Once Again, 'Defenders Of Copyright' Found To Have No Problem Copying Others

from the funny-stuff dept

We recently discussed UK law firm, Davenport Lyons, which had been criticized widely for running a controversial campaign supposedly to stamp out copyright infringement, but seemed a lot more like extortion to many. Basically it would contract with software companies to enforce their copyright... and would then send out a ton of demand letters (based on questionable evidence) requiring cash payments to avoid being sued. Not surprisingly, many people just paid up rather than risk getting sued -- even if they were innocent. Of course, all the controversy and negative publicity seemed to get back to the company. High profile clients like Atari dropped them. Last month, some noticed a nearly identical campaign, but this time coming from a different company called ACS Law. The only problem? A little investigating suggested that the two firms were clearly related -- with ACS using documents created by Davenport Lyons.

Things continue to get more ridiculous, as TorrentFreak noticed that an article apparently published by ACS Law was actually plagiarized from a variety of different sources, basically cut and pasted together with no credit or citations given at all. Remarkably, in some cases, articles with the exact opposite view of ACS Law were copied with paragraphs that just had an added sentence to the end which completely contradicted what the original article said.

It really is quite amusing how often those who insist they're big supporters of intellectual property and not "stealing" the works of others always seem to get caught red-handed in plagiarism and copying others' work. In the meantime, how often do we see supporters of more reasonable copyright (or no copyright) get caught doing this? Hmm?

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Has Davenport Lyons' Copyright Shakedown Business Gone Under A New Name?

from the hunting-and-pecking dept

We've had a bunch of stories about UK law firm Davenport Lyons, who build up quite a reputation for sending "shakedown" style letters to people accused of copyright infringement. However, the letters were sent out so broadly that they were sent to many innocent people, leading to widespread claims that the whole thing was a shakedown. Rather than actually gathering evidence, the company was just making money by getting a certain percentage of recipients to pay up. Highlighting this point: the law firm never actually took anyone to court over those letters.

As the firm was exposed, it led some customers to back away, realizing the harm it was doing to its own brand. The firm hadn't made much noise on this front lately, but the folks over at TorrentFreak heard about a bunch of very similar letters going out recently and, after investigating them, noticed way too many similarities to Davenport Lyons -- including an identical customer list and the fact that a Word doc on this new firm's (ACS Law) site was created in a copy of Word registered to... Davenport Lyons.

Apparently, rather than reforming, they just decided that it would be better to try to appear as someone different and start pulling the same trick all over again.

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Davenport Lyons Reported To Authorities; DigiProtect Insists Its Actions Are Aboveboard

from the the-developing-story dept

It seems things kept getting worse for Davenport Lyons and DigiProtect, who have teamed up to threaten an awful lot of people that they need to pay up to avoid getting sued for file sharing, usually on extremely flimsy evidence. That means, way too often, the letters are received by innocent people who wonder why they should pay £500 to avoid being sued for something they never did. It certainly feels like a good old fashioned protection racket, and a UK consumer group has now complained to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) in the UK, noting that a number of innocent folks have been apparently bullied by Davenport Lyons into paying up just to avoid being sued for something they never did. The group points out:

Davenport Lyons' letters to alleged file sharers: make incorrect assertions about the nature of copyright infringement; ignore the evidence presented in defense; and increase the level of compensation claimed over the period of correspondence. In addition, the letters threaten, incorrectly, that failing to properly secure an internet connection is grounds for legal action.

Meanwhile, last month we talked about a clause in DigiProtect's contract that appeared to say that the firm promised to upload the content to various file sharing networks, which certainly looked like they were going to spread the content more widely in order to be able to send out more of these "pre-settlement" letters. Considering DigiProtect promotes its service as helping companies profit from piracy, it wouldn't be surprising to find out that in order to increase profit, it has every incentive to first increase the "piracy." However, the company (who has been rather quiet during all of this) has granted an interview to xbiz where it refutes the arguments that it's uploading content, saying that the terms of the contract were simply necessary to transfer the legal rights to DigiProtect. Of course, if that were true, why not say they transferred the actual copyrights, rather than say they had obtained the rights to make content available, along with listing out the specific file sharing networks. Oddly, DigiProtect then goes on to claim that any online distribution of porn is illegal online due to laws against distributing porn to minors. That seems like a total nonsequitor.

The company doesn't explain the claims from its only named client, Evil Angel, about the fact they were told the pre-settlement letters would be for more like $50. It also refuses to name any other customers, though points out that it works with companies besides porn movie makers, specifically noting that it works with software companies too, but it refused to name any. Perhaps that's because software firms like Atari have backed away from these tactics after all of the negative publicity.

In the end, the whole thing seems pretty questionable. Trying to force people to pay up with threatening, misleading letters with extremely flimsy evidence (which has been barred in some countries) is hardly a reasonable business model. Hopefully, companies think twice before signing up for such a program -- and perhaps the SRA will sanction Davenport Lyons for its participation in this scheme.

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Porn Company Claims DigiProtect Lied About Davenport Lyons Settlement Letter Fees

from the well,-look-at-that... dept

The saga of UK law firm Davenport Lyons, and its ongoing efforts to extract money from people for a promise not to sue them, for copyright infringement continues. The BBC is the latest publication to pick up on the story, noting an awful lot of upset people are pissed off at bogus claims from Davenport Lyons about downloading porn films which they insist they had nothing to do with. Since Atari backed out of its deal with Davenport Lyons following the negative publicity, it seems that the law firm is focusing on its porn clients -- the same ones that apparently encouraged middleman DigiProtect to upload their content widely, to make sure more people were "pirating" it.

But the really interesting claim comes buried at the end of the article. The BBC contacted the porn company, Evil Angel, which hired DigiProtect, to get their thoughts on the negative reaction to the whole campaign, and the guy in charge claims that DigiProtect misrepresented the details to him, and he believed the pre-settlement demands were much lower than the £500 that is in the pre-settlement letter:

"It's not my understanding that they ask for anything near that. I think the amount was $50 or €50. I would be very surprised and I wouldn't be happy because it would mean it was completely misrepresented to me."

Of course, this probably means that Evil Angel is only getting $50 (or maybe even less) per "settlement" leaving somewhere in the range of $700 (depends on the exchange rate) for Davenport Lyons and DigiProtect to split. For doing what? Getting some IP addresses and sending out auto-generated form letters. Nice margins, but sort of proves that these settlements have nothing to do with compensating the content creator.

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Atari Backs Away From Davenport Lyons, As More Innocent Threat Letters Are Uncovered

from the ain't-that-called-extortion? dept

With plenty of bad publicity showing up for law firm Davenport Lyons and its ongoing campaign to shake people down with "pre-settlement" letters threatening them with copyright infringement lawsuits if they don't pay up, it appears that things aren't going quite as planned. First, the press has found more people who were apparently falsely accused by the firm -- and this time, it's an elderly couple who are quite horrified that they're being accused of downloading gay porn (this would be the same gay porn where recent reports noted that the publishers were encouraging another company to upload it to many sites, so there would be more people to accuse of pirating it).

On top of that, it appears that Atari, which had hired Davenport Lyons (and whose games were part of the original story of falsely accused people) has now stopped the anti-piracy campaign, canceled requests for identification on various IP addresses and apparently dropped Davenport Lyons in the process. It seems Atari realized that the campaign was generating an awful lot of negative publicity. Shaking down innocent people can do that, apparently.

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Are Copyright Holders Purposely Putting Content On P2P In Order To Demand Money?

from the that's-what-we-call-extortion dept

We've discussed the highly questionable activities of UK law firm Davenport Lyons for its supposed campaigns on behalf of various copyright holders. From what we had seen, the firm wasn't particularly interested in actually protecting content from being shared online -- only in threatening as many people as possible with "pre-settlement letters" to get them to pay up to avoid being sued. This certainly feels like what's commonly called extortion, especially, as it came to light that the pre-settlement letters are being sent to many innocent bystanders. Since this is a business model issue (squeezing individuals to pay up) rather than actually being about protecting copyright, it's no surprise that the pre-settlement letters would be sent as widely as possible, even if there was no actual evidence showing guilt.

However, the situation may be even worse than originally suspected. In an article about Davenport Lyons' latest client, TorrentFreak notes that the copyright holder may be contracting with a company to purposely spreading the content on file sharing networks for the purpose of making it easier to find people to threaten with pre-settlement letters. There are a number of different players involved here, but basically, copyright holders are licensing the copyright on various movies to a firm called DigiProtect. DigiProtect, in turn, hires Davenport Lyons to send out the pre-settlement letters. But in a leaked contract between DigiProtect and one copyright holder, it's made quite clear in the contractual language, that DigiProtect is expected to upload the movies as widely as possible prior to having a law firm send out the pre-settlement letters:

To achieve the purpose outlined in clause 1, LICENSOR grants DIGIPROTECT the exclusive right to make the movies listed in Appendix 1 worldwide available to the public via remote computer networks, so-called peer-2-peer and internet file sharing networks such as e-Donkey, Kazaa, Bitorrent, etc. for the duration of this agreement

In other words, it's quite clear that this has nothing to do with preventing content from getting on file sharing networks. Instead, they're specifically putting it there themselves, apparently hoping to get it as widespread as possible, in order to send out the threat letters more widely, so they can collect on the "settlements" from people scared that they're about to get sued. It's hard to see how that's not a massive abuse of copyright law.

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UK Lawyers Video Game Piracy Shakedown Catching Plenty Of Innocent Bystanders

from the this-is-what-we-call-a-shakedown dept

Last time we checked in with UK law firm Davenport Lyons, they were trying to set up a shakedown process where they threatened to sue as many people as possible for allegedly sharing a video game. Despite some lofty talk by Davenport Lyons, it was quite clear from the beginning that this never had anything to do with copyright. It was just a straight up shakedown. The firm would send threatening letters claiming that it had evidence (even if it did not) and then demand a settlement fee be paid to avoid an actual lawsuit. It's difficult to see how or why that should be legal.

The firm was aided in its quest by drastically exaggerating a legal "win" in one of these cases. The win was because it was a default judgment. The woman that was accused of file sharing did not show up in court, and the court had no choice but to rule against her. Yet, to hear Davenport Lyons tell it, you might be lead to believe that a full blown court case occurred, with a full defense of the actions, and the woman lost.

A lawyer in the UK who was disgusted by this practice, Michael Coyle, has offered to defend as many innocent recipients of the shakedown letter as possible, and now the press is reporting he's already pursuing seventy cases of innocent people being falsely accused (and has heard from hundreds more). The article profiles one such case, where a couple (aged 54 and 66) were accused of sharing a car racing game. The only problem? They have no video games on their computer, nor any file sharing software (and they didn't even know what it was until they got the threatening letter).

Even more ridiculous? They wrote to Davenport Lyons three times without any response. It was only once a magazine picked up their story that Davenport Lyons and Atari dropped the threat. It's about time that the press shines a light on these practices, which clearly have little to do with protecting the rights of copyright holders, and plenty to do with a new, highly questionable, revenue stream that some might call "extortion."

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UK Lawyer Agrees To Represent Falsely Accused File Sharers For Free

from the good-for-him dept

With UK law firm Davenport Lyons ramping up its efforts to send out thousands of "pre-settlement" letters accusing folks of file sharing using flimsy evidence, it appears one lawyer wants to help those falsely accused for free. The Davenport Lyons system works in a pretty straightforward method: it makes use of evidence from Logistep, a company whose evidence is so flimsy it's been banned in other countries in Europe as illegal, and lawyers who have used its evidence have been banned from filing new cases. However, since the "pre-settlement" letters let you avoid a lawsuit for a small fee (less than it would cost to defend yourself in a lawsuit), many just pay up.

However, TorrentFreak has found a lawyer in the UK who also believes that this is unfair, and who is offering his firm's services for free to help those who have been falsely accused by Davenport Lyons. The offer is pretty specifically aimed at those who are falsely accused. He (reasonably so) doesn't seem interested in helping those who actually did infringe on copyrights, and he can only devote so much time and effort to such cases, so he may not be able to take all cases that come his way. However, for those who are falsely accused, who were afraid that it would cost more to fight than to settle, at least there's one potential option to fight back.

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UK Law Firm Exaggerates Its $30,000 Win Over Pinball Game Sharer

from the default-judgment dept

We wrote about the woman who was fined $30,000 for file sharing a pinball video game earlier this week, noting that the press seemed to be taking the word of the law firm that sued her, Davenport Lyons, as if it were fact. That seemed problematic -- and we should have realized that it was even more problematic than initially noted. TorrentFreak has turned up the fact that this was a default judgment against the woman, meaning that she didn't even show up in court to defend herself. Effectively, the court more or less had to decide this way. Davenport Lyons, of course, implied that she had fought the case and lost -- and thus, everyone else would be better off just paying based on the pre-settlement letters that the firm seems to send out in bulk. But that's not necessarily true. There's no indication how a court would rule if an actual defense were put forth.

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Woman Fined Nearly $30,000 For Sharing Pinball Game Software With Friends

from the punishment-fits-the-crime?!? dept

Last month we wrote about how the UK law firm Davenport Lyons had sued over 100 people for supposedly file sharing a silly pinball video game. As we noted, Davenport Lyons has been accused of some questionable practices, such as sending out threatening pre-settlement letters based on extremely faulty evidence from Logistep. Various other countries in Europe have sanctioned lawyers for relying on the same evidence that Davenport Lyons uses, and both Italy and Switzerland have said that Logistep's method of identifying file sharers is illegal -- but that hasn't stopped the firm from continuing its efforts.

And now it's announcing a victory. A woman that it sued has been fined about $30,000 for file sharing that same pinball game. Apparently, UK courts have no sense of making sure the punishment fits the crime. Everyone involved notes that the woman wasn't sharing the game for commercial purposes, but wanted a few friends to be able to play it as well. For that she now needs to pay $30,000?

Oddly, Davenport Lyons used this news to announce that it was suing 100 people for sharing this game... even though it had already announced that last month. Unfortunately, the reporter for the Daily Mail in the UK only takes Davenport Lyons' side of things. The report quotes a lawyer talking about all the evils and losses from file sharing, without any quotes from those who know those numbers are bogus -- and never once questioning why it's reasonable for someone sharing a simple cheap game with a few friends to be fined $30,000. The reporter mentions Logistep, but not the troubles it's faced in other countries (or the trouble lawyers who rely on its evidence have faced). It's time reporters stopped simply parroting this story, which is based on faulty premises, faulty numbers and faulty evidence.

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UK Law Firm Tries Suing As Many People As Possible For File Sharing

from the is-there-a-guinness-record-on-this? dept

The UK law firm Davenport Lyons has made a name for itself in being incredibly aggressive in threatening and suing anyone that it suspects of being involved in file sharing, no matter how flimsy the evidence it has. In face, Davenport Lyons relies on the increasingly questionable evidence provided by the firm Logistep, whose evidence is so shaky that the company has been found to have broken the law in both Italy and Switzerland. And, oh yeah, another lawyer who relied on questionable Logistep evidence has been banned from practicing law in France for six months, after the Paris Bar realized that this questionable "evidence" was being used more for extortion-like "pre-settlement" letters that demand money to avoid getting taken to court.

However, that's not stopping Davenport Lyons, who has found the business to be so lucrative that it wants more people it can threaten. It's now suing over 100 people it believes shared a pinball video game. Once again, you can rest assured that this has little to do with the actual legal merits of the case, and quite a lot to do with simply trying to frighten as many people as possible into paying up on those "pre-settlement" letters. For example, there are numerous misstatements made by Davenport Lyons, including the false claim that these lawsuits are about downloading, rather than uploading. In fact, all the lawsuits are about whether or not someone uploaded the game -- but the lawyer notes: "There is no difference between stealing a DVD from a high street retailer and downloading it from a peer-to-peer network."

Of course, the lawyer is also wrong there. There is a tremendous difference between stealing a DVD from a retailer and downloading it from a P2P network: most notably that in the first case, something is missing and in the second it is not. That doesn't mean it's not infringing, but the two things are quite different. The same lawyer goes on to claim that video games can't continue being made if there is widespread file sharing -- despite evidence from some video game companies that embracing file sharing as a way to gain attention does wonders.

Reality, though, doesn't keep the money coming in. Expect plenty more lawsuits from Davenport Lyons, as the company claims that a recent legal decisions means ISPs need to start handing over names of suspected file sharers so it can send out its nastygrams in short order.

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