Grubby TBI?
Lots of potentially innocent people are receiving what can only be described as threatening letters from several law firms in the UK. These firms include ACS Law, Davenport Lyons and latterly Tilly, Bailey, Irvine. All very respectable firms, allegedly.
It seems that companies are being created expressly to buy the rights to old porn films, games and so on. Then this rights holder employs legal firms such as those above to chase down people who they say have used peer to peer networks to allegedly breach the copyright of these items. Then it is a quick trip to a judge to get a few thousand names and addresses from ISP’s who don’t question whether they should release these things and bingo! thousands of new “cases” for the admin staff to get their teeth into.
The truth is that it is not possible to prove outright that such an act occured without more forensic evidence than is available to the law firm. This doesn’t put them off. They send what could only be described as a legal-but-threatening letter saying that for a nice sum of money (c.£700-£800) they will settle or else. As Lord Lucas said in the House of Lords “how on earth do you disprove it…without spending a great deal of time and money…this seems to me to be a disreputable thing”.
A quick set of maths. 25,000 letters. 15% success using threats at £800 a time. It’s 3 million for someone. Not bad for something that costs little more than a trip to a big printers and some initial trips to a judge to get the IP addresses (never mind that these civil proceedings don’t seem to justify the release of that data in the first place).
Are they simply upholding the law in defence of legitimate copyright holders? Well you do the thinking. Note the recent use of porn films. Neatly embarrassing. They used to use old games but then Atari refused to work with Davenport Lyons and besides, porn is such a grubby thing that it might be easier for the person being threatened to just pay and be done right?
The company created as the “rights holders” doesn’t actively promote the old porn films that it owns. So, what other reason to buy them than to try to make money from people in this way? Why opt for a settlement if they have such a good case?
So, unless you think that threatening thousands of innocent-until-proven guilty people without any real intention of taking them to court, asking for a tidy settlement sum and making more money from this than they could ever hope to from the old porn film is defending copyright then just maybe you could conclude that these guys are not nice people.
Is it a scam? Apparently not, legally speaking. But it has raised questions in the House of Lords and been the subject of a BBC Watchdog programme.
And isn’t it wonderful to see members of our legal profession behaving so conscientiously? All that training, all those posh offices. Are they a little bit like those grubby investment bankers? Do they sleep soundly at night? One couldn’t possibly say, but my guess is that they wouldn’t if they knew how much their little game was stopping others from sleeping.
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TBI Letters
This is a blog dedicated to those being threatened by letters from legal firms. Please add your comments and experiences.
Here are some useful links:
Being Threatened
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Which? writes to SRA about TBI
TBI (and presumably with reference to their ambulance-chaser-in-chief, Amanda Mitten) have been reported to the SRA by Which?
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Tags: Amanda Mitten, TBI, Which?
Lord Lucas versus TBI: he says TBI are in the Hall of Infamy.
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Amanda Mitten and Friends
Nasty piece of work Amanda Mitten? You decide.
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