Anti-Piracy Lawyers 'Knew Letters Hit Innocents' 240
nk497 writes "A UK legal watchdog has claimed lawyers who sent out letters demanding settlement payments from alleged file-sharers knew they would end up hitting innocent people. The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.' The SRA also said the two lawyers lost their independence because they convinced right holders to allow them to act on their behalf by waiving hourly fees and instead taking a cut of the settlements. The pair earned £150,000 of the £370,000 collected from alleged file-sharers. Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed."
Re:Trash (Score:3, Informative)
A couple of seconds typing "class action uk" into google gave me this: http://www.contactlaw.co.uk/class-action-lawyers.html [contactlaw.co.uk]
Re:Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English! (Score:3, Informative)
"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...which makes you wonder how they can ever be trusted to know what they're doing with these legal threats. Oh, yes, that's right, the whole things is a bit dodgy anyway - that explains the lack of technical awareness.
Right - the Solicitors Regulatory Authority are a bit dodgy - oh wait - they were the ones who used the IP Numeric term, not the lawyers who sent out the notices.
But let's not let facts get in the way of our comments.
Re:Trash (Score:5, Informative)
Class actions don't exist in England, or Scotland. Group actions do, but they are strictly for the benefit those who are direct parties to the action. Unlike class actions, once a judgement is made, it only applies to those who were parties to the action, and not all those affected by the original wrong. Those who were originally wronged, but were not party to the successful group action, must raise a fresh action, and cannot gain anything from a previous group action. So, very different from US class actions.
Re:The letter has no more legal weight than any ot (Score:3, Informative)
Having being on the end of what I felt was a hugely over-stretch request to stop using a trademark (others in the community got a full C&D, I got a "friendly" warning from the company boss - read: barely veiled threat of lawyers) then people change their behaviour because they can't afford not to.
Yeah, I could have risked it and said "you're in the US, I'm in the UK, and I think your argument is tenuous at best given that your trademark is a noun and an agent noun that I am using in a descriptive manner for a similar product, so lets see what you do next", but a) I can't afford to fight it if the lawyers were subsequently drafted in and b) even if I could have fought it, I don't have enough faith in the legal system that I'd win - after all, in this case then the generic term had already been allowed as a trademark.
Moral indignation and protestation is all well and good, but at the end of the day then it is usually "he with most money doth win the contest".
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:3, Informative)
Yes yes, we all know not ALL lawyers are evil.
But a court case requires atleast two lawyers, so what good is it to kill all but the good one?
Re:I have a cat (Score:3, Informative)
One of the reasons I like my cat -- he's got a better attitude then that. Most he does is go somewhere visible and start knocking things over when he doesn't get the attention he wants (he literally finds the nearest place a few feet off the ground that someone is looking at and starts pushing stuff off the edge to make a mess as a bid for attention)...so he's more like a teenaged girl than anything, just with less cutting. =p
Thankfully most of the attention he asks for is of the "I want to sleep somewhere soft and warm, I demand your lap" variety.