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Verizon Set Back Again in DMCA Subpoena Case
NickV writes "Hope is getting direr for online privacy. The US District Court ruled today that Verizon must hand over the names of the two P2P downloaders. Hopefully Verizon can get a stay on the court order by the Court of Appeals. They have 14 days. Support the EFF! Without a serious lobbying group in DC, privacy will continue to be eroded."
I thought that companies like verizion were common carriers, and that was exempt from subpoening [SP].
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
A lot of websites brag that they don't keep any logs. Can't Verizon do this too? Are they required to track who, what and where on your internet connection?
Does our privacy deserve to be gone at the whim of corporate America? Do we really want to allow companies to demand information about consumers without a subpoena ? Are corporations now as powerful as the government? This isn't a question about illegal acts. It's about the limiting power of non-government entities to spy on us.
I am an avid /. reader, and a privacy/YRO advocate, and it saddens me when I realize that 90% of the people I know haven't even HEARD of the DMCA or the Patriot Act or the EFF, or any of it.
It seems to me, that the EFF could be likened to organizations like GreenPeace. Everyone who has ever been on a college campus knows what Green Peace is, but incase you don't they are a group of volunteers that solicit people for supporting their cause - that cause being supporting the environment through legal actions (lobbying, etc).
Why don't we have people on campus letting people know about their freedoms, about the lies spread by the RIAA/MPAA, and about *what can be done to help* ?
no comment
Quite frankly sir, you are a troll.
If you actually think that a private party should be able to acquire a list of subscribers by submitting a form, you need to take a look at US judicial history.
Verizons case here sounds quite good to me. If you want to get a list of customers who bought a book in a bookstore for example, you need a warrant, and it's pretty fucking rare to see even that stand a legal test.
I think the difference here is rather insignificant. You may say that the law was violated all you want, but unless you have proof that a court approves of, you should be SOL.
...when the right of corporations to profit exceeds the right of individuals to privacy. The whole point of due process and search restrictions is that it's more important to protect the privacy of everyone, even if that means letting many criminals go free. Sure, no one's going to argue that MP3 trading of copyrighted works is legal, but neither is going 35 in a 25 zone, or drinking underage, or photocopying sections of books, or what have you. Where the hell are the anti-trust laws and campaign finance reforms when you need them?
I really don't see any way to destroy the RIAA without attacking their profits. The RIAA wants to turn our government into a police state just to ensure it's bottom line is well padded. The scary part of distopias like 1984 is not what is considered illegal, but how strictly it is enforced. When a private organization passes laws to protect its business model, and acts as a law enforcement agency without the consent of the people, I can't see how any attack on them, in any form could be considered immoral. We are confronted with a total hijacking of our government for the sake of profits. Artists be damned, copyrights be damned, I'm sick of this shit. That's why everyone should do everything they can to hurt the RIAA bottom line as much as possible. Buy no cds. Support live performances. Supply your (trustworthy) friends with free mp3's. The US government, especially when covered in republican parasites, will never choose the people over a lucrative corporation. Our only recourse is to not give them a DOLLAR.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
So when ISPs are required to release customer information on open p2p connections and their respective users, and the open source community developes a self organizing, encrypted p2p network, using similar encryption technology to that of online purchasing (credit cards, etc) will the RIAA tackle encryption citing the DMCA? I'd like to see that hold up in a court. If all transmissions must be monitored for piracy, and one can not conceal the source of information, does this mean the RIAA and our ISPs have access to our credit card numbers when purchasing from amazon.com? If the same technology used to encrypt private information were applied tp p2p applications, such that the ISPs can't tell the difference between a credit card number and the Dixie Chick's latest hit, what would the RIAA do?
off topic i know, but i couldn't resist after seeing your sig...
:-)
"wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which fills up quicker" - my dad
just slightly different
I could say you infringed on my copyright with absolutely no proof, and they'd give me your address.
So lets begin, calling all hackers, calling all hackers, lets see whos first to write the new hacking tool, lets called it the Address Sniffer, you just put in someones IP, and wait, a few days later the program shows you an email msg from the ISP with the address.
God, I really hope this law doesnt pass, I'll have to hide my IP using proxies and whatever due to fear that everyone online will be able to sniff my address.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
--if this is how it works, it seems to me that it would be *quite legal* for anyone who has puchased a CD to use the dmca laws to fill out a form and demand that the riaa and their member corporations hand over all their records and traffic and emails because they are suspicious that they have indeed conspired to illegally fix prices and defraud investors and artists.
Why would that would be different? If they say it isn't a "copyright" issue, I'd counter that and say "yes it is because you are not paying the owners (the original musicians) their fair due under your transferred contracts of copyright, and are colluding to artifically maintain an erroneous set of books to hide and obfuscate your true business costs",because anyone "you" as a consumer who has purchased the use of the copyright with that CD does not have to suffer an illegal artificially raised price, i.e., it "involves" copyright issues and serious folding green. They've already been caught at it numerous times, both the recording industry and the movie industry, who with a straight face can claim that a movie that grosses a couple hundred million "cost" them money and they made nothing off of it. Several actors have sued studios and won, same with some musicians have sued and won, and the government has prosecuted them for payola and price fixing before, so there's prior examples that would tend to substantiate probable cause.
I say if this is applicable, then some people need to go after them and do just that. Demand just mountains of records, because you'd need all of them to sort it out. See how they like it. I imagine there would also be some interesting contacts with various legislators as well found in the records, and more likely than not, some underlings might be quite eager to turn over some additional information if that meant they might be let off the hook so to speak.
I mean, who thinks they AREN'T crooks and that their records are squaky clean?
Thought so.
Any EFF lawyers around want to comment? A coalition of musicians and cd purchasers could do this I think.
Ok, but I think the DMCA refers to copyright holders which includes corporations and individuals.
Here's the idea. What if anyone (I'm sure you have a copyright on something) makes a random claim that someone else is infringing on the copyright. The RIAA did this, right?
I mean, actually do it. Find a figurehead of somewhere and submit a request for the account information on whoever and claim they infringed on your copyright. Try to get the press to notice it too. Would this work?
No.
Verizon isn't being asked to destroy anyone's privacy. They are being asked to deliver the identity of an individual that the state has sufficient reason to believe has commited illegal acts using Verizon's network.
The same logic applies apart from the network-centric world of Slashdot. Suppose someone broke into a Walmart and stole a rifle. If he then shot three people with that rifle, would Walmart be threatening anyone's prviacy by handing over a surveillance tape to the police? No, they wouldn't.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
From an AP interview with Senator Rick Santorum on Apr. 7, 2003:
This isn't some wacko saying this. (Well, not some random wacko, anyway.) This isn't some RIAA or MPAA shill. This is a United States Senator. And we wonder how laws like the DMCA get passed?
I'm curious as to what Verizon has to gain here. They can't possibly be doing this out of principle. So I really don't see why they're doing it. Pursuing this is costing them millions, and making them powerful enemies. And it's not like most users have heard of this case -- so they're not gaining themselves a significant number of customers. I really don't see what they have to gain.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
You'll note that this doesn't say "Congress shall make no law", "by the government" or any other POS argument that's been made against Free Speech, religion, etc.
What is privacy except the right to be secure in your effects against unreasonable searches?