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Controversial British law firm ACS:Law has had an application for default judgements against eight alleged copyright violators thrown out of course.
ACS:Law came to notoriety following the firm’s strategy of sending out masses of letters to alleged file sharing offenders demanding a settlement or threatening legal action, and which subsequently leaked data online including the revelation that the firm made more from the action than copyright holders.
Default judgements may be granted if the accused parties fail to mount a defence however three of the eight cases had defence cases filed while the firm also failed to show evidence of serving the claims upon the defendants. In the last two cases, the judge decided that ACS:Law’s claim particular could not be applied to a default judgement.
Judge Birss also disagreed with the prosecuting case that allowing others to infringe constituted an infringing act. “The term used by those sections of the Act is "authorising" and the difference may be very important if the allegation is about unauthorised use of an internet router by third parties”, said Judge Birss.
Vitally, Birss also said that only the owner of the copyright has the right to sue for copyright infringement which appears to call into the question the entire strategy of mass threat ‘n settle outfits like ACS:Law.
