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Verizon to Reveal Customers in DMCA Subpoena Case 470

Posted by michael from the end-of-the-line dept.
JulisJ writes "NYTimes reports that Verizon will turn over the names of online subscribers accused of swapping music. This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit." There's also a story on News.com. See our previous story for background.
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Verizon to Reveal Customers in DMCA Subpoena Case More

Verizon to Reveal Customers in DMCA Subpoena Case

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  • Mirror (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitalsushi ( 137809 ) * <slashdot@digitalsushi.com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:46PM (#6125874) Journal
    here is a mirror in case the article gets slashdotted (sure to slashdot me as well i'm sure)

    http://digitalsushi.com/home/mikec/mirror.gif

    *ducks*

  • Soooo.....They're going to name names? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:47PM (#6125878) Homepage
    ...Does that constitute filesharing? :)

  • where is it going to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sweeney37 ( 325921 ) * <.mikesweeney. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:48PM (#6125886) Homepage Journal
    "The Court of Appeals decision confirms our long-held position that music pirates must be held accountable for their actions and not be allowed to hide behind the company that provides their Internet service," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement.

    Pirates by whose account? Their good guess? To the RIAA/MPAA we're all guily until proven innocent. We've already seen cases [slashdot.org] where the RIAA has made mistakes in identifying the true pirates. How many more mistakes are they going to be allowed to make without a penalty for their actions?

    Mike

    • Re:where is it going to stop? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Adaere ( 96166 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:53PM (#6125931) Journal
      There's actually something about RIAA making a mistake in the article:

      Ms. Deutsch, the Verizon lawyer, noted that the industry trade group apologized last month to Pennsylvania State University for sending a warning to the school's astronomy department demanding that songs by the musician Usher be removed.

      It turned out the trade group's automated search program had matched files containing the name of a retired professor named Peter Usher and "mp3," the name of a popular music format, spurring the group to issue the erroneous cease-and-desist letter.

      So, they didn't even listen to see what the file was before sending out the letter.
      I wonder... was the professor singing one of their songs, singing one of his own songs, or was it just a lecture?

    • Re:where is it going to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord_Slepnir ( 585350 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:53PM (#6125932) Journal
      How many more mistakes are they going to be allowed to make without a penalty for their actions?

      Lets see, it's a $10,000 bribe per congress-person per mistake. Assuming they want to bribe a little over half of congress, that's about 300 bribes, so about 3 million per mistake. Now, we all know that they are losing about 3 billion a year to piracy according to their own numbers, and, by their logic, once we see the error in our ways we'll start buying like we should, so that means that this will get them back that 3 billion. So they only need to make 1000 major mistakes before it becomes economiacally viable for them to do this!

      • First, a typo on my part. The last sentence should read: "...before it becomes economically viable for them not to do this"

        Normally, I don't mind being modded up, but when I pull some numbers out of my ass in an attempt to be funny, can you at least give me the funny mod points? Then again, that's the same place the RIAA got their numbers, and they expect to be taken seriously, then so should I....

    • Re:where is it going to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:56PM (#6125965) Homepage Journal

      Where it stops depends on whether a backlash develops that hurts legitimate sales. If the people being dragged into court are clean cut kids from Wisconsin instead of the slimy guy selling pirated CDs out the back of his Chevy, then the backlash could be pretty strong.

      I used to think that if they busted a few kids to make an example out of them, it might put the brakes on it. But file swapping has gotten too big now to really stop casual piracy. Besides, what RIAA is trying to do right now won't stop the slimy guy anyway. What will help is getting the price of CDs down and making legitimate, no strings attached, music buying/downloading easy and widespread. That makes sense to me, but some people just have to learn the hard way.

      • Too late now... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lpret ( 570480 )
        True about what they need to do, but I think it's too late. Kids won't pay for what they got for free. It would have to be ridiculously cheap (like 5 cents a song) for it to stop piracy.

      • Re:where is it going to stop? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Amazing Quantum Man ( 458715 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @06:35PM (#6128145) Homepage
        Where it stops depends on whether a backlash develops that hurts legitimate sales.

        No, that won't work.

        RIAA: What? Our profits are down? !@#$ Pirates!!! Quick, we need to buy some more laws!

      • It won't stop (Score:3, Interesting)

        by phorm ( 591458 )
        "The technology will move faster than the court systems," said Jorge A. Gonzalez, the founder of Zeropaid.com, a repository of information for file-sharing software. "The new programs being developed are going to mask users. By the time Verizon has to start turning over a lot of names, the identities of users will be unknown."

        That about sums it up. Filesharing isn't going to disappear, it will just get smarter. Eventually, we'll start pulling the same measures as email, although they might be more effect

  • What are they gonna do? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Surak ( 18578 ) * <.surak. .at. .mailblocks.com.> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:48PM (#6125888) Homepage Journal
    Oh yeah, what are they gonna do? Come and arrest me?

    BRB, someone's knocking on my doo..&)DFF *& &FEfew8afujewa8iop9u

    NO CARRIER

  • Jesus... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spytap ( 143526 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:49PM (#6125897)
    /me hopes I'm not one of them...
  • Do these people who are being identified know who they are? Does anyone know if Verizon contacted them and made them aware? If so, would Verizon liable if they packed up, deleted all the potentially infringing files and left the country?

    • Didja get the memo, Peter? Re:I'm kinda curious (Score:5, Informative)

      by bourne ( 539955 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:55PM (#6125956)

      Do these people who are being identified know who they are?

      Let's me do some extensive research for you...

      (reads article)

      Yes, they do:

      "Ms. Deutsch said Verizon had already informed the two people whose information is the subject of its lawsuits against the recording industry group. The group has filed two additional subpoenas, and those subscribers have also been informed that their names are to be divulged."

    • Yes, they know who they are. If you RTFA you will see that one of them has already filed a statement saying that they have completely removed KaZaA from their computer.

  • RIAA (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:51PM (#6125913)
    The RIAA are also covering [riaa.org] this. (very smugly I bet)

  • Big Blow to WHO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spiedrazer ( 555388 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:52PM (#6125916) Homepage
    How could this be a big blow to those who are file swapping legit? If you are legit but the activity looks like you are a major illegal abuser, you will probably be investigated, but the chances of that are slim.

    You 'Kids' need to understand that MOST file swapping is illegal, so the legit uses will suffer because of it.

    • To whom, brother.

    • eh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by _avs_007 ( 459738 )
      The professor? Chances are with this precedent, the RIAA will just demand all the names of people they _think_ are trading illegal files. Knowing the ISP, they'll probably hand over the names, and disconnect your service in the process for violating TOS. The ISPs will just assume everything is true.

      Since the RIAA didn't even bother CHECKING the files first, who knows how many people are going to get screwed this way. I'm sure there are Pro-RIAA zealots out there who PURPOSEFULLY put out fakes. Well I guess
      • There doesn't need to be any Pro-RIAA realots to release fake files... The RIAA itself does it. For starters, look up whatever popular CD that is supposed to be released a few weeks from now, then go to Amazon to get the track list, then do a search on Kazaa for those tracks. Chances are, you'll get some track of an interview, or the chorus sung over and over for 4 minutes, like they did with Eminem's Without Me [amazon.com], or Linkin Park's new album, Meteora [amazon.com].
    • Just out of curiosity, I wonder what would happen if somebody used the RIAA's tricks as a defence. I am not a lawyer (yet), but I've heard that the RIAA puts up fake music on p2p networks in order to frustrate file swappers.

      An argument could be made that searching for songs is really just a search for the publically distributed mp3 files the RIAA is releasing to the Internet. (I was looking for the RIAA sanctioned madonna MP3 file with her talking about stealing. It's not my fault I happened to accident

    • Re:Big Blow to WHO? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by calethix ( 537786 )
      " How could this be a big blow to those who are file swapping legit? If you are legit but the activity looks like you are a major illegal abuser, you will probably be investigated, but the chances of that are slim."

      What if I'm one of those people that has a vast cd collection that I want to convert to MP3s so I can queue up several hundred songs on my computer without swapping CDs and I'm also to lazy to encode them all myself so I download them. Is that legit?
      Or if I sat my big ass down on my favorite

    • Re:Big Blow to WHO? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Telastyn ( 206146 )
      Sorry, MOST file swapping is very legitmate. Just because it turns out as a web page or an email doesn't change the fact that it is for all purposes file transfer, and could just as easily be used to transfer song encoding.

      It's a blow to anyone who uses an ISP. You think it is trivial to keep and recall login records for ISP users? Do you think that cost will be paid for by the RIAA and not consumers (even legit consumers)?
  • IANAL, but can they still prove the individual's guilt if they wiped there hard drive?

    "Oh someone must have spoofed my ip! I don't trade music, I swear!"
    • It depends on how far they want to go. It's relatively difficult to completely wipe a hard drive clean, especially for 99.9% of the people that download songs off Kazaa.

      When you delete a file, you're not really removing that file's existence from your hard drive. You're telling the operating system (or the file system... whatever) that the file should no longer be linked, and to consider that space available for writing. Then, the next time you try to save something, the operating system writes over the a

      • Re:Yeah, but can they prove guilt? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        dban does it:
        http://dban.sourceforge.net/

        We've tested this with a forensics agency (We're an IP law firm, dealing with tech you'll see in 2-5 years)

        The initial wipe takes 5-10 minutes, the more effective wipe takes 3-10 hours, depending on drive size.
      • "I don't think formatting actually deletes the files either... I think it just tells the file system that all the space is available for writing. (I may be wrong, but I don't think I am.)"
        You're correct. Under most circumstances, formatting just writes a new filesystem onto the harddrive. All you're really doing is changing the filesystem type and storing whatever special info the fs needs, not writing every inode it creates. To test this cat the partition you just wrote a filesystem to and look at how muc

      • Re:Yeah, but can they prove guilt? (Score:5, Funny)

        by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:22PM (#6126230) Homepage Journal
        Checklist for protecting myself from RIAA

        Back up all data to stranger's off site secure data storage center.

        Buy a couple of new hard drives.

        Move all non-infringing work to the new hard drives.

        Buy and install a bench grinder.

        Grind down the old hard drives with infringing material on them to dust.

        Buy a bench forge.

        Melt down dust from grinding hard drives.

        Make ingots of the materil.

        Ask Drive Savers to recover the infringing material from the ingots, they claim a 95% recovery rate, should be a good test.

        Turn over recovered material to RIAA when they come a knocking at the door.

        Spend several years in penn for resisting arrest and destruction of evidence.

        -Rusty

        • Re:Yeah, but can they prove guilt? (Score:4, Funny)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @06:37PM (#6128155) Journal
          Back up all data to stranger's off site secure data storage center.

          Hey, I've got an idea, why don't you use the backup service known as Kazaa? They're not very reliable, but they are free. You just share the directory you want backed up, and in a few weeks you will be able to recover it from anywhere in the world. It's a co-operative system, so if you are using it in this way, you should probably download some files from someone else's computer so that you can act as a back up for them as well. Oh, you were doing that already? You'd already backed up several users disks, you say? Well, that was generous of you. And you're being prosecuted for it? Whatever for?

      • No, the only way to make 100% sure is to physically destroy the platters. This is why the federal government, military, and several large universities that do classified work in some parts mandate drive destruction when surplusing old computers.
    • Does it really matter? The RIAA gains more through these high-profile cases than they do through actually getting some sort of sentence through the courts.
    • Partition magic has an option that will write 0's to every sector of a drive, thereby overwriting any previous traces. you can also use dd to do this, dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

      This will effectively destroy any data on the drive, although it may also hose the drive too....

  • Doesn't effect me (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spuds ( 8660 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:53PM (#6125926) Journal
    This is the reason I only download movies and Tv shows. Music is much too dangerous.

  • I'm no legal expert but ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jrl87 ( 669651 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:53PM (#6125933)
    doesn't this fit under illegal search and siezure?

    I am pretty sure, but not certain, that you have the right to view the search warrant to see if it is valid. Now since your internet provider gets the warrant they have they right to look at it, but since they are not searching your property its legal for them to take whatever your IP has on you. But isn't any information that the IP gets on you illegal since it was an illegal search and seizure of sorts or did we sign away all of rights to privacy when we signed their EULA thing?
    • The RIAA will probably have to get individual warrants to search each customers computer after the names are released by Verizon. I doubt the warrant that was served to Verizon asking for the names gave them authorization to search the customers computers, it is most likely two seperate orders.
    • I think the court ruling supersedes that. Arguably, the customers were (maybe, possibly, the RIAA hopes) violating copyrights and Verizon is simply withholding their names. It's akin to a journalist withholding a murderer's name when the murderer confessed to them out of journalistic integrity. That, and I didn't read anything about search warrants in the article (at least the news.com one). The RIAA just wants names, and, although that's pretty shitty of them, it's certainly not a "search and seizure" i
      • "It's akin to a journalist withholding a murderer's name"

        No it isn't. Murder is a violent crime, usually punishable by death or life in prison, and involves taking the life of a human being.

        Copyright infringement is in a wholly different realm of law from murder, or even shoplifting.
        Please do not make apples-to-oranges comparisons and pretend that it supports your premise.
        • The other thing to remember is that our hypothetical journalist could only be compelled to reveal the murderer's name by a Judge (albiet a hypothetical one;-).

          That is, in my opinion, the largest issue here. I do not have an issue with the RIAA subpoenaing ISP's for customers they believe to be infringing as long as they have to go through the court process and show their hand to a Judge in order to get the subpoena. As long as due process is followed, then it should be OK.

    • That was a nice try but I don't think so. Verizon has the right to log whatever crosses their network. Just like I have the right to record information regarding someone port scanning my system. It's Verizon's hardware, not the customer's.

  • Can you blame them? (Score:5, Informative)

    by krisp ( 59093 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:54PM (#6125934) Homepage
    If they don't, it's their asses on the lines for obstruction of justice.

  • My boss sent me this via email today ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:54PM (#6125935) Homepage Journal
    I don't know why exactly it is that I was sent this article, maybe because he was bored and wanted to send it out to all the employees or maybe he thinks we're all pirates.

    I think that the RIAA and MPAA have gone way too far. We don't need a private or secret police force in america, and we certainly don't need already super rich industries suing everyone with a DSL line to their home.

    I'm truly begining to wonder when it is exactly that the public at large is going to stand up against this horrible abuse of power and perfect example of corruption of democracy and say, ENOUGH. This is getting very old very quickly and I'm tired of always hearing about the *AA lawsuits.

    P2P is here to stay because people don't value the bilboard top $100 as worth $15 a CD, they value it as giving it the time to download the song. It's the same with anything else, entertainment is valued at what the consumer is willing to pay for it, it's the fact that these companies think that they're losing income. NO YOUR NOT, it's not that valuable to us and we're not going to pay for it so quit trying.

    Is this concept really so hard to understand?

  • If I were one of those people, I would sue Verizon for releasing my information.
    • Oh yeah? You and who's wallet is going to sue Verizon?

    • Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by clonebarkins ( 470547 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:09PM (#6126114)
      If I were one of those people, I would sue Verizon for releasing my information.

      That's dumb and counter-productive. Verizon has been supporting (probably at significant legal costs to themselves) the rights of these people to remain anonymous. To turn around and sue them is, to use a cliché, like biting the hand that feeds you.

  • Will you continue filesharing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rkz ( 667993 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:55PM (#6125955) Homepage Journal
    After hearing this news many people are going to be discouraged by filesharing. This could be the end of people thinking they can get away with it.

    So the implications will be:

    1) People will stop sharing their files and leech

    2) People will stop sharing and move over to services like eMusic/Apple.

    3) Everyone starts using freenet!


    The last option sounds the best, its the evolution of Filesharing like Kazaa was after Napster. The more they attack pirates the further underground they push them.

  • I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by override11 ( 516715 ) <cpeterson@gts.gaineycorp.com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:55PM (#6125959) Homepage
    ...how much this is going to effect their subscriber base. I would leave them for sure if I saw my ISP doing this kinda stuff. :P

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Leave them for who?

      It doesnt matter who you go to, the courts have ruled that the MPAA/RIAA (or anyone with a fax machine, for that matter) can subpeona your information.

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Informative)

      by tempest303 ( 259600 )
      They won't be missed!

      File steali... *ahem*, sorry, forgot my /. Euphamism-o-matic. I mean file "sharing" fanatics get no love from ISPs. The hardcore p2p users are the ones that suck up the most bandwidth of anyone - I've seen it with my own eyes, having worked for one of the largest cable ISPs in the country. That kind of bandwidth hogging is the reason for the proposed monthly bandwidth caps. Those users are a losing proposition for the ISP, and they won't be missed when they leave!

      • Those users are a losing proposition for the ISP, and they won't be missed when they leave!

        I'm sure its inconvient to oversubscribe your bandwidth, sell imaginary bandwidth to your customers, and then face the prospect of one or two of them actually using that bandwidth. If doing business fairly is what you describe as a losing proposition, then I think I need to place a call to my representatives, the FTC, and the BBB to have rip off artists such as yourself closed down.

  • Music file sharing ?!? (Score:3, Funny)

    by fred_sanford ( 678924 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:56PM (#6125966)
    do have to worry about the RIAA/MPAA if I watch my pr0n with the mute on?

  • Senator writing bill to oppose this sort of thing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phoenix666 ( 184391 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:58PM (#6125991)
    I submitted this story [com.com] earlier today, but it didn't make it. Basically, Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas is announcing the "Consumer,Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Awareness Act," which will, among other things, require that a copyright holder win a lawsuit in order to obtain the name of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate.

    In the meantime, I say turn about's fair play: let's all of us accuse the RIAA of illegally distributing our copyrighted material and invade their privacy without bothering with the courts. Let's rat out every music executive out there who's downloading kiddie porn or sending naughty emails to their mistresses. Hey, if they can do it to us, why can't we do it to them?

    my 2 cents...

  • Well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anixamander ( 448308 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:00PM (#6126013) Journal
    This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit.

    Exactly. Both of those people may be forced to use ftp.

  • Are You Special? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WC as Kato ( 675505 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:01PM (#6126022)

    The case immediately exposes the four defendants to legal action.

    The nytimes.com and news.com articles don't say anything about why these 4 guys are being singled out. What about all the other millions of guys out there using P2P to swap music? Are they just trying to make a guy feel left out?

  • I saw Cary Sherman in last years model Mercedes (Score:5, Funny)

    by curtisk ( 191737 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:02PM (#6126040) Homepage Journal
    poor guy....I mean last years model??*snort* Shameful!

    Given that an epidemic of illegal downloading is threatening the livelihoods of artists, songwriters and tens of thousands of other recording industry workers who bring music to the public

    Epidemic? Gotta love that spin....If the artists weren't getting bent over by the RIAA in the first place, it'd be even less of an issue.
    I've yet to hear of any artists or workers that are pan-handling or have become squeegee people....In other news the RIAA states that file-sharing is causing the sky to fall and the world to flatten!

    Methinks Verizon will lose many a customer over this.

  • Four? (Score:2)

    by BrynM ( 217883 ) *
    "four online subscribers"

    With all of the Verizon subscribers, why did they pick four? Was it the volume of files that they had or is it that once they have the four, they have firmer legal ground to go after the rest?

  • What about pending Legislation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:09PM (#6126117)
    at msnbc, where this story is running also, (http://www.msnbc.com/news/922214.asp?0dm=C12LT) they state at the end "Meanwhile, both sides (RIAA and Verizon) are closely watching for legislation coming soon from a Republican lawmaker that would require copyright holders to file an actual legal case against a suspected infringer before they seek the subscriberâ(TM)s identity via a subpoena."

    Anyone know who is proposing this and what it entails? Any other details?

    -DarDack
    "Life is not fair"
    • scroll up a few posts...

      Senator writing bill to oppose this sort of thing (Score:2)
      by Phoenix666 (184391) Alter Relationship on
      Thursday June 05, @02:58PM (#6125991)
      I submitted this story [com.com] earlier today, but it didn't make it. Basically, Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas is announcing the "Consumer,Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Awareness Act," which will, among other things, require that a copyright holder win a lawsuit in order to obtain the name of an alleged peer-to-peer pir

  • Copyrighting My Identity? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by javacowboy ( 222023 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:13PM (#6126146)
    I know this may be out of left field, but could I not copyright my identity? What's to stop me from copyrighting my name, address, phone number, email, IP address, etc? If my ISP were to reveal my identity, I could then initiate the same process that the **AA is initiating against file swappers. This way, anyone who infringes on my privacy by either sending my spam, telemarketing, revealing my address, engage in identity theft, or revealing my identity to people/organizations I don't want would be guilty of copyright infringement.

    Just a thought.
    • I worked with a moron that did this. He copyrighted his name and submitted documents to where we worked to prove that they could not send his information to anyone. He believed this would stop him from having to pay taxes.

      Uhh, moron.
    • You can't copyright fact. Only "Art" can be copyrighted. Unless your wallmart or some other big company then you can copyright fact like prices.

      • Definition of Art (Score:3, Interesting)

        by aliens ( 90441 )
        I changed my name to reflect an expresion of my innerself. As I feel this is an unique expression I do not want others copying it and infringing on my art.

        How bout that?

  • Article is not correct (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:15PM (#6126169) Homepage
    Unlike ordinary "John Doe" subpoenas, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders to subpoena information without first seeking a judge's blessing, making it an easier and cheaper method for tracking down alleged copyright infringers.

    That's not correct. Had Verizon responded by shutting off the offending material, it could not have been compelled to reveal the subscriber's information short of RIAA filing a John Doe suit.

    Verizon made a different claim. It said, "I'm just an innocent ISP. Someone else owns and is in posession of those servers." RIAA then quite reasonably said, "Well then you have to tell us how to get in touch with them so that we can serve them the same DMCA notice." Verizon said, "Nuh uh!" and the current legal battle ensued.

    Basically, Verizon thought they saw a hole in the law and were trying to take advantage of it. The safe harbor portion of the law says that in order to be protected from copyright infringment claims, Verizon would have to take down any infringing material a customer put on their server at the owner's request, UNLESS the customer wrote a counter letter claiming that the material was non-infringing. If the customer wrote such a letter, Verizon could leave the material up and still not be liable for any infringement, however they would have to pass the letter back to the complainer and the letter was required to include the customer's contact information.

    Not explicitly addressed in the law was the understanding that the IP addresses assigned to various companies was a matter of public record, stored at the various IP registries, so a copyright owner could directly determine who owned a particular server.

    Verizon went to court and said, "That IP address is delegated to someone else, and just because the IP block delegations to me are published doesn't mean I have to publish who I delegate IP addresses to."

    In essence, the court said, "Horse puckey! The IP address registry says that's your IP address. If its not, you have to say whose it is. And you better hurry up before we decide that it was yours after all and you lose your safe harbor protection!"

    • I'm resisting in just modding the parent down; you haven't followed the original story nor the many updates to it.

      By way of example: random corporation X tells random ISP Y: "Our copyright was violated; tell us who was using IP address 1.2.3.4 at such-and-such a date." ISP Y says, "Sure, who are you? The police? You have a subpoena for that info?" Random corp X says: "Screw you, we've got the DMCA, so you have to give, or we'll make you responsible for 100 gazillion infringements."

      It consistently amazes m

  • Legal ways to stop their web crawlers? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:16PM (#6126180)
    If I put up a web page on my machine or in the FTP headers and such, on my IP saying that site cannot be accessed by the RIAA, its affiliates or anyone working for the RIAA for any reason and that doing so constitutes illegal intrusion into my system, would that make the RIAA liable for accessing my system illegally. Is there any kind of electronic tresspass law which people could use to make it illegal for them to send their web crawlers and such over your website and such?

    Given that I don't host their crap on my site, what gives them the right to eat up my bandwidth constantly by randomly searching for mp3's? (My personal webserver has been crawled by a suspected RIAA bot about 15 times this week) I know they are doing this as they have Embarrased themselves in the past by searching harmless systems. [com.com]

    This makes going over my log files when I need to a real pain too when I have access logs showing some damn bot pouring over every file name on the system.

    So do those of us who are sick of them using these abusive tactics have any recourse to go after the RIAA for intruding on our systems with annoying bots? I for one am tired of them cataloging my web server and trying to FTP in anonymously every 10 hours or so just because I *might* have something of theirs posted up.

  • More serious than the P2P lawsuits... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drgroove ( 631550 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:23PM (#6126247)
    This development is significantly more serious than the lawsuits currently filed against P2P software developers, such as the one against Streamcast. First, there is a set precedent of the RIAA winning suits against individual persons - take the university students that were sued earlier this year, for example. Regardless of if the P2P suits are won - after all, there can always be another P2P app developed and posted online somewhere (just ask Justin from Nullsoft about that) - if individuals themselves are faced with the threat of multi-million dollar lawsuits by the RIAA for swapping music files, who is going to take the risk? Is the threat of settling out of court for tens of thousands really worth risking an illegal download of a song that could be purchased for .99 cents from a 'legitimate' provider?

    Does this mean that so-called 'legitimate' music file services, such as those provided by Apple and RealNetwork, will become the preferred method of obtaining music online?

    What does this mean for ISPs who provide broadband? How many of you have seen the Comcast commercial, where they pitch the fact that you can quickly download music files as part of the reason to switch to cable internet access? (the ad is of a guy burning a CD for some girl he just went on a date w/...) I know for a fact many consummers are moving to broadband simply because they can download music, movies, videos - for "free". While I doubt that there would be an exodus of cable/dsl subscribers leaving their service to return to dialup, if file sharing were no longer 'safe', so to speak, what impact would this have on future sales of broadband internet service? On some level, Verizon has to understand that file sharing's survival has an impact on sales of their DSL service - while I'm sure they are trying to protect the rights of their customers, they have to also be aware that the elimination of P2P as one of the broadband 'perks' is a blow to the appeal of their product.

    Should ISPs include some kind of 'legitimate' file sharing service as part of their broadband plan?

    If the RIAA believes these kind of injunctions are going to somehow stimulate sales of CDs, they are sorely mistaken - removing the on-demand, popular method of previewing an artist's recorded work prior to purchasing will only hurt CD sales, not strengthen them. The best thing the RIAA could do to stimulate music sales is to prevent crappy music from getting recorded in the first place...

    • Won't they just use... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Snaller ( 147050 )
      ...another program? Or at least, won't it trigger the development of more 'secure' programs.

      I just read about Earthstation 5 [earthstation5.com] - no idea who they are (prehaps the RIAA in disguise!), but this program claims to be ... stealthy:


      ONE CLICK PROXI SERVER - Users can send connection requests through intermediary proxy servers located throughout the world so that the download destination of a file cannot be traced by any entity whatsoever.

      SSL - SECURE SOCKETS - Prevents monitoring of a user's uploading or downl

  • If it is so easy to get the ISP to reveal the identity of a P2P user, why not get them to give the names and addresses behind the accounts that send SPAM?
  • i am at work but my home computer is on right now swapping songs.

    what are they going to do? cut off my access?

    i go to another isp.

    are they going to sue me?

    show me my illegal files. they are all on an external usb drive. oops, no more drive.

    prove i traded files with a certain name/ ip?

    someone hacked my account. my ip changes every time i login. prove it's really me.

    and if they do, i will proudly go down as a martyr for the cause of intellectual property common sense. if those legions of lawyer assholes want to make me a fallguy for the fucking riaa, so be it.

    the corporatization of intellectual property has gotten to the point where innovation is stifled in the name of maximizing corporate profits.

    intellectual property laws should FOSTER creativity, not squash it. i would be proud to be turned into a bankrupt cause celeb for the sake of publicizing and casting a spotlight on a bankrupt morality.

    some of you think no one will care. well, guess what, more and more people are caring every day about individual rights being trampled in the name of the bank accounts of large corporations. i am completely unapologetic about my file swapping and i will be proud to be sued by these mother fuckers if what i get in return is the image of the little guy getting screwed by corporate interests broadly publicized.

    first rule of public relations: there is no such thing as bad pr. any noise that is made over this case is good pr for the cause of individual rights versus corporate greed. fuck them. go ahead and sue me assholes.

    my file swapping is going on right now and will not be stopped. i will switch isps, i will switch file swapping programs. and there is nothing you can do to stop me.

    and oyu can take "me" to be the individual in pursuit of intellectual property common sense.

  • Curious to see . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:42PM (#6126434)
    . . . what effect this will have on Verizon and who uses it, if any. That's something worth following - if Verizon does indeed suffer loss of customers, etc. that may be a powerful club to motivate other companies NOT to give in to the RIAA.

    That is of course, if enough people care to boycott/protest/avoid Verizon . . .

  • Turn them over, fine. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aerojad ( 594561 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:46PM (#6126479) Homepage Journal
    So what's the RIAA going to do with hundreds of thousands, and if other ISPs follow - tens of millions, of seperate teenagers downloading music? Go after each and every one of them? Try it. Just. Try. It.

  • Free as in Music (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rick.C ( 626083 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:48PM (#6126496)
    If so many people insist on their right to freely copy/trade music, maybe it's time that Congress should re-think the entire situation. We tried prohibition, but people wanted their alcohol back and they got it. We tried locking up music and now people want free music. Maybe Congress should give it to them.

    Stop laughing. Yes, you! I'm serious.

    What was music like before recordings? People wrote songs, to be sure. Other people published the sheet music under copyright. People played the music and sang the music. Some bought the sheet music, others played by ear and remembered the words. The people who wrote the music didn't get rich, but some of the publishers did. (Sound familiar?)

    So if Congress says, "Copy away!" and the recording industry dries up and blows away:
    Will there still be music? Yes.
    Recorded music? Maybe.
    Will the people who write the music starve? No. (They'll keep their day jobs.)
    Will the publishers starve? Not if they can be retrained as burger flippers. [Joke!]
    Will there still be professional performers? Yes.
    Will you or your kids learn to play an instrument and sing? Quite likely.
    Will you enjoy getting together with friends and neighbors for a "Music Night" every week? Probably more than you enjoy sitting alone in your room wearing headphones.

    How is this a bad thing? Think about it with an open mind and see where it leads.

  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mikewren420 ( 264173 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:12PM (#6126702) Homepage
    This is also known as guilty until proven innocent, for those of us [edonkey2000.com] that may show up as a false-positive on the illegal P2P scale.

    Even more interesting, as mentioned in the News.com article, is a related story [com.com] from yesterday morning that I missed. It seems the Republicans are getting it right... or at least are trying to. Republican Senator Sam Brownback [senate.gov] of Kansas is seeking to regulate how digital rights management (DRM) is incorporated into consumer products. Also, the proposed bill would require that a copyright holder gets permission from a judge before receiving the name of any alleged illegal P2P user.

    Of course, DRM goes against everything I believe in, but any kind of regulation of how this technology is deployed is a step in the right direction. Allowing the marketplace to intelligently decide what amount (if any) of copy protection is reasonable is a Good Thing.

  • already happened (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Corporate Gadfly ( 227676 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:36PM (#6127348)
    According to this report, the names HAVE actually been turned over today as Verizon Turns Over Names in Piracy Case [yahoo.com]

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