Court to UK copyright troll ACS:Law: you can't drop your cases

By Cory Doctorow at 2:04 am Wednesday, Feb 9

ACS:Law, the UK law firm that sent thousands of legal threats to alleged illegal downloaders on behalf of pornographers, has been told that it can't simply drop its suits against its victims and avoid having its methods scrutinized by the courts. The judge has clearly got ACS's number, characterising its strategy thus: "Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a portion of the recipients?"

Mr Crossley, who was not present in court, had said that he fully intended to prosecute the cases before pulling out.

The judgment, however, cast doubt on that - pointing out that one of the reasons given for discontinuing the cases was that crucial documents were in storage.

"If true, it is extraordinary," said the ruling. "A party who keeps key documents which are cited in the particulars of claim in storage is not a party anxious to progress their claim in court."

ACS:Law announced that it was shutting down last week, and MediaCAT has also been wound up.

Mr Crossley is now the subject of an investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

ACS:Law told file-sharing case must continue by court (Thanks, Ppopkin, via Submitterator!)