Ares Connect

The judge at the centre of the much publicised ACS:Law and MediaCAT copyright infringement case recently heard at the Patents County Court, finally delivered his scathing judgement on Wednesday 9th February.

There were more than seventeen thousand words of criticism against the two protagonists responsible for a catalogue of speculative invoicing cases, but as well as the long litany of criticisms against Andrew Crossley and his partner in crime, MediaCAT, the judge raised a few issues that could have serious implications for the Digital Economy Act in the UK.

Judge Birss commented that monitoring done to identify an IP address as part of a copyright infringement exercise cannot possibly identify whether an infringement has actually taken place given the widespread use of Internet routers. This technicality is crucial to the Digital Economy Actsomething that will probably be discussed at a planned judicial hearing next month following applications by leading ISPs BT and Talk Talk.

The ruling could have serious repercussions on future speculative invoicing scams carried out by other greedy law firms in the anti piracy arena who are seeking to make an easy profit, of which there are still a few left despite the humiliations suffered in recent months by ACS:Law.