and uploaded to The Pirate Bay. To those hoping that this is a MediaDefender-type fiasco all over again, trust us - it is. After coordinating DDoS attacks against the MPAA, RIAA and anti-piracy company AiPlex Software this week, 4chan turned to a new target. Anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law, who send out tens of thousands of letters demanding cash-settlements from often innocent Internet subscribers, became the new target. The company, which is headed up by lone principal Andrew Crossley, is widely hated among file-sharers and innocents alike and with 4chan’s Operation Payback now in full swing, payback is the operative word. After prank telephone calling Crossley in the middle of the night during the week, it now seems that 4chan are aiming to tear his professional life apart, as they have obtained and are distributing a 350mb file of the company’s website which includes countless company emails. So how were they obtained? “Their site came back online [after the DDoS attack] – and on their frontpage was accidentally a backup file of the whole website (default directory listing, their site was empty), including emails and passwords,” a leader of the attacking group told TorrentFreak. “The email contains billing passwords and some information that ACS:Law is having financial problems.” Financial problems? Interesting. Many tens of thousands of people who received letters from ACS:Law are also experiencing the same problem, having already paid up several hundred pounds each to make non-existent lawsuits go away. “We're still sorting through it. There's a lot of stuff here to go through. But, basically, we were told we were less important than a 10 minute late train, or a queue for coffee by Andrew,” the attackers’ spokesman told us, adding: “Payback is a bitch, isn't it Andrew?” The file is currently seeding on The Pirate Bay but most leechers are stuck with less than 60%. It is, however, available publicly on the web already. We have managed to secure one of those copies and are examining it now. A little taster from emails read so far: – ACS:Law and USCG (of Hurt Locker fame) appear to be cooperating
- Crossley brags about his financial status:
(later emails reveal he bought a Jeep Compass 2.4CVT) – Email evidence that ACS:Law deliberately does not target two UK ISPs, TalkTalk and Virgin Media
After falling out with NG3Sys, ACS:Law sent this out to other potential monitoring company:
- Series of highly abusive emails from Crossley to his ex-wife, where in part he tells her to “Fuck off and keep out of my life” and accuses her of being with a “drug addled hermit”. - Crossley tells his assistant Terence Tsang to “be more discreet with this stuff” when referring to our article where we revealed ACS:Law looked to buy anti-piracy tracking software on the cheap. Of course, as with our coverage of the MediaDefender leaked emails back in 2007, TorrentFreak’s coverage of this debacle will be extensive. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| US ISP Disconnects Alleged Pirates for 6 Months Posted: 24 Sep 2010 02:00 PM PDT The United States Internet Service provider Suddenlink has effectively implemented a three-strikes policy for repeated copyright infringers. After three DMCA notices, alleged copyright infringers are disconnected from the Internet for six months, without a refund. According to a company representative, the DMCA requires them to take such drastic measures.
Across the pond in the United States, there is an Internet provider that has single-handedly implemented a similar scheme. Suddenlink, one of the top 10 cable companies in the country, disconnects subscribers for six months after they have received three DMCA notices. According to a company representative, Suddenlink is required to take this action under the DMCA. TorrentFreak has been in contact with one of the customers who had his Internet connection disconnected for three alleged copyright violations. The affected subscriber provided detailed chatlogs with Suddenlink where the following explanation for the drastic measure is given.
The explanation given above is pure nonsense of course. The DMCA does not and never has required ISPs to disconnect users. For some reason Suddenlink customer support was told to communicate this lie to its users. What is true, however, is that Suddenlink will disconnect subscribers after three alleged warnings. TorrentFreak contacted the company and we were told that this measure is hidden in their Terms of Service. Although there is no word about a three-strikes policy, we did find the following sentence that could be used to justify the disconnections. “If you continue to transfer Copyrighted Material illegally, you are violating Suddenlink’s policies and Suddenlink may take further action, including limiting your Internet download capacity, suspending or terminating your account, or a range of other measures.” In reality, this means that subscribers will be disconnected from the Internet for 6 months without a refund. The subscriber we talked to was informed about the penalty over the phone and never received any documents to back it up. Although Suddenlink’s three-strikes policy is the most extreme, the company is not the only US Internet provider that has implemented it. Cox is using a similar scheme, but with the major difference that the disconnection is limited to a few hours, not six months. Disconnecting users based on claims of copyright holders and without any form of trial seems to be an extreme measure for a company that provides such an essential service as Internet access. Suddenlink told TorrentFreak that they are within their rights, just like Comcast said two years ago when they started blocking BitTorrent traffic. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Producer Sues BitTorrent Users, But Doesn’t ‘Own’ Copyright Posted: 24 Sep 2010 06:19 AM PDT The avalanche of lawsuits against BitTorrent users in the United States continues. Several adult producers joined in on the profitable pay-up-or-else scheme recently, but one of them made a costly mistake. Adult producer Mick Haig filed suits against 670 BitTorrent users this week. However, he forgot to register the copyright for his film. This year alone, tens of thousands of BitTorrent users have been sued in the United States by filmmakers. Several law firms are helping out in these cases, most notably the United Stated Copyright Group (USCG) who sued thousands of alleged downloaders of the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker. Soon after the practices of USCG were laid out in the mainstream press, several adult film producers hired lawyer Evan Stone to do the same for them. The procedure in all these cases is identical. Sue hundreds of BitTorrent users, and ask them to settle the case for a substantial sum instead of going to court for a full trial. In previous articles we’ve dubbed this creative use of the legal system as a pay-up-or-else scheme. The number one priority for the people involved is to make money off alleged file-sharers, it’s a new business model that has proven to be very effective. Last week hundreds of new suits were filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The case was filed by lawyer Evan Stone on behalf of Mick Haig Productions, and targets 670 BitTorrent users who allegedly downloaded Der Gute Onkel. No, not the 1912 short film that is in the public domain, but an unknown adult film. The complaint that was filed alleges that Mick Haig Productions owns the copyright to the movie “Der Gute Onkel”. Technically, this may be correct as makers automatically hold the copyright to the content they produce. However, the title was never registered with the Copyright Office which could spell trouble for the ongoing cases. In U.S. law there is plenty of jurisprudence that shows that one can’t pursue a case where the copyrights are not registered. In Positive Black Talk, Inc. v. Cash Money Records, Inc. the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff must show that the Copyright Office has actually received the copyright application before starting a lawsuit. In June 2010, Judge O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas – the same Court where the “Der Gute Onkel” case was filed – cited this ruling and found that registrations not properly pled "are not in the case." Again, this ruling affirmed that copyright has to be registered before bringing a lawsuit. Since the lawyer, Evan Stone, failed to properly inform the Court that the movie in question is not registered with Copyright Office, he has not plead the case properly. For the alleged 670 downloaders this misstep is good news. If any of the defendants challenges the complaint through a motion to dismiss or motion to quash, it should be dismissed. Alternatively, downloaders can argue that they never intended to download a hardcore adult movie, but that they were looking for the public domain movie with the same title. Perhaps they should then sue Mick Haig Productions for the disturbing footage they got to see instead. Evan Stone was contacted for a comment but did not reply before the time of publication. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
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