Judge Colin Birss of the Patents County Court (PCC) in London has handed down a judgment, which prevented the now wound-up law firm ACS:Law and company MediaCAT from discontinuing proceedings against 27 defendants they accused of downloading copyrighted pornographic films. Birss was unhappy with how the two had proceeded up to this point, including the fact that MediaCAT did not represent the owners of the infringed material, and wrote: "The advantage of discontinuing as opposed to applying to amend is unwarranted in that it avoids judicial scrutiny of the underlying basis for wider campaign orchestrated by MediaCAT and ACS:Law to generate revenue..." The claimant MediaCAT was a company with a contract with Sheptonhurst, perhaps among others, which owns copyright in the films. Both MediaCAT and Sheptonhurst entered into agreement that would see ACS:Law take 65% of revenue generated from the letter-writing campaign.
