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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]'"
I am in St. Louis, MO and use Charter. I have been following this for a while and I am glad that this is over. I won't be getting caught! :D
Friends help you move...
REAL Friends help you move dead bodies... ^_^
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!
...so I guess so.
My other first post is car post.
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
...welcome our new DMCA overlords...err...wait
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.
While this seems like a real win I am quite curious when we'll see the first "voluntary cooperation" from ISPs. Why would the ISPs cooperate when they could lose clients? File sharing, especially those who run servers with large video files are bandwidth hogs. By voluntarily complying not only are they getting a good nod from RIAA/MPAA (which they will need once they all start selling PVRs) but also eliminating their bandwidth hogs.
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.
Oh, so is Copyright infringement...
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.
Those who filed "Amici" on behalf of Charter...in other words, those who were willing to go on record supporting this lawsuit.
Lotta folks on this here fishin' trip:
MPAA
Association of American Publishers
Association for Independent Music
AFM (U.S. and Canada)
AFMA
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Society of Media Photographers
The Author's Guild, Inc.
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
Business Software Alliance (BSA) - (Is there anything these assholes won't stick their noses in?)
The Church Music Publishers Association
Director's Guild of America
Entertainment Artists
Graphic Artists Guild, Inc.
Office of the Commisioner of Baseball (wtf?)
Professional Photographers of America
Recording Artists Coalition
Screen Actors Guild, Inc. (SAG)
SESAC, Inc.
Songwriters Guild of America
Software and Information Industry Association
Writer's Guild of America
West, Inc.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
About Damn Time.
While I wish this were true, it's another illustration why /. needs a (-1, Wrong) mod...
17 USC 506 describes the criminal copyright offenses.
The RIAA/MPAA have already changed to John/Jane Doe lawsuits rather than filing subpoenas.
In fact that very method is suggested in this decision as an alternative.
Charter is owned by Paul Allen, maybe this had something to do with it. Alen has loads of cash to back Charter up, he might of even been the person to say "no"
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.
We've got Bush getting re-elected (and nutcases putting up webpages about it), biblical-sized disasters occuring, and now someone made a sensible decision in a case involving the RIAA???
Dunno 'bout you, but I'm going to start stockin' up on canned food and shotgun shells.
What is noteworthy here is that Charter is appealing the case (and racking up legal fees) even after it already had to hand over the goods; the battle (not the war, yet) was lost, but Charter is now saying that the court should have stayed the order. If they're fighting on principle, I say good for them. Maybe they just want to set a precedent so that the next request (maybe for 20,000 names) won't go through.
Most of the posts I see right now say that it's great they care about their subscribers' privacy, to which I say bollocks. Charter, like every cable company cares about one thing: money. Think about it: with all the extra digital channels, what do they have? At least 20 channels of pay-per-view and another 10 or so of home-shopping. Most of the rest of the channels are pretty craptastic, too. And no, they won't sell you just the few channels you want to watch; buy a package for an inflated price, or suck eggs.
Anyway, Charter stands to lose money by having to hire people (PLURAL!) full-time to handle all the DMCA subpoenas, and they stand to lose subscribers (money) if they just roll over to the RIAA, as subscribers will opt for DSL in the hopes that the phone company won't roll over so easily.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
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
Maybe it needs a (+1, Wrong) so it'll be easier for people to see when someone is
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.
The judgement merely states that they can't go on their previous fishing expeditions. It doesn't say they can't submit John Doe subpoenas; as a matter of fact, they've been doing just that for the past 6 months. If you RTFO, you'll see that it even suggests just that. This just protects the ISP...
The Wizard utters the word 'frobnoid!' and cackles gleefully
Actually, it's a thought... maybe other people would see the post and go "oh, I thought that... but it's wrong" instead of being buried.
It'd also prevent again the (hypothetical *cough*) case where a post you're responding to is modded down to -1 thus making you look like a dweeb who is saying something completely out of the context of the conversation. Not that that happened or anything...
We're a little ISP "good guy" - have stood up for our customers when DMCA threats come. Often the offending party is a minor in a residential household, or a small business with an infected Windows server that some rogue has converted into a filesharing server without their knowledge or consent.
We receive threats from the law firms of content owners, such as the publisher of the Harry Potter series. Their demands are not only unethical, but are clearly not consistent with the provisions under the DMCA (we have a registered agent, for instance, yet they refuse to go through it).
Here's what the Harry Potter publishers like to do:
1. send you a demand that you shut off the alleged offending party immediately. I stress "alleged" because they provide no evidence other than an IP address.
2. send your upstream provider a threat that if you don't permenantly cut off the alleged party, they will send their attorneys on the upstream as well. Our upstream (a large national NSP) is occasionally competent, but unfortunately has low-level clerical hacks that deal with DMCA complaints. They have no legal training, are unaware of the registered agent process, and make representations regarding the alleged party that an attorney could easily construe as defamation (one must *always* be careful what one accuses another party of; god forbid the other party can afford competent counsel and wants to rub your nose in your errors). Threats of litigation are also in this dangerous category; one must not threaten unless one has the will and means to follow it up, as well as bear the legal and financial consequence of having a big mouth.
We have a polite but legal response to these content owners, reminding them of their responsibilities under DMCA. In most cases they go away, looking for other easy targets. Once they're aware that the recepient ISP is not unaware of the law, they're off to easier hunting. Because people like me rarely mention their unethical and potentially illegal actions, they believe they have no consequence. Harry Potter's publisher certainly has no financial consequence - who is going to boycott them? Heck, they could propose and contribute money to genocide, sacrifice babies and exterminate little old ladies and they'd still have record sales.
Perhaps it's sufficient to patronize competent service providers...
"Section 512(h) of the Act does not authorize subpoenas in such circumstances"
Don't provoke Congress...they'll just come back with Section 512(h) VERSION 2.0.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
...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
Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that interpretation it's basically impossible to use the subpoena power of the DMCA against anyone other than a web hosting company. Not that I'm complaining, but I doubt that's what was intended in the law, and I can definitely see that either being reversed higher up or ammended if necessary.
On the other hand, it basically leaves the law in a position where it can be used against "commercial" infringement (including someone else's content on your web site. not that all sites are commercial, of course), but leaves "sharing" beyond the reach of the law.
Of course content owners can still send warning letters to some ISP's and get your service canceled (cough
I'd really love to see the whole law ammended out of existance, but anyways...
The way I understand this, people won't pirate nearly as much if the prices of CD's go down.
From what I've learned in economics, the price level should be determined by where supply and demand meet. Therefore, any price should yield similar profits, just from more or fewer people paying it. But the recording industry is attempting to operate as a monopoly (price fixing, etc.), which changes the model. Since it has no competition, it probably bases it's pricing not on where demand and supply meet, but at the most efficient point of the production possibilities curve, which guarantees the most money for the cheapest product. However, the price it fixes at is higher than what most people want to pay, so many people would rather pirate the stuff. The correct decision in a free market economy would just be to lower the price, but the industry is instead trying to take out piracy (using very shady tactics) so it can keep pricing music without regard to supply and demand.
The way I see it, the only way to lower the prices on CD's and reduce piracy and make everybody happy is to keep the music industry from operating as a single entity.
So the only logical answer I can think of to end all this suing and gestapo-like behavior is to get something truly done about the RIAA's monopolistic actions (attacking them for price fixing is good).
Esoteric reference.
All this ruling does is preserve due process in achieving RIAA's legal ends. This is not a victory for the people. The people we are talking about really _ARE_ infringing on copyrights in most cases.
What this ruling does do is make pursuing the actual infringers more expensive and annoying for RIAA and the like. Instead of getting blanket subpoenas en masse from a court a jillion miles away, they have been told to hire local council, file a John Doe lawsuit, and then file a subpoena for the information. Judicial oversite of the process is preserved, and a bunch of local lawyers will make more than the average amount collected from the alleged infringer for each suit filed.
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.
If an ISP maintains a directory, or a web page, with links to offending material, that could be contributory infringement.
Link here means relaying information by providing the physical link to the end user - I send a request from my computer destined for a remote computer, the ISP is not liable if they merely forward my request, and/or return the reply.
That's different than "Here's a list of copywritten stuff you can download without the owner's permission!"
paintball
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
The only way you lost thousands of dollars is if, in fact, every single individual who obtained your material would have, under other circumstances paid for it, which is a simplistic assumption. When the record company makes such claims sales figures suggest they know they are lying. Can you demonstrate, for example, that an author loses money when a book is checked out of the library?
What the RIAA is doing thru these lawsuits is attempting to maintain an obsolete business model and an obsolete star system. If they had been less stupid, they would have seen this coming and built a new business model years ago instead.
As for residual royalties, you might consider the example of science fiction - fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. A couple of years ago, she agreed to let her publisher make a couple of her works available for free download. Her very next royalty check, from her other publisher, for the oldest series in her backlist, was three times what it had been consistantly for the previous ten years. We're not talking bar tab here, unless you are buying rounds for the house. She used the check to buy a nail gun, an air compressor to power it, and high grade lumber to build a wall of bookshelves - mid to high three figures.
Because of you our music won't sell,
Now God is going to damn you to hell.
Trading our songs has raised our ire,
Now thou shall burn in the Lake of Fire!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The offtopic mod you got is moderation abuse, and I have a mod point, but I decided to post instead. Sorry!
Anyway, a sibling post before mine claimed that copyright violation isn't criminal, and as others said, that's false. However, the RIAA cannot bring a criminal charge. They can ask the government to bring one, but then the government prosecutors will run the case their own way.
I think it likely that the RIAA doesn't want the risks associated with a trial they can't control or settle.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.