Mark Stephens, of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said that Davenport Lyons’ methodology for handling illegal file-sharing cases conforms to industry best practice, and has been adopted in the Digital Economy Bill currently going through parliament (See ‘File-sharing "bully tactics"’, [2010] Gazette, 11 March, 4)’.

We believe Mr Stephens completely misstates the Digital Economy Bill. Davenport Lyons were following a course of action which we think is completely at odds with what the Digital Economy Bill proposes.

Under the bill, if copyright holders want to take action against illegal file-sharers, unless the file-sharing is so flagrant as to warrant immediate legal action, they will not be able to get their lawyers on the case immediately. Instead, they will first have to ask the ISP to write to suspected file-sharers – the identity of the file-sharer will not be disclosed to the copyright holder.

Both rights-holders and ISPs expect this initial letter will be educational and consumer-friendly – it won’t demand payment of compensation or be aggressive in tone. Indeed, the consensus is that the chief aim of the initial letter should be to help consumers understand how to prevent unauthorised use of their internet connection and to explain the risks that they run if they are illegally file-sharing.

This is in contrast to the ‘explain, pay up or be sued’ tactics employed currently by some law firms.

Deborah Prince, Head of legal affairs, Which?