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.

Filed Under: copyright, shakedown, uk
Companies: acs law, davenport lyons