Reddit Must Share IP Addresses of Piracy-Discussing Users, Film Studios Say 36
For the third time in under a year, film studios are pressing Reddit to reveal users allegedly discussing piracy, despite two prior failed attempts. Studios including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media have filed fresh motions to compel Reddit to comply with a subpoena seeking IP addresses and logs of six Redditors, claiming the information is needed for copyright suits against internet provider Frontier Communications.
The same federal judge previously denied the studios' bid to unmask Reddit users, citing First Amendment protections. However, the studios now argue IP addresses fall outside privacy rights. Reddit maintains the new subpoena fails to meet the bar for identifying anonymous online speakers.
The same federal judge previously denied the studios' bid to unmask Reddit users, citing First Amendment protections. However, the studios now argue IP addresses fall outside privacy rights. Reddit maintains the new subpoena fails to meet the bar for identifying anonymous online speakers.
Don't they have all the VPN IP numbers by now? (Score:2)
I would think so.
Re: (Score:2)
equality.
what are the i p addresses of the film studio litigants
Frivolous litigation (Score:3)
Petulant children keep pestering adults until they get what they want. Who raised these people?
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Nobody. That's the problem.
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Wolves.
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Considering that it is a combination of business-based greed (revenue recovery) and crafty lawyering, I would suggest a Wolf-Shark hybrid
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Bit unfair to the wolves there, I think.
They tend not to over hunt.
A new era (Score:2)
We've entered a new era of braindead frivilous lawsuits. The Bar Association should be rolling heads over nonsense filings like this.
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The best way to handle a frivolous lawsuit if the court detects it is for the court to sit on it so long that the identifying data becomes stale and lost in the fog of war or the statute of limitation sets in.
"Sorry due to a high workload of more important cases we haven't had time to take care of this issue."
More important cases like parking ticket appeals and similar.
Re:A new era (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A new era (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a basic problem with the USA's system of government. Even if you "win" a lawsuit defending yourself, you're on the hook for your own attorneys' fees. If you try to sue a giant corporation, they can just play delay games and bury you in paperwork, until you're bankrupt and can't afford a lawyer any more or you just give up out of frustration.
Court reform is 1000% needed. Eliminate most of the bullshit tactics that big corporations use to try to obfuscate cases and delay-delay-delay. You win the case? The other party has to cover your attorney fees and court costs. You get made WHOLE, not just "yay I 'won' but I got bankrupted anyways."
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The problem with the loser paying the winners attorneys fees is that it discourages the little guy form suing the big guy. As you said, corporations will just delay and bury the little guy. It sounds great to say "well when I win the big guy will have to pay my attorneys fees" but what if the little guy loses? Then they are stuck with their own attorney's fees, but also the exorbitant fees of the big corp as well. Even if you have an air tight case, this go wrong and you could lose. Most people are not will
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This is a basic problem with the USA's system of government. Even if you "win" a lawsuit defending yourself, you're on the hook for your own attorneys' fees. If you try to sue a giant corporation, they can just play delay games and bury you in paperwork, until you're bankrupt and can't afford a lawyer any more or you just give up out of frustration.
Court reform is 1000% needed. Eliminate most of the bullshit tactics that big corporations use to try to obfuscate cases and delay-delay-delay. You win the case? The other party has to cover your attorney fees and court costs. You get made WHOLE, not just "yay I 'won' but I got bankrupted anyways."
It won't happen. The courts work on the same principal that the rest of the country runs on. Wealth = power. If you have more money, you should win be default. Granted, we may bleed you a bit while you bleed the less monied person until they give up, but hey, it's all about protecting the owner class. The monied class. The rest of us should just shut up and go away. If we draw attention to ourselves, we'll see our bank accounts bled dry as well.
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That's good, but must be done carefully. Otherwise, David sues Goliath Inc. Goliath uses it's large, well funded legal team to bury David and his one lawyer in discovery, hire "experts" who will testi-lie to nearly anything if the price is right, perform fantastically expensive forensic analysis requiring equally fantastically expensive analysis to refute, etc. in order to win the case. The cherry on top is that David gets to pay Goliath's costs.
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Also it's criminal that how much each side spent on the case isn't factored in when considering the strength of the evidence presented. It's the single most informative factor in a court case (two numbers with a bigger impact than hours of testimony).
sounds like a good argument against 4th amendment (Score:2)
Like they're trying to argue that they want a search warrant to find the EVIDENCE they need to prove a crime. But the judge is saying you need to HAVE some sort of evidence to GET the search warrant, to go looking for ADDITIONAL evidence that it's reasonable to assume exists.
Sounds like an argument against the 4th amendment: "If you've done nothing wrong, got nothing to hide, then you won't mind us searching?"
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Similar, but it's a civil suit.
Since Reddit is a non-party (they aren't the one being sued) there are many limitations. For example, you can usually use a subpoena to get an original document from a third party if you know the document already exists and have already seen it but need an original. There are many different rules and laws about what can be requested and what cannot. Generally you can't go on a "fishing expedition" with a non-party. In contrast for someone who is a party, if you can convince t
Great. (Score:3)
Thought crime. That's a good step in the achievement of dystopia. Wish I had that old Blu-Ray encryption string to post at the end of this. Or maybe I don't - we could still see that come back as a targetable offense.
Re:Great. (Score:4)
It's not a thought crime. It's a speech crime. They claim it is illegal to discuss something that is illegal.
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That's not what they're claiming at all, or what they're attempting to do.
What they're *really* trying to do is get hold of these reddit posters so they can get them to testify that their ISP encourages piracy by not implementing the necessary steps to warn and soon after disconnect people accused of piracy. They they hope to win a lawsuit against the ISP forcing it to implement draconian anti-piracy policies where effectively they tell the ISP to cut someone off, and the ISP just does it (regardless as to
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It's not a thought crime. It's a speech crime. They claim it is illegal to discuss something that is illegal.
Hmmmmm do any Disney movies include any representation of things that are illegal...?
Does the New York Times ever discuss anything that is illegal...?
Did somebody say 09 F9...? (Score:4, Funny)
Is that old Blu -Ray string you speak of "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0", perchance?
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i don't think that's what is going on here. (not that i think that corporate lawyers aren't capable of that, though, and intimidating ordinary people is indeed a classic)
they are after the isp in this case. the evidence in question are comments on reddit allegedly showing that the isp is lenient/tolerant of "piracy", but of course that's pretty weak evidence, so they want to back it up and possibly even "compel" some of those users to testify against said isp.
the judge says that the posts themselves are the
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Thought crime.
No, it's worse than that: civil court.
Our system allows anyone to sue anyone else for non-crimes. The biggest wallet wins!
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This is why you use a VPN, based in a country that will tell these guys to sod off.
First Rule Of Fight Club (Score:1)
You don't talk about fight club.
just tell me... (Score:2)
You don't have to tell us who it is; just tell us what house they live in.
Disney,Sony,Paramount and more (Score:2)
What IP address ranges are they using ?
I need have some reports created.
But Reddit doesn't store IP addresses ö (Score:2)
Keep Dreaming (Score:1)
Surprise surprise! (Score:2)
The studios say a lot of things. A few of them may even be true.
What more needs to be said? (Score:2)
However, the studios now argue IP addresses fall outside privacy rights.
Argue away.
"Disscussed" = "bragged" (Score:2)
Pretty shoddy reporting all around to use the word "discussed". Click through to the complaint PDF and read for yourself.
Not saying I agree with the ruling, but that's a really big distinction.