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Well, well... The Register reports that Atari has ended its association with attack dogs Davenport Lyons. Could this be because, like other companies are discovering, the idea of sending nastygrams to people who really shouldn't be allowed out on the internet isn't so good - or profitable.
In an undated press release on Davenport Lyons' web site, David Gore, a partner at the firm, says: “Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners. As downloading speeds and Internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues. The damages and costs ordered by the Court are significant and should act as a deterrent. This shows that taking direct steps against infringers is an important and effective weapon in the battle against online piracy.”
The problem is, if law firms keep going for the technically incompetent without stopping to think about the ways in which they may have become unwitting P2P peers through infection, the bad publicity generated means this deterrent becomes increasingly meaningless as more people come forward to challenge their nastygrams. For example, by typing "Davenport Lyons" into Google, I found this thread on a consumer action forum suggesting ways to bog down such actions and otherwise fight back.
It can only be a matter of time before an employee of Davenport Lyons is found to be unwittingly illegally sharing files. As I said in October, the way forward is protection of the innocent from themselves, not their prosecution. That requires technology they can't forget to install or update. The ideal situation is Microsoft putting anti malware protection in the Windows kernel. Great idea, you'd think, but there's now a huge anti-virus industry predicated on them not doing so. It's my guess that not only is this a situation that won't go away, it'll get worse.
