ACS:Law And US Copyright Group Working Together?

from the wouldn't-surprise-anyone... dept

Lots of folks have noted the similarities between the UK's ACS:Law and the US Copyright Group (or, perhaps, more accurately Dunlap, Weaver and Grubb, the law firm that appears to be behind USCG). We've pointed out multiple times that ACS:Law and its predecessor Davenport Lyons have been referred for disciplinary action and even UK politicians have called the whole thing a scam. Apparently, Andrew Crossley, who runs ACS:Law has also been sanctioned twice by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the UK.

But now Robin alerts us to the news that ACS:Law and Crossley are claiming that they're teaming up with US Copyright Group. Or, well, at least we think so. In the grammatically challenged blog post, ACS:Law's anonymous blogger calls it United Copyright Group, so we're assuming that it's a typo:

We are also working in cooperation with a newly-formed organisation, the United Copyright Group, that provides an holistic solution to illegal file sharing and provides a comprehensive set of tools designed to deter and prevent illegal file sharing. More will be written about this new phase of tackling illegal file sharing in due course.

Of course, nothing either firm does has anything whatsoever to do with preventing unauthorized file sharing. It's all about sending threatening letters and getting people to pay up. Either way, this "cooperation" may involve ACS:Law targeting folks in the US via US Copyright Group:

A new joint working relationship with US-based attorneys has opened up the North American region to our clients for identification and pursuit of illegal file sharing of their products.

With this and other operations looking to set up shop in the US, it looks like the courts may soon be flooded with questionable copyright lawsuits of this nature, almost none of which will actually go to court -- but which could freak lots of people into paying large sums of money when they probably don't need to do so. It would be nice if politicians did more than just calling this a scam and sanctioning the lawyers involved in such extortion-like practices. This sort of abuse of the court system for revenue generation should be stopped cold.

Filed Under: automated, copyright, lawsuits, pre-settlement letters
Companies: acs:law, us copyright group

Verizon Handing Over Names For US Copyright Group's Mass Automated Lawsuits

from the shame-on-verizon dept

We've already discussed how the so-called US Copyright Group (which seems like a bit of a front for DC-based law firm Dunlap Grubb Weaver -- tag line: "Lawyers with a Higher Standard" -- since the first named partner in the operation, Thomas Dunlap, also happens to appear to run US Copyright Group) has been filing tens of thousands of questionable lawsuits for certain movie producers, including, most recently 5,000 lawsuits for those accused of file sharing Hurt Locker. Of course, it looks like this particular operation is nothing more than a copy of European operations like ACS:Law, whose main goal is not to take anyone to court, but to get people to pay up to not get sued. In this case, US Copyright Group's starting offer is $1,500 to not get sued. How generous.

When the news of this operation first came to light, it was noted that one major ISP had already agreed to hand over names of folks based on IP addresses. At the time, we wondered who that was. Later on, we found out, Dunlap claimed that 75% of ISPs were cooperating. Again, we wondered who was actually doing this. The only major ISP we know who is fighting handing over the names is Time Warner Cable. In response, Dunlap is trying to advance the novel legal theory (i.e., one that would get laughed out of court) that by not handing over the names TWC is guilty of inducing infringement itself.

Well, now we know at least one ISP that is handing over the names In a rather annoying "photo gallery" put together by News.com that only shows one photo per page so you need to click through a bunch of pages to get the actual story (nice to see News.com stooping to cheap page view boosting tricks), we find out that Verizon is handing over names to US Copyright Group. The photo gallery shows images from one guy who received one of these pre-settlement letters. Verizon apparently gave him less than a week to retain a lawyer to fight the subpoena or it would hand over his info.

This is unfortunate. Verizon was the one big ISP that stood up to the RIAA back in the early days, when it pulled a similar trick, going to court to protect its customers' identities. It's too bad that it no longer thinks so highly of protecting its customers.

Some other tidbits from the letter in the News.com story: US Copyright Group demands $1,500 not to sue, but only if you pay up within a month. After that the price goes up to $2,500. The letter, not surprisingly warns that the producers of the film will seek at least $30,000 per infringement in any lawsuit, with the possibility of asking for $150,000, if it believes it can prove the infringement was "intentional."

The letter cites the ruling against Joel Tenenbaum to support why it's cheaper to pay up. Amusingly, but not surprisingly, it doesn't cite the ruling against Jammie Thomas, who also was ordered to pay huge amounts... until the judge greatly reduced the award. Funny that the lawyers would omit that little fact...

Also, the letter (which is not about Hurt Locker, but about Uwe Boll's Far Cry) points people to www.farcry-settlement.com, which you can check out for yourself.

Oh, as for the guy who showed the letter to News.com. He has an open WiFi setup, says he doesn't know who downloaded the film and appears pretty annoyed by the whole thing:

"For me, the issue here isn't whether or not peer-to-peer is evil," said Harrison, a photographer. "It is whether or not our federal courts and Verizon should cooperate with such an obvious intimidation scam."

Filed Under: copyright, isps, subpoenas
Companies: time warner cable, us copyright group, verizon

US Copyright Group Says ISPs Who Don't Cough Up User Names May Be Guilty Of Inducing Copyright Infringement

from the uh,-good-luck-with-that-one... dept

Thomas Dunlap, the lawyer who set up US Copyright Group, which mimics European operations like ACS:Law in threatening to sue tens of thousands of people on flimsy evidence in mass automated lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement if they don't pay up, sure has some interesting legal theories. We had already noted that at least Time Warner Cable was fighting the subpoenas, and in Dunlap's response, he's claiming that ISPs that don't just roll over and hand over the info open themselves up to charges of contributory copyright infringement under the Grokster standard put forth by the Supreme Court.

I can't see how anyone could possibly find Time Warner guilty of inducement for not handing over subscriber info -- especially not under the standards in the Grokster ruling. Those include that the company had to promote that its service could be used for infringement, that they failed to filter out those infringing uses when possible and that the business plan depended on a high volume of infringement. I don't see any of those three things applying to Time Warner and not handing over customer info on subpoenas. This seems like more bluster from Dunlap to try to get Time Warner Cable to just given in and hand over the names, so he can send out letters demanding payment.

Filed Under: automated lawsuits, copyright, inducement
Companies: time warner cable, us copyright group

Time Warner Cable Stands Up To Automated Copyright Infringement Filing Factory

from the well,-there's-one... dept

We've been covering the new US operation, US Copyright Group. You may recall, it burst on the scene in late March with a claim of having filed 20,000 infringement lawsuits -- many of which were over a Uwe Boll movie, Far Cry, despite much of the infringement allegedly occurring before the film was registered at the US copyright office (a no-no for filing a lawsuit). More recently, the company was apparently gearing up to do the same thing over the Oscar-winning movie Hurt Locker.

During that time, we noted that US Copyright Group claimed that it had gone from having one ISP cooperating to "75%" of ISPs cooperating. This was a surprise, because years back, ISPs had been reluctant to cooperate with similar efforts. So the numbers seemed questionable. Either way, apparently Time Warner Cable is not at all interested in working with US Copyright Group. Instead, TWC went to the court to protest US Copyright Group's efforts:

"Copyright cases involving third-party discovery of Internet service providers have typically related to a plaintiff's efforts to identify anonymous defendants whose numbers rank in the single or low double digits," wrote the cable company. "By contrast, plaintiff in this case alone seeks identifying information about 2,049 anonymous defendants, and seeks identifying information about 809 Internet Protocol addresses from TWC...."

"If the Court compels TWC to answer all of these lookup requests given its current staffing, it would take TWC nearly three months of full-time work by TWC's Subpoena Compliance group, and TWC would not be able to respond to any other request, emergency or otherwise, from law enforcement during this period," said the filing. "TWC has a six-month retention period for its IP lookup logs, and by the time TWC could turn to law enforcement requests, many of these requests could not be answered."

Pretty interesting, given Time Warner Cable's connection to Time Warner, which you would think would make it a bit more open to working with US Copyright Group. The article at Ars Technica also notes that Comcast and Cablevision also aren't thrilled about US Copyright Group's subpoenas. That's three of the largest ISPs out there, so I'm curious about the 75% of ISPs who are supposedly "fully cooperating." It sounds like that claim is about as legitimate as many of the original filings over infringement on a work who was not registered at the time of infringement.

Filed Under: automated lawsuits, isps
Companies: time warner cable, us copyright group

Bad Ideas: Hurt Locker Producers Preparing To Sue Tens Of Thousands Of File Sharers

from the putting-your-fans-in-the-hurt-locker dept

Apparently, the producers of the Oscar-winning movie Hurt Locker haven't paid attention to what's happened on the internet over the past decade. Despite the massive levels of backlash against the RIAA for its "sue consumers" strategy, the folks behind Hurt Locker are preparing to sue tens of thousands of people for unauthorized file sharing of the movie. Apparently, they've signed up with the relatively new operation US Copyright Group, that is trying to copy the strategy used by ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons in the UK, where they send out thousands upon thousands of "pre-settlement" offers to get people to pay up. This process has lead to condemnation from politicians (who have called it a scam) and lawyers being barred from practice and being disciplined by regulatory boards.

But, apparently, that's of no concern to Hurt Locker's producers, or to Thomas Dunlap, the lawyer behind this scorched earth sue 'em all campaign. They may learn -- quite quickly -- about the backlash suing your biggest fans can cause. It's hard to think of a strategic move that will make things worse than this particular move. Have they not noticed what happened to Metallica after that band tried to sue its fans? Lots of people were interested in the movie after it won the Oscar, and plenty of people have been renting it. Yes, lots of people have been downloading it and sharing it as well, but that's not going to stop one way or the other. But in attacking people who want to watch your movie not just with legal threats, but with a full on lawsuit is ridiculous on any level. I actually had Hurt Locker in my rental queue, but there's no way I'm renting it now. I have no desire to support movie makers who would go to such ridiculous lengths for no good reason.

In the meantime, Dunlap and US Copyright Group are now claiming that 75% of ISPs have "cooperated fully." That's a very different story than we heard back in March -- at which time only one ISP had cooperated, and others seemed pretty skeptical. In fact, in that original case, the fact that ISPs cooperated was even more questionable after it came to light that the copyright in question was not registered in time. If it's true that most ISPs are cooperating and handing over IP address info, based on such sketchy proof, that would be a dangerous precedent. What happened to ISPs insisting they would never just hand over such information?

Filed Under: hurt locker, lawsuit, movies
Companies: us copyright group

Are There More Copyright 'Pre-Settlement' Groups Setting Up Shop In The US?

from the warning-letters dept

We recently covered how a recently created outfit going by the name US Copyright Group, had launched tens of thousands of lawsuits (some of which appear to be quite questionable from a legal standpoint), as part of what appeared to be an attempt at copying the efforts of companies like DigiProtect and ACS:Law in Europe (where such practices have been widely condemned). The lawsuits appear to be a smokescreen to get contact information for people to whom this "company" can send "pre-settlement" letters, in which they're told to pay up to avoid the lawsuit.

Considering that this pseudo-shakedown is apparently lucrative in Europe, perhaps others are preparing to do the same in the US as well. A reader who prefers to remain anonymous, but who works for a small ISP, passed along an email he recently received from what appears to be a newish operation called the Copyright Enforcement Group, whose website has a mock law enforcement shield on it. Like US Copyright Group, it doesn't hide behind any claims of stopping infringing content. It focuses solely on how this is a way to "monetize" infringements. The email also points to a separate site called CopyrightSettlements.com, which makes some interesting claims. This is the website where folks can "pay up," and it promises "you will receive a full release of liability" but also that "Your personal information and settlement terms will be kept confidential." Makes you wonder how the two can go together. If your info is kept secret, what's to keep copyright holders from suing again? And does the company make sure it covers all copyright holders for a piece of content? Will it indemnify users if they're threatened or sued again?

As for the letter to the ISP, it was an "introduction," in an attempt to ask for the ISP's cooperation in identifying its users. As we've seen with US Copyright Group, many ISPs refuse to just hand over names, though some will. Hopefully, most ISPs receiving the following letter know better than to just hand over info without a court order. Here's the relevant part of the email:

CEG provides intellectual property management services to a consortium of studios in the entertainment industry. Our clients have entrusted us with their valuable property and authorized us to bring legal action against those individuals who illegally download and/or distribute their copyrighted materials over the Internet.

CEG's proprietary technology detects infringements which occur over the Internet and gathers sufficient evidence to support a claim of copyright infringement against the infringing party. Once infringement is detected, we follow strict multi-step validation procedures to ensure that all information is accurate before we forward the DMCA notice to you. The infringing party is then afforded with an opportunity to settle the matter for substantially less than what will be offered if a lawsuit is filed or compared to the judgment amount a court may enter against the infringer.

We understand and respect the important role that you play in securing the privacy of your subscriber base. However, we, too, are deeply committed to our clients and will vigorously enforce their intellectual property rights against infringement. We sincerely hope that you will join us in our effort to fight Internet piracy.

Looks like this new form of "monetizing" content is spreading. And not in a good way.

Filed Under: copyright, pre-settlement
Companies: digiprotect, us copyright group

Extortion-Like Mass Automated Copyright Lawsuits Come To The US: 20,000 Filed, 30,000 More On The Way

from the this-is-not-how-the-legal-system-is-supposed-to-work dept

Uh oh. It appears that a group of independent filmmakers don't seem to recognize the kind of backlash they can receive for going to war against file sharers. It appears that a company, ridiculously named the US Copyright Group, has signed up a bunch of independent filmmakers, with the unofficial backing of Independent Film & Television Alliance, to follow in the footsteps of the disastrous European automated copyright infringement threat letter campaign, and have already gone after 20,000 alleged file sharers with another 30,000 about to follow. Five specific lawsuits have been filed, listing the 20,000 IP addresses accused of infringement.

We've covered the shenanigans of companies like DigiProtect, Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law over in Europe for a while, where they monitor BitTorrent activity and then send out tens of thousands of "pre-settlement" threat letters, demanding payment to avoid a lawsuit. Of course, with such a machine gun approach, a ton of totally innocent people are sent such letters demanding payment. This practice has been condemned by politicians, consumer advocates, lawyers, ISPs and even (believe it or not) the recording industry. Some of the lawyers involved in these programs have been referred for disciplinary action and some involved in this practice have been barred from practicing law.

And yet, apparently these letters are really lucrative. Many people just pay up to avoid any lawsuit -- and many of the companies in the space pitch this not as a way to "stop file sharing" but as a way to "monetize file sharing." In fact, with at least some companies in the space, they're seeding the content themselves -- despite the fact that this raises all sorts of questions over whether or not this is "authorized."

For a while, we've wondered why such practices have stayed in Europe, and assumed that perhaps those in the US had looked at the disastrous PR results of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. Or, maybe, seen how well-known companies quickly backed out of such schemes after the negative publicity of mass threat letters. These days, most of these threats seem to come from porn providers and small software firms.

However, with this new campaign in the US, it looks like the lawyers involved (built off a program in Germany) have signed up a bunch of independent film producers. The full story, by Eriq Gardner at THREsq, has plenty of details. Apparently, the lawyers sought to get the support of both the IFTA and the MPAA, and got some sort of unofficial support:

Before doing so, however, Dunlap talked with the IFTA, which wouldn't explicitly endorse the litigation, but which agreed to be generally supportive. Dunlap also talked with the MPAA and other big studios, which expressed interest but wanted to see proof that ISPs would be cooperative. And so, in the past few weeks on behalf of some low-key indie films, the first lawsuits were filed.

Of course, those involved are also touting this as a "revenue stream" and "monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel." That's a really stunning statement when you think about it. While I'm sure some independent filmmakers are happy to get some money, this is a scorched earth method of getting paid. This is putting a gun to people, based on little evidence, and forcing them to pay up.

That's not how you build a business. That's not how you build up fans. It's certainly not going to build up any loyalty.

Gardner's article highlights three risks with this plan: the PR disaster potential, the legal questions over IP addresses as evidence as well as whether or not a BitTorrent fragment really is infringement, and ISPs' general unwillingness to hand over names without a lawsuit filed:

To get past ISPs, a copyright holder needs to file a "John Doe" case and get a court to issue a subpoena that orders the ISP to hand over information. This can be costly. According to Dunlap, ISPs are charging $32 to $60 for each IP address account requested. ISPs cite the cost of notifying the account holder and giving them opportunity to file a motion to quash the subpoena.

When the U.S. Copyright Group filed its recent lawsuits and approached AT&T and other ISPs for account information, the lawyers say they were stunned at the reaction. "Their subpoena compliance group said, 'We thought we had shut this (approach) down with the MPAA before,'" says Dunlap.

The difference between the MPAA's past approach and the new one being offered by the US Copyright Group could come down to numbers. Weaver says the MPAA took a less targeted approach going after a smaller sampling of infringers in a single suit for multiple films, to send a message that would hopefully resonate to a much larger crowd. In contrast, Dunlap and his partners are using the new monitoring technology to go after tens of thousands of infringers at a time on a contingency basis in hopes of coming up with the right cost-benefit incentive to pursue individual pirates.

He then noted that one ISP (unnamed, unfortunately) has cooperated and just handed over 71 names, all of whom were sent "settlement offers." The other ISPs, who fought this in the past, are apparently trying to fight it here as well. Hopefully the courts shut down such a blatant machine gun approach quickly.

But the bigger issue, really, is that anyone thinks this sort of move makes business sense. We've been seeing more and more independent filmmakers embracing smart new business models that involve building a loyal fan base and giving them a real reason to buy. We've seen independent filmmakers embracing file sharing to their own advantage, building up huge and loyal followings, and then figuring out how to sell them something valuable and scarce. To see a bunch of independent filmmakers now go down this extortion-like path instead is really disheartening.

Filed Under: copyright, file sharers
Companies: us copyright group