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RIAA Loses DMCA Subpoena Case Against Charter
BrynM writes "According to an opinion published today (PDF), the RIAA has lost its case against Charter Communications regarding subpoenas for the cable ISP's users to be identified for copyright infringement in the Eastern District of Missouri. You may remember that Charter Communications filed a motion to block the RIAA's subpoena back in late 2003. Now Charter has prevailed. Here's the blurb from the Court 'Civil case - Digital Millennium Copyright Act. District court erred in issuing subpoenas on internet providers to obtain personal information about the providers' subscribers who were alleged to be transmitting copyrighted works via the internet through peer-to-peer programs; the internet providers' function was limited to acting as a conduit for the allegedly copyrighted material, and Section 512(h) of the Act does not authorize subpoenas in such circumstances; case remanded with directions. Dissent by Judge Murphy. [PUBLISHED] [Bye, Author, with Murphy and Bright, Circuit Judges]'"
Surely if there is the justification for a criminal case, the RIAA can have the federal system give them the information?
Let's just hope we can continue to win against the man like this. Respecting privacy is an important thing to me. Companies that will fight to respect your privacy are nice to have around. Even verizon (whom i can't stand), is good about privacy.
Stick it to the man!
A win for the American Public's Rights.
Hopefully this will start a trend that pushes the laws in a more user friendly direction. Take that RIAA!
I'm hoping that this can't be appealed...if so, it's really good news.
If it can, then it's not really news at all, is it?
Regardless of the outcome, kudos to Charter for realizing that they, and their users, actually have rights.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
I can say, that we might have a corrupt political system and laws drafted by conglomerates, but at least we have Judges that can't be (mostly) bought.
What gets me, though, is that he cited the DCMA on why they CAN'T subpoena.
This about fits with my experience. The only way to prevail against the might of a major corporation is to have another major corporation in your corner.
Play Command HQ online
Why? The Judicial branch is mostly the only form of government that is not corrupted. They don't take bribes like Senators and the Executive branches do. This allows them to speak sense without restriction. This is a rare example of how the United States is supposed to function; it is a little glimpse into our great paste. Savor in this moment people, for it is rare.
It's pretty admirable that all these companies (Charter included) are actually taking the time and cost required to fight against the subpoenas.
I'm sure this trend could have very easily gone the other way.
About Damn Time.
"The Church Music Publishers Association" - Because it ain't about God its about the $$$.
I have no hope for any sort of just or fair resolution to this situation.
Well, that and filesharing -is- wrong, IMO. But that isn't really the issue...To me this is more an issue of the inescapable march towards total corporate rule.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
In addition, once an ISP gets a reputation for cooperating against their customers, it will lose far more customers than just the 'hogs'.
While this is a great case, there are now P2P technologies that furthur complicate matters for the RIAA. Like the technology that powers MUTE
This method, however, does slow the rate at which files are obtained. But for a lot of users, the extra security is worth the extra couple of hours.
Don't you mean "on behalf of the RIAA"?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
>also eliminating their bandwidth hogs.
Hellooooo.... ISPs sell bandwidth. DSL costs more than dialup. A T3 costs more than DSL. Don't take my word for it - check with your ISP. It's actually true.
You might as well say that a gas station owner would do well to ban trucks and SUVs becuase they're fuel hogs.
...than this simple court decision. Rightfuly so, the court said that Charter is under no obligation to reveal information about "alleged" subscribers. That's not necessarily the best news in the world. Yes, the RIAA cannot go after just anybody, but if they can prove in a court that someone is actually distributing copyrighted material, it should be another story.
I've little time for the RIAA and they way that they function, but the others who signed on represent a number of creative people that I work with. I am still troubled by the amount of copyright infringement that goes on in the world.
It's one thing when you are getting material, it's another altogether when your material is used without permission. On one occasion, I had a school ask if they could make 500 copies of one chapter in a book I wrote for distributiuon to their students. They had no desire, or intent, to compensate me for my work.
The artists are the ones who get screwed in this- they deserve just compensation for their work and should be given such. When you can't pay the bills with your craft, you change to another craft. How many decent artists does that deny us the pleasure of seeing or hearing?
It's always about the money, but in the case of a number of industries, it's about keeping the money coming in for those who did the work. I've paid a bar tab with a royalty check- and I needed the drink. How many of us will pay the tab for artists?
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Actually that doesn't make much sense. An ISP makes money on accounts - not on bandwidth sold. It is far more profitable to have tons of customers who underutilize their bandwidth. Underutilization, especially with cable where bandwidth is shared, means lower expenses.
I agree with the guy who said that most broadband subscribers are folks who check their email daily and won't want to wait for cnn.com to load. It has also gotten to the price point where dial up over a dedicated phone line doesn't make economic sense. From personal experiences, a lot of people just don't want the mess of a second phone line, connect times and having to "dial in."
Office of the Commisioner of Baseball (wtf?)
What part of may not be recorded without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is hard to understand?!
Help prevent the slashdot effect; stop reading the articles.
It's cheaper than a trial.
no, but it sure does mean that they can't go on "fishing expeditions", demanding the records of 20 people looking for that one in twenty that did commit a crime.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
If you are trading files will you use a service that would turn you in or one that won't. For that matter if you are trading something with a filename similar to a work such as an mp3 of bells tolling called for Whom the Bells Toll (it's even better since it isn't a perfect match) would you trade your ahem performance art on an internet service that would turn you in or on one that wouldn't.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
But you should note the following:
1) Nowhere in the parent was it stated or implied that this was the case.
2) Nowhere in the Plantiff's complaint did they really, really meet the criteria of identifying a specific infringer (Required by law, both for Copyright and for the obviously Unconstitutional DMCA...)- ergo, a very probable instance of where the DMCA's provisions are at odds with the Fourth Ammendment. If they don't have anything on you specifically, they can't go on a fishing expidition- which is what the RIAA was on.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
it's difficult to say which side to join with here (putting aside my personal desire to download free music). Consider this analogy:
A private courier company, FedUPS, carries packages all across the country. It has come to the point where, say, 75% of its packages contain illegal narcotics. Drugs have been identified as harmful to people, and it is a legitimate interest of the government to stop the flow of drugs. Is it not reasonable to require FedUPS to provide the addresses of those packages intercepted and known to contain drugs?
of course, in this RIAA case, it is a civil matter, and this story is about how the DCMA explicity protects ISPs from being targeted for traffic they cannot control. Plus, reasonable people are disagreeing over how illegal/unethical it is to copy pirated music. But the structure of the problem is similar, right? If we decide to make copying copyrighted music illegal and we declare it is a problem, what are we going to do about the conduits of that illegal traffic?
perhaps it's a signal to lawmakers that we have two very different competing interests both attempting to use the laws to advance their ends...
If they can't subpoena the IP lists, a John Doe filing is pretty useless- because it doesn't identify a specific Defendant.
You can't have an action held against you unless they have good reasoning to do so, they can have sanctions handed down to them if they do attempt it without backing, and you can countersue the Hell out of them for trying.
It may protect the ISP, but it makes it pure Hell for them to get at you because they can't identify you specifically. Now, I'm not one that does the fileswapping BS, but I have a BIG problem with the way they're all going about this shite.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It's legal due process. DMCA tends to try to do away with most of it in favor of the rightsholders- which is the rights of the few getting in the way of the rights of the many.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Yes, quite true, but the "flat rates" are still higher monthly charges when you buy faster connections. How many folks do you think would still want to pay out as much as 2x or 3x as much money per month for their "high speed" connection, if they didn't have much of any worthwhile content to download?
The whole "MP3 music player" fad is certainly driving up orders for DSL and cable Inet connections. (And let's be frank here... How many of those people are really just buying it so they can quickly download their legally purchased music from places like the iTunes music store? More likely, it's a *combination* of buying some things, and getting the rest from p2p networks.)
The same can be said for movie downloads, too. The MPAA may scream and rant about it - but folks like the ability to download a "preview copy" of a new movie release, before shelling out the $8.50 or more for a movie ticket to see it in the theater. This ability is worth just enough so people might say "Yeah, I'll pay the extra $10-15 per month for a faster connection so I can get them.", but NOT worth enough for folks to pay some sort of subscription fee on top of the ISP bandwidth fee to do it.
Now we need the Supreme Court to decide not to overturn the sensible "Grokster" decision (during their current session), and these copyright profiteers will have to make money by producing new products people want, rather than just extorting money every time the change the format or anything else they control.
--
make install -not war
This provides a lovely loophole for all Charter customers, if the RIAA come knocking, all they have to do is point out that the RIAA can't touch them without breaking part (3) above.
It doesn't matter that if they were not on the list that Charter supplied, becasue the RIAA can't check if they were or not without violating the ruling!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
The fourth amendment doesn't grant individuals the right to commit crimes anonymously.
Since when does any portion of the United States Constitution "grant" any right of any kind?
I work for an ISP and I get the abuse mail. When I get one of these emails from RIAA/MPAA agents it is usually filled with US LAW references (they point to where the rules are but don't cite the rules themselves). They usually list the offending files , such as Shrek2 - Vid CAM CD1.mpg (75MB), and give me an IP address, but no timeframe. Then they go on to explain that they want this activity to halt immediately so that it can benefit the whole internet community blah blah blah. I explain to them that I live in Canada. We can share files legally here. The RIAA/MPAA has not proven to me that my customer is sharing any files. They have simply shown me that someone with an IP address on my network offered up some files (75MB is NOT CD1 of Shrek2) that had names similar to movies/music that they have authority over. I then ask them how this benefits the internet community as a whole. I explain that without a time, I cannot track down any users and I wouldn't do it anyway. I ask them if they have proven that these files really are what they say they are (full movies or music titles), and I never, ever get a response back from any of these agents. I suppose they are off for easier targets (or are slowly building a case against us ;) ). I will always stick up for my customers until I find they they really are damaging the internet community as a whole.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.