The Davenport Lyons letters

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Well, after deciding I was unable to post a copy of the Davenport Lyons letter – the one that was kindly scanned in and sent to me by a mysterious benefactor – owing to the threats of legal action the company is apparently taking against anyone who distributes said letter online, I was surprised – shocked, even – to find the self-same letter posted on good-old Wikileaks.

The full letter – the same one I was unable to post – is available on their secure website, and thanks to the organisation’s modus operandi is unlikely to be going anywhere soon no matter what threats Davenport Lyons makes.

What a shame someone ignored the strongly-worded threats in the letter against publication.  Oh, well – thank you, kind – and, more importantly, anonymous – Wikileaks contributor.

Davenport Lyons and porn

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Well, it looks like Davenport Lyons has decided that going after alleged sharers of computer games isn’t lucrative enough. To keep the cheques rolling in now it’s approaching Xmas time they’ve come up with a whole new method of making money: porn.

More specifically, accusing people of downloading pornographic movies from peer-to-peer networks.  If you think about it, it would be the perfect scam for an company operating illegitimately – not that anyone could accuse Davenport Lyons of such a thing – : it’s one thing to stand up in court and defend yourself from accusations you downloaded Sid Meier’s Alpha Centurai but quite another to publicly associated yourself with Army Fuckers.

According to the BBC, the letters follow the usual Davenport Lyons theme of “you’ve been naughty, give us £500.”  Again, Davenport Lyons is ignoring the very real possibility that their ‘monitoring’ company, DigiProtect GmBH, is acting on poisoned data.  They’re still laying it on thick and threatening extremely expensive court action too.

The good news is that none of this is worth a damn.  As I’ve said before, make yourself a nuisance and they’ll go away.  So far, not a single person who followed my advice and replied to the demands with a Subject Access Request has been taken to court or made to pay a single penny.

If you’re curious as to what the Davenport Lyons letters look like, a very kind individual has sent me a scan of one he received after being accused of sharing a video file.  Unfortunately, I have been advised that Davenport Lyons doesn’t like the thought of people being able to prepare themselves and collaborate on a defence and is actually threatening anyone who publishes the letter online with legal action.  As a result – and because I don’t want to give them any ammunition that could take this site down – I’m unable to publish it.

As always, keep making a nuisance of yourselves and take heart from the fact that not a single person that has put up even the most basic of defences has been successfully sued by Davenport Lyons.

Davenport Lyons backs down

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Reading the Metro this morning on my way to work – hey, it’s free – I came across an interesting article regarding our old friends Davenport Lyons.  It seems that the lawyers have backed down in the case of at least one couple accused of illegally sharing an Atari computer game – in this case, Race ’07.

Ken and Gill Murdoch received the usual “give us £500 or we’ll sue” extortion-style letter from the firm but denied any wrongdoing, claiming that – and forgive me for quoting direct here – “their internet IP address may have been hijacked by illegal downloaders.”  No, seriously – that’s what the article says.

Although Davenport Lyons has since dropped the case, it took the intervention of Which? Computing magazine on the Murdoch’s behalf to get them to do so.  Sarah Kidner, editor of the magazine, decried the “heavy-handed tactics” employed by the firm but then shot herself in the foot by saying that “consumers need to be aware of the dangers of having their computer address copied by hackers” – again, I’m not making this up.  The editor of a computing magazine, for chrissakes.

Lazy tabloid journalism aside, the article should at least offer hope that Davenport Lyons really don’t have the balls to back up their claims of copyright infringement – as I’ve said all along.

Clearout

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In a brave attempt to rid myself of some of the cruft I’ve gathered over the years, I’ve recently had a somewhat brutal clearout.  As well as all the rubbish that I’ve collected, I’m planning to get rid of the vast majority of my old gaming equipment – including my beloved Commodore C64 collection.

Accordingly, I’ve put a page on this ‘ere site called – surprisingly – For Sale, which contains – again, surprisingly – a list of all the items I’ve catalogued.  The page will be updated just as frequently as I can bring myself to, with the easier-to-catalogue stuff getting added first – which means that the C64 with its two large boxes filled with games will likely be last.

If you’re interested in any of the items you see, make me an offer either via e-mail or through the comment link on the page.

How times change

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I’ve been on a massive clearout session of my old computing stuff with a view to finally decluttering my life after twenty-some years of being an unrepentant hoarder, and I spotted an old brochure lying in the bottom of a box.

Just think – for under £3,000 you can get an ‘ultimate games machine’ with a Pentium 200MHz CPU, 32MB of RAM, and a whole 3GB of hard-drive space!

Let’s compare to my mobile phone shall we?  ARM 266MHz, 16GB of usable space, 64MB of RAM…

I wouldn’t mind, but this was only 1996…

Mobile blogging

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Just a quick update to reassure people that I’m not dead, and to test some new software I’ve put on my ‘phone. With the ability to update the site from anywhere, I’ll really have no excuse not to do so more often!

So long, Black Cat.

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RIP, Black Cat.

RIP, Black Cat.

I’ve just been to collect our second cat, Black Cat, who has been hit by a car and killed.

Although Black Cat wasn’t strictly speaking our cat, we’ve come to love him – and especially his habit of climbing on our laps and cuddling us while purring like a Kawasaki.  He turned up one day unannounced, eating Zumi’s food.  Despite trying our best to get rid of him, he stayed.

Eventually we bought him a collar and put a message for his owners – if any – to call.  Sadly, the only person who called was a motorist who saw Black Cat get knocked down on Thornton Road.

We shall miss him dearly.  God speed, Black Cat.

A grand day out

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Today I broke with my recent habit of spending the weekend slobbing around, and actually did something: a day trip to Shipley Glen.

What a nice day it was too – a ride on the oldest extant tramway in the UK, a walk culminating in a Geocache find, a visit to a small wildlife centre, and finally a wonderful meal in the Old Glen House.

The pub is worth an especial mention: although it was fairly expensive at £17 a head, we had a more than passable bottle of bubbly to wash down our mains.  I had a lovely Ploughman’s Platter with some wonderful cheeses, and Ceri enjoyed her Bangers & Mash immensely.  What was perhaps the most impressive was the free bread as an appetiser – tandoori bread.  I kid you not – freshly baked wholemeal bread (still warm, although that may have been a microwave-aided temperature) flavoured with tandoori spices and served with a small side salad and mango chutney.

Heaven.

Add to the wonderful food and more than drinkable plonk free WiFi – ESSID ‘glen’, no password, no captive portal nonsense – and attentive staff, and it’s a place I wouldn’t hesitate to eat again.  Highly recommended.

The DL claims continue

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Davenport Lyons, the by-now infamous lawfirm situated, sadly, here in the UK, is continuing its campaign of sending threatening letters alleging possibly copyright infringing actions and demanding money.  You may remember a post I made in which I drafted a response asking to see the evidence the firm allegedly has under the auspices of the Data Protection Act.  Although I’m not a lawyer – thank god, I never could eat a whole baby – I do have more than a passing interest in the law and my rights therein.  Accordingly, the letter was drafted as best I could.

Since that time, many individuals both on bit-tech and another forum called Slyck have downloaded and sent off the letter along with the required payment.  Since then, most – as I predicted – have not heard back.  However, some of the very earliest letters have had a reply – here’s an example from bit-tech member nw104hh:

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New door

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My nice shiny new door!

My nice shiny new door!

Still no progress on the roof, but I’m pleased to say that this Monday saw the friendly chaps from Leading Edge Joinery fitting my shiny new door.  A wonderful job they did too – they even transferred the old cat flap, and did such a good job cleaning it that I honestly thought they had replaced it with a new one!  Who knew the centre part was supposed to be transparent?

The chaps even tidied up after themselves – to the extent that I don’t think our front step has ever looked so clean.  It was almost a pleasure to hand the cheque over on completion of the job.  Almost.

It’s heartening to see that some workmen still take pride in customer service, unlike certain other companies – naming no names.