Court Clears Way for "Wasted Costs" Claim Against Copyright Law Firm
A judge in the U.K. has cleared the mode for defendants to pursue legal firm ACS:Law and its owner Saint Andrew Crossley for "wasted costs" over copyright violation cases the company never actually intended to charter to tourist court.
ACS:Law attained itself no small amount of notoriety for sending out letters to thousands of internet users, threatening them with action for assorted acts of right of first publication violation if they didn't fork ended a £500 ($790) "village fee." Information technology's a pretty sebaceous scheme, relevant that even the powerfully pro-copyright British Phonographic Bring radius down against ACS:Law's methods, but yet "thousands" of hoi polloi remunerated ascending to make it go away, according to TorrentFreak, to a total tune of about £1.5 million ($2.5 million).
Disdain clearly non wanting to really follow any of the cases in court, the firm was eventually forced to do just that thanks to some backfired ratified shenanigans and an browned off judge. Shortly after the judge's refusal to let the firm simply drop cases against 27 defendants, Crossley claimed that he had been subject to "demise threats and bomb threats" as a final result of his work and was thus quitting the business enterprise entirely, but it doesn't look care he'll be able to get off quite an that easy.
Judge Birss QC has decided that claims of "wasted costs," which first came up in January, can constitute chased against the law firm. "I am quite satisfied to the standard necessary for this stage of a wasted costs application that Mr Crossley is responsible for the Introductory Agreements [the license agreements between Media CAT and novel copyright holders] and has thereby acted in breach of the Solicitors Prevai 2.04," he wrote in a ruling available on bailii.org. "I should phonograph record that even if, which would surprise me greatly, the revenue sharing arrangements Mr Crossley put in place do not violate the letter of the alphabet of the rules, they are improper in some event within the pregnant of paragraph 53.4(1) CPD (Ridehalgh v Horsefield p232D-E) in that they can fairly beryllium stigmatized as such. I also find (to the same standard) that the revenue sharing arrangements are unreasonable inside the aforesaid paragraph in that they do not permit of a reasonable explanation."
"As I set up in my previous judgment (paragraph 99) Mr Crossley/ ACS:Law had a very real worry in avoiding judicial scrutiny of the cause of action because of the revenues from the varsity letter writing campaign," helium continued. "In my judgment the combination of Mr Crossley's revenue sharing arrangements and his Robert William Service of the Notices of Discontinuance serves to exemplify the dangers of such a tax revenue sharing musical arrangement and has, prima facie, brought the legal profession into disrepute. It may be better placed under the revenue sharing heading in this perspicacity but it is, clear, improper conduct in any event."
And in case suggesting that ACS:Law's behavior brought the legal professing into discredit wasn't reinforced enough, the judge also described its antics equally "chaotic and lamentable" and "unskilled and slipshod." Industrial-strength stuff indeed. It seems clear that while legitimise claims of copyright violation must withal be taken severely, intimidation manoeuvre and undiscriminating attacks against nervous consumers, at least in the U.K., is not going to be tolerated.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/court-clears-way-for-wasted-costs-claim-against-copyright-law-firm/
Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/court-clears-way-for-wasted-costs-claim-against-copyright-law-firm/
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