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Legal man Crossley bails on sue-the-fans litigation
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 26 January 2011
The London law firm which became synonymous with sue-the-fans litigation last year has bailed on the whole procedure, with its previously bullish main man blaming harassment from the pro-file-sharing community for his decision to step back from the fight.
As much previously reported, ACS:Law was hired by various content owners – although only minor players from the music industry – to send out threatening legal letters to suspected file-sharers. The accused were encouraged to settle by paying a set damages fee rather than fight the allegations of copyright infringement against them in court.
Even if ultimately ACS’s clients were in the right legally speaking – ie their copyrights had been infringed by those receiving letters – the law firm’s approach was criticised by various quarters. Partly because it felt like the company’s founder Andrew Crossley had entered the sue-the-fans domain not to uphold the principle of copyright, but because he saw a quick buck to be made by intimidating suspected file-sharers into paying out of court settlements and then taking a commission from said payments.
The business seemed to be based on the principle most accused file-sharers would quickly settle however strong the case against them to avoid the hassle of going to court, especially if the content they were accused of illegally accessing was pornographic.
Nevertheless, Crossley insisted he was willing to go to court if and when individuals refused to respond to his legal letters or to settle. But, when he did just that – with a total of 27 cases – it turned out the legal man was much better at sending out intimidating letters than negotiating the intricacies of copyright law in front of a judge. The judge in question, Colin Birrs, questioned Crossley’s process, the right of his clients (as agents of copyright owners) to sue, and the strength of the lawyer’s legal arguments.
So shambolic was Crossley’s court appearance that Birrs called a special hearing to review the whole sue-the-fans system being employed by ACS. As previously reported, keen to avoid any such review Crossley withdrew all of the infringement lawsuits he had so far issued, and then sent a sick note to court on the day of the hearing, which Birrs insisted should still go ahead.
But on Monday he did show up in court, albeit only to bail. In a statement read out by the barrister hired to represent ACS clients MediaCAT, the lawyer said he was stepping back from all his anti-file-sharing work because of harassment. According to Torrentfreak, his statement read: “I have ceased my work. I have been subject to criminal attack. My emails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats. It has caused immense hassle to me and my family”.
Of course, however questionable the tactics of ACS:Law in its bid to make a quick buck on the back the file-sharing phenomenon, none of that justifies the cyber-attacks against the company’s servers, nor any of the personal threats made online against Crossley, however hollow those threats may be. The pro-file-sharing community will see Crossley’s sheepish withdrawal from this particular battle as a victory, but in reality neither side comes out of this overly well. Protesting about lawyers sending out intimidating notes by sending in intimidating notes is a bit hypocritical, to say the least.
But for the content industries, having lawyers like Crossley arrogantly stomping around making suspect claims about copyright law is not a good thing, because, while he never worked for any major music firm, those who like to kick the music business will nevertheless use his likes as ammunition against the mainstream industry in the piracy debate.
And wrapping up this particular chapter of the file-sharing story, Judge Birrs was clear in his criticism of ACS:Law, calling the whole charade “absolutely extraordinary”. According to The Guardian he told the court: “I am not happy about this. I get the distinct impression that at every twist and turn there is a desire to avoid judicial scrutiny. It seems to be first instinct to avoid judicial scrutiny. There’s been thousands of letters, and only [the] 27 cases [brought to court] had to be dropped? I doubt that. Copyright infringement is a serious matter, but this is just mindboggling”.
Birrs added that he had considered banning ACS:Law’s client MediaCAT – who had reportedly starting using a brand new sue-the-fans company set up by former ACS associates after Crossley’s meltdown – from sending out any more copyright claim letters. “That would be an extraordinary order to make,” he noted, “but these are extraordinary circumstances”.
The judge is still to rule on whether Crossley and his company will actually be able to bail on the 27 cases pursued to court and, if its decided not, whether the actual content owners who MediaCAT represent – believed to be the UK’s biggest sex shop chain – will have to join the proceedings as a claimant as well.
