UK pornographer Jasper Feversham was fed up. The Internets were sharing his films, quality work like Catch Her in the Eye, Skin City, and MILF Magic 3. He wanted revenge—or at least a cut. So Feversham signed on to a relatively new scheme: track down BitTorrent infringers, convert their IP addresses into real names, and blast out warning letters threatening litigation if they didn't cough up a few hundred quid.
"Much looking forward to sending letters to these f—ers," he wrote in an email earlier this year.
The law firm he ended up with was ACS Law, run by middle-aged lawyer Andrew Crossley. ACS Law had, after a process of attrition, become one of the only UK firms to engage in such work. Unfortunately for Crossley, mainstream film studios had decided that suing file-sharers brought little apart from negative publicity, and so Crossley was left defending a heap of pornography, some video games, and a few musical tracks.
Crossley parleyed the porn into national celebrity—or perhaps "infamy" would be a better word. Earlier this year, Crossley was excoriated in the House of Lords by Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall—yes, I know—for what "amounts to blackmail... The cost of defending one of these things is reckoned to be £10,000. You can get away with asking for £500 or £1,000 and be paid on most occasions without any effort having to be made to really establish guilt. It is straightforward legal blackmail."
Lord Lucas went on to offer an amendment to the (now-passed) Digital Economy Bill, titled "Remedy for groundless threats of copyright infringement proceedings."
But the Lords were just getting started. Lord Young of Norwood Green likened firms such as ACS Law to "rogue wheel-clampers, if I can use that analogy," while the Earl of Erroll railed against the way that "ACS Law and others threaten people with huge costs in court unless they roll over and give lots of money up front, so that people end up settling out of court. The problem is the cost of justice, which is a huge block. We have to remember that."
Lord Clement-Jones also called out Crossley's work. "Like many noble Lords, I have had an enormous postbag about the activities of this law firm. It is easy to say 'of certain law firms,' but this is the only one that I have been written to about... ACS seems to specialize in picking up bogus copyright claims and then harassing innocent householders and demanding £500, £650, or whatever—a round sum, in any event—in order to settle."
May go for a Lambo or Ferrari. I am so predictable!
That was only the start of Crossley's problems. In the last 12 months, Crossley has been targeted by the Blackpool municipal government, dogged by journalists, hounded by a major consumer group, and hauled up before the Solicitors Regulation Authority for disciplinary proceedings. Baffled, angry people write his office daily, denying any knowledge of his charges. He has blacklisted his own ex-wife in his e-mail client, demanding that she cut off all contact with him forever. Clients press him to pay up. His own data suppliers are, he fears, out to screw him, and Crossley harbors the suspicion that he could make far more money in America, where fat statutory damage awards mean he could demand even more cash from his targets.
And, just to put a ridiculous cherry atop his plate of problems, the streets department in Westminster, London—where Crossley keeps his office—went after ACS Law because some of their office waste mysteriously "ended up in the public highway."
"We are a tightly resourced small firm," Crossley complained as he wheedled the fine in half.
But not that tightly resourced. Crossley bragged over e-mail earlier this year that he "spent much of the weekend looking for a new car. Finances are much better so can put £20-30k down. May go for a Lambo or Ferrari. I am so predictable!" He began looking at new homes, including a gated property with "five double bedrooms, three bathrooms, modern kitchen and four reception rooms."
Keeping track of all the details might not be Crossley's strong suit. As he wrote (one assumes in jest) when a dispute about financial issues came up, "I am not an accountant, true. But I am a genius and everything I do is brilliant. You must understand that!"
He's also dogged. With all the hate, a lesser man might have buckled—as did other law firms like Tilly Bailey & Irvine, which dropped its own "settlement letter" business in April 2010 after "adverse publicity." Instead, Crossley plows ahead, defending work like To the Manner Porn and Weapons of Mass Satisfaction; indeed, he seems rather philosophical about his lot in life.
"Sorry to bombard you with more things to deal with," he wrote recently to a colleague, "but this business seems to have its share of complications." Indeed it does—and the complications get even more complicated when you anger the anonymous masses at 4chan, who promptly crash your website, expose your private e-mail, and in doing so shed a powerful and unflattering light on the real practice of P2P lawyering. Drawing on thousands of personal e-mails, Ars takes you inside the world of ACS Law, reveal its connections to the US Copyright Group, and discovers just what Andrew Crossley thinks of Godfather 3.
Spoiler: "Godfather 3 is not quite as bad as I remember."
Operation Payback
"This will be a calm, coordinated display of blood," said the initial call to action. "We will not be merciful. We will not be newfags."
Users of the free-wheeling (to put it mildly) Internet community 4chan last week implemented "Operation Payback," a distributed denial of service attack against various anti-piracy groups the 4channers didn't like. The RIAA was hit. The MPAA was hit. But after some big targets, Operation Payback moved on to smaller firms, including ACS Law.
I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish.
After the group's data flood knocked the ACS Law website offline for a few hours, UK tech site The Register called up Andrew Crossley to ask him about the attack. The site was "only down for a few hours," Crossley said. "I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish."
He has something to be concerned about now. After these comments, Operation Payback hit ACS Law a second time, knocking out the site. In the process of bringing it back up, someone exposed the server's directory structure through the Web instead of showing the website itself. Those conducting Operation Payback immediately moved in and grabbed a 350MB archive of ACS Law e-mails, then threw the entire mass up on sites like The Pirate Bay.
This is more than a matter of mere embarrassment. The UK has tougher data protection laws than the US, and the country's Information Commissioner has already made it clear that ACS Law could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of pounds. That's because, in addition to his iTunes receipts ("Hooray for iPads. I love mine," Crossley says at one point) and Amazon purchase orders, the e-mails include numerous attachments filled with all manner of private information: names, addresses, payment details, passwords, revenue splits, business deals.
All of which is horrible, terrible, awful news—unless you want to know how a firm like ACS Law actually works.
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