ACS: Law have been making a name for themselves for the past year for sending out very strongly worded letters to people who had been accused of copyright infringement. This might sound perfectly good, except it doesn’t have a shred of evidence that any of the people it sends letters to have actually committed a crime, can’t back up any of it’s very heavy legal demands when asked and has overall been trying it’s hardest to scam as many people out of large sums of money as possible.
Now another UK law firm, Ralli, is trying to launch a group action for harassment against ACS: Law, who were referred to a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal earlier this week. The letters demanded payments that at times totalled up to £750 and threatened court action if people did not pay up.
Ralli has been following ACS: Law for some time and have played a vital part in educating consumers and broadband owners about what to do if they receive such a letter. Now they hope to take that one step further and are calling for anyone who has been affected by one of these letters to come forward.
A member of the law team at Ralli, Michael Forrester, stated:
“We are advising people who have received these letters but have never even heard of the media they are supposed to have obtained. For example, a middle aged gentleman who has been accused of obtaining dance music when he has no idea what the genre is, let alone the artist!
It can be incredibly upsetting for people to receive such letters and they may well have a claim for harassment against ACS Law so I am urging them to come forward.”
It’s great news, but for something like these to succeed Ralli will have to get a much larger band of people behind them than they currently has. The firm has stated that similar legal action is being taken against ACS: Law in the United States.