Reddit Doesn't Have To Share IP-Addresses of Piracy Commenters, Court Rules (torrentfreak.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Reddit is not required to share the IP-address of six users who made piracy-related comments on the website. The company successfully protested the third attempt of a group of filmmakers, which planned to use the requested logs as evidence in their lawsuit against Internet provider Frontier. Instead of focusing on anonymous Redditors, filmmakers can go after the ISP's subscribers directly. [...] Early last year, the film companies subpoenaed Reddit for the first time, requesting the personal details of several users. Reddit refused to cooperate, defending their users' right to anonymous speech, and found a California federal court in agreement. In a second attempt a few weeks later, several film companies sent a similar subpoena to Reddit. This time, the request was more targeted, as all comments specifically referred to the ISP being sued; Grande Communications. Reddit still refused to comply, however, stressing that its users' First Amendment rights would still be at stake. After hearing both parties, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with Reddit once again.
While the denial was another setback for the film companies and their attorney, they had no plans to abandon this route to evidence quite so easily. Last month, they were back in court with a similar but tweaked request, this time related to a lawsuit targeting Internet provider Frontier Communications. Broadly speaking, the third case was comparable to the others. The film companies, including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, wanted to use comments made by six Redditors to show that the ISP didn't take proper action against repeat infringers, or that 'lax' enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates. Contrary to the earlier requests, the film companies were no longer looking for any names or email addresses, only the applicable IP address logs. This would allow the commenters to remain anonymous because an 'IP-address is not a person', their attorney argued. Reddit, again, refused to hand over information, arguing it would violate users' right to anonymous speech. The fact that it would only have to reveal IP-addresses wouldn't change that, Reddit argued.
After both sides had the chance to present their arguments, the matter landed on the desk of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson of the California federal court. After reviewing the paperwork, Judge Hixson denied the motion to compel. [...] Of importance in this decision is the so-called '2TheMart.com' standard, which was also applied in the earlier two cases. From that perspective, the court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion. [...] "While the Court is unaware of any cases in the Ninth Circuit in which a court has declined to apply a First Amendment unmasking standard for IP addresses, other courts have recognized that IP addresses are essential to unmasking because an 'IP address cannot be made up in the same way that a poster may provide a false name and address.'" "For this reason, the Court finds no reason to believe provision of an IP address is not unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny," Judge Hixson writes. "In sum, the Court finds Movants cannot meet the 2TheMart standard because the evidence they seek can be obtained from other sources, including from Frontier in the normal course of discovery." If the rightsholders are unable to obtain the desired evidence from Frontier, they could always try again, of course. If anything, the film companies have shown that aren't prepared to give up easily.
While the denial was another setback for the film companies and their attorney, they had no plans to abandon this route to evidence quite so easily. Last month, they were back in court with a similar but tweaked request, this time related to a lawsuit targeting Internet provider Frontier Communications. Broadly speaking, the third case was comparable to the others. The film companies, including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, wanted to use comments made by six Redditors to show that the ISP didn't take proper action against repeat infringers, or that 'lax' enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates. Contrary to the earlier requests, the film companies were no longer looking for any names or email addresses, only the applicable IP address logs. This would allow the commenters to remain anonymous because an 'IP-address is not a person', their attorney argued. Reddit, again, refused to hand over information, arguing it would violate users' right to anonymous speech. The fact that it would only have to reveal IP-addresses wouldn't change that, Reddit argued.
After both sides had the chance to present their arguments, the matter landed on the desk of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson of the California federal court. After reviewing the paperwork, Judge Hixson denied the motion to compel. [...] Of importance in this decision is the so-called '2TheMart.com' standard, which was also applied in the earlier two cases. From that perspective, the court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion. [...] "While the Court is unaware of any cases in the Ninth Circuit in which a court has declined to apply a First Amendment unmasking standard for IP addresses, other courts have recognized that IP addresses are essential to unmasking because an 'IP address cannot be made up in the same way that a poster may provide a false name and address.'" "For this reason, the Court finds no reason to believe provision of an IP address is not unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny," Judge Hixson writes. "In sum, the Court finds Movants cannot meet the 2TheMart standard because the evidence they seek can be obtained from other sources, including from Frontier in the normal course of discovery." If the rightsholders are unable to obtain the desired evidence from Frontier, they could always try again, of course. If anything, the film companies have shown that aren't prepared to give up easily.
The First Rule Of Piracy (Score:2)
Is we don't talk about piracy.
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Except on /. when any story mentions a streaming service
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That's The Joke [knowyourmeme.com]
Re:The First Rule Of Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Is we don't talk about piracy.
Agreed.
That said, the mental gymnastics here are entertaining...
~MPAA: "We need user names because we want to subpoena users."
Reddit: "No. That would violate our users' freedom to anonymous speech."
~MPAA: "Okay, we need other user names because we want to subpoena users."
Reddit: "No. That would violate our users' freedom to anonymous speech."
~MPAA: "Okay, we just need IP addresses which we agree aren't users, because we want to subpoena the ISP tell us who the users are because we want to subpoena users."
Reddit: "Wait, what? You think our answer is different because you're going to figure out who the users are a different way? Still no. Anonymous speech."
ISP: "Thanks Reddit. We didn't want to have to give them the names of users who would be witnesses in a court case against us."
FFS movie industry. Take a note from Steam. (Most) people pay for stuff if you price it appropriately and make it easier than piracy.
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In the heyday everybody knew MPAA was run by Jack Valenti.
What I only recently learned is that he was a mobster. The illegal kind, before he applied his skills to kids with VCR's.
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Second rule of piracy is...
We don't talk about piracy.
Lots of people breaking rules 1 and 2.
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You just talked about piracy.
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I'm only talking about talking about piracy. I'm not actually talking about piracy. I can do this all day.
No, talk about it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't talk about it, it'll become something seedy and obscure and vaguely-socially-embarrassing. Which is exactly the reputation the *AA's want it to have.
See also: Prohibition (both alcohol and marijuana), premarital sex, homosexual relationships, and so on. I think marijuana and gay rights are particularly good examples, as most commentators here have actually lived through the decriminalization/legalization of both weed and gay rights, and have witnessed first-hand that the social stigma collapsed before the wholesale mainstream-ization.
I mean, as cool as it is being a member of exclusive clubs, I don't want to return to the bad old days of the RIAA dragging college kids into expensive court cases for downloading Metallica albums and suing grandmothers because their dynamic IPs were used by people on Kazaa. Even when the cases are dropped, the financial and social disruption can linger. Sometimes the process itself is the punishment.
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The comment was situation specific. I understand what you are saying but the problem is that you have to be selective about the ears who hear it and what form that takes. Posting on slashdot or any other public-ish forum is that readable by people you don't know means that you could be informing the enemy. If you that interested in pushing the subject proper, >my opinion, is that you need to redefine the meaning of 'piracy' that has taken another meaning that has nothing to do with stealing someone's stu
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Lawyers are gonna lawyer. IP crybabies are gonna cry IP. Your collection of zero's and one's is not compliant with what we dictate. Advising people how to arrange those digits is against the law. Man's law that is. Which is as worthless as the feces that comes out of said man.
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Well they can want in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills first.
I thought Reddit didn't store IP addresses (Score:2)
Re: I thought Reddit didn't store IP addresses (Score:2)
Basic server security cannot function without logging IP addresses. Also, if posters were doing things that are actually illegal Reddit might need to comply with a subpoena.
If you post something on a website or use an email server you do not own, someone has, at the very least, your IP address.
When you post AC here, the server admins can definitely match the post with your account.
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Basic server security cannot function without logging IP addresses. Also, if posters were doing things that are actually illegal Reddit might need to comply with a subpoena.
If you post something on a website or use an email server you do not own, someone has, at the very least, your IP address.
When you post AC here, the server admins can definitely match the post with your account.
An IP address is needed for the lifetime of a connection. That's not logging. That's using. Logging is when you hang onto it after you need it for the connection and logging IP addresses certainly isn't needed for basic server security. It's a great form of liability, for instance it gets media companies to sue you a lot.