UK File Sharers Targetted By Law Firm

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

01 December 2009

Around 15,000 individuals in the UK can soon expect to receive letters from a law firm accusing them of illegally sharing copyright content on the internet and urging them to settle the matter by paying a financial penalty.

Acting on behalf of various rights holders, London-based ACS:Law has obtained two High Court orders that require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to hand over personal details relating to about 30,000 IP addresses that have been identified as sharing copyrighted works via peer-to-peer websites.

The IP addresses were obtained after the law firm hired data monitoring organizations to watch internet traffic and harvest those addresses associated with file sharing. The numbers have been whittled down to about 15,000 after repeat IP addresses were filtered out of the results.

ACS:Law expects to send the letters to those accused of participating in file sharing activity in early 2010, and they will invite the individuals concerned to settle by making a payment of several hundred pounds or risk fighting the claim in the courts. The money obtained is being divided between the law firm, the monitoring companies and rights holders.

ACS:Law said that it was "pleased" with the results of initial batches of claims that have already been sent out, and revealed that 80% of all defendants opt for settlements outside of court, for amounts more than originally claimed.

"Copyright infringers generally buckle when litigation is formally initiated," the company stated in a news item posted on its website.

"Our experience shows that most will seek an out of court settlement and offer to pay costs to date. It has always been our intention to set a favourable precedent and whilst it is disappointing that these settlements mean that a fully contested case has yet to reached the courts, our client's have been successful in recovering monies lost to piracy."

As a result of publicity surrounding its campaign, ACS:Law stated that it has obtained "substantial" new clients, including a number of well known songwriters and software companies.

However, the law firm's tactics have been criticized by privacy and consumer rights groups, some of which are claiming that the letters have targetted many innocent parties.

"There is clearly potential for misidentification of individuals between the IP address and the data kept by the ISP," argued Being Threatened?, a campaign group set up to help those targetted by the letters.

"This is in addition to spoofing concerns and general doubts in the whole chain of custody. Indeed, the ISPs Association has admitted that ISPs aren't convinced that the right people are identified," the group noted.

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