Charter Cable Sues To Quash RIAA Subpoenas

mattOzan writes "Charter Communications, the third largest cable provider in the United States, has filed a motion in St. Louis, Missouri, to block the RIAA's requests for the identities of about 150 Charter customers in the St. Louis area. In the over 1100 subpoenas that have been issued so far, Charter claims they are the only major ISP that has not provided the RIAA with 'a single datum of information.'"

Comments

Subpoenas?

[jbardell]

Wait, what am I missing? I A Obviously N A L, but I didn't think a private company could issue a subpoena. Is there something that I'm missing? And hoorah to Charter Communications for fighting this rediculousness.

Re:Subpoenas?

[geoffspear]

Anyone can subpoena anyone else to get information to use in a lawsuit. The DMCA makes it easier to do so in the case of alleged copyright infringement, but the right to issue subpoenas is avaialble to any person or corporation.

Re:Subpoenas?

[DeepRedux]

The subpoenas are issued by a Federal district court at the request of the RIAA. The RIAA, just like any other copyright holder, can submit a sworn statement alleging a copyright violation to the court clerk and have a subpoena issued.

The party being subpoenaed (here Charter Communications) has the right to challenge the subpoena in court.

Re:Subpoenas?

[Alsee]

can submit a sworn statement alleging a copyright violation to the court clerk and have a subpoena issued

I'd like to clarify a bit here, for other readers.

They must submit a sworn statment that they have a copyright on something - anything (or that they represent a copyright holder). This sworn statement is pretty meaningless, I can file such a statement that I am the copyright holder of this post.

Aside from that sworn statement, the paperwork must make a claim that the target of the subpeona commited infingement. Not only is this NOT a sworn statement, it can be an entirely baseless statement.

This paperwork is then given to the court clerk, NOT a judge. The court clerk's only job is to make sure you didn't botch the paperwork. He is then required to give rubberstamp approval. The involvement of the court is pure formality, in effect the DMCA grants copyright holders the power to issue subeonas. The process lacks any actual judical review.

The DMCA is an insanely lopsided peice of legislation, written by the copyright lobby for the copyright lobby. This "expedited subpeona process" granted to copyright holders is just one of many abuses written into the law. God forbid copyright holders should be forced to go through the NORMAL and LEGITIMATE subpeona process, just like EVERYONE ELSE.

-

Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena

[turnstyle]

Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena, they'll keep suing -- they'll just switch to John Doe lawsuits...

Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena

[Chester K]

Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena, they'll keep suing -- they'll just switch to John Doe lawsuits...

But that will cost them money.. and the more it costs them to keep up this campaign of lawsuits, the less likely they'll collect enough in settlements to draw a profit from it; and if it's not profitable, they won't do it.

Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena

[ScrewMaster]

Hardly. They are losing money hand over fist on these subpoenas and pseudo-lawsuits. Sure, they made a couple grand off of that 12 year old but that hardly pays for a few hours of attorney time. This is about intimidation, no more and no less. Yes, it is about money, but there is no intent to profit from these "lawsuits". They want people to stop sharing music via peer-to-peer in the mistaken belief that it will return their member companies to profitability. They're misguided to the point of being dangerously irrational, but there's not a lot we can do about that.

Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena

[Obyron]

That never stopped the xbox. :)

At the risk of being Offtopic... I know it's fashionable to bash MS and their products, but this statement is simply silly. What you're referring to MS doing with the X-Box is called a "loss leader." They make the platform at a loss with the hopes of making up the dividends on the individual games. All the major consoles do the exact same thing as do manufacturers of printers (ever wonder why you can get a printer for 80 bucks, but the carts are 15-30 bucks each, not to mention paper?), and several other industries.

Comparing this to the RIAA subpoenas and lawsuits is just silly, and is pretty much karma-whoring via MS bashing.

Go Charter

[flyingember]

their prices may suck, they may be needing network upgrades, but go Charter!

New Buisness Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Become ISP
2. When asked by the RIAA to give out names, purposely give out names of people who do not use the internet much, and definetly don't use Kazza
3. Sue RIAA, claiming damages.
4. Profit!!!

The fight continues.

[code_echelon]

Its good to see another company steeping up and trying to protect people from the RIAA. The more companies that do this the better, this issue is getting a lot of attention and with more companies fighting back the attention will continue to grow. No matter what, when this is in the news the RIAA continues to look terrible and creates more and more enemies. Many of the people that they are suiing are parents of children who have done the downloading and this really upsets and hits home for many American households. When this started off it was just mainly people interested in legal matters and people that are interested in computers that were following the story. As it continues it has really started to affect the average person as the lawsuits are so prevelant and directed at anyone. There are also many political groups now who are trying to step in and fight the RIAA. In my opinion all the companies fighting the RIAA and all the negative press against them is another step forward. I think that the current buisness model that they are using is going to have to change or those that can change it will step up and do so. Many people around the world have been brought up in an era of downloading music and will never purchase there cds at there current prices again. What happens to the RIAA if they stop the downloaders(which they never will) and no one goes back to purchasing there cds.
Making this many enemies is never a good thing for an association that relies on purchases from the people that they have upset.

Only 2 subpoenaes to AOL ??

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

AOL is this huge turd of an ISP and they get only 2 subpoenas, when the other ISPs get 100s?

Either all AOL users are very nice honest people (not bloody likely), or they are all (minus 2) so inane they only know the "you've got mail!" part of the internet, or somebody at the RIAA is on AOL's payroll ...

Re:Only 2 subpoenaes to AOL ??

[Our Man In Redmond]

Everything I've read so far leads me to believe that the RIAA is tracking people by IP address. This is more or less impossible if the person you're tracking is coming in from AOL, because everyone accesses the Internet proper through an AOL firewall/proxy, so the person you're tracking has the same IP address as all 3,743 other AOL users in Des Moines, Iowa.

What I'm wondering is, how they managed to find two people to subpoena from AOL.

statistics of riaa

[potpie]

the riaa claims to have lost millions of dollars. The yearend reports can be found here in pdf format:
http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/yearend.asp

note that the sale of cd's has dropped less than 10%, and that the sale of DVD video and DVD audio has risen far more. The riaa doesn't seem to talk about that much, does it?

Re:statistics of riaa

[MaxiCat_42]

>the sale of DVD video and DVD audio has risen far more

Yep they ignore a few blinding facts. You get a lot more for your cash with a DVD and the prices match the age of the thing they are selling. Why can I buy a DVD of a 30-year old feature film like 'Bullet' (and enjoy it) for 5 GBP but I still have to pay around 20 GBP for a CD of 'Dark Side of the Moon'. I would like a CD copy of that album but not at that price!

Re:Bog them down with litigation

[TheShadow]

Boycott all CD/DVD/Tape purchases for a full year and listen to the good ol radio

Ummm... if you really want to boycott the music industry... you'll have to stop listening to the radio too. They do get paid each time a song is played.

Something else that's bothering me

[El]

One of my neighbors has been fooling enough to set up a wireless router with no encryption. If I now run P2P software through his cable connection, can he be sued by the RIAA? Is "gee, I'm stupid enough to leave my cable connection wide open so anybody can use it" and affirmative defense?

How Charter kept RIAA away

[Skapare]

Hello and welcome to Charter Communications' legal support department. Your call is very important to us. Please listen to this menu carefully since options have changed. If you are calling about your lawsuit against us because your cable bill is too high, please press 1 now. If you are calling about your lawsuit against us because we double billed you, please press 2 now. If you are calling about your lawsuit against us because we have not paid your program provider fees, please press 3 now. If you are calling about your subpoena to divulge the names and credit card payment records of customers that are sharing music online please press 4 now. If you are calling about our violations of local ....

*** beep *** (pressed 4)

[click] [click] [pause] [click] [click]

Hello and welcome to Charter Communications' copyright enforcement department. Your call is very important to us. Please listen to this menu carefully since options have changed. If you are calling about your neighbor recording premium movies, please press 1 now. If you are calling about our customers that are downloading music on the internet, please press 2 now. If you are ....

*** beep *** (pressed 2)

[pause] [click] [click] [pause]

Hello and welcome to Charter Communications' music piracy department. Your call is very important to us. Please listen to this menu carefully since options have changed. If you are calling about a subpoena you have already sent to us, please have your subpoena registration number handy and press 1 now. If you are calling to register a new subpoena with use, please have the account number of the customer this subpoena refers to handy and press 2 now. If you are calling to obtain a customer account number, please have the name of the customer handy and press 3 now. If you are calling to obtain the name of a customer please have the IP address and time handy, and press 4 now. If you are ....

*** beep *** (pressed 4)

[pause] [click] [pause] [click] [pause]

Hello and welcome to the Charter Communications' online customer identification system. Please have the IP address and time the customer was online handy. If you already have an identification system authorization number, please press 1 now. If you do not already have an identification system authorization number, and wish to register to obtain one, please press 2 now. To repeat this ...

*** beep *** (pressed 2)

[pause] [click]

Hello and welcome to the Charter Communications' online customer identification system user authorization registration system. Please listen to this menu carefully since options have changed. If you are already a Charter Communications home cable customer, please press 1 now. If you are already a Charter Communications business internet customer, please press 2 now. If you are not a Charter Communications customer and would like to sign up for Charter Communications' cable service in your home or business today, please press 3 now. If you are not a Charter Communications customer and do not wish to sign up for cable service at this time, please press 4 now. To repeat ....

*** beep *** (pressed 4)

[click] [click]

Hello and welcome to Charter Communications' business relations department. Your call is very important to us. Please listen to this menu carefully since options have changed. If you are calling about an existing business relation that is satisfactory to you, please press 1 now. If you are calling about an existing business relation that is unsatisfactory to you, please press 2 now. If you are calling to establish a new business relationship, please have your business name and taxpayer identification number handy, and press 3 now. To repeat this ....

*** beep *** (pressed 3)

[pause] [click] [pause] [click] [pause] [click] [pause]

Hello and welcome to Charter Communications' business rel