Comcast Sued For Giving Customer Info to RIAA

maczealot writes "The first legal missile has been fired at ISP collaboration. Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed Thursday." From the article: "...no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its customers, or notified his client that her information had been given to an outside party..."

Comments

Poor Comcast

[Cylix]

When you play with the devil... you will get burned. So let this be a lesson for handing your customer's data over to the RIAA thugs.

On a lighter note, looks like the RIAA has really stream lined the process of putting the screws to the customer. Honestly, you can't get any faster then straight to debt collection agency! Looks like due process was really slowing down their efforts, but now that it has been nixed from the check list they are free to pursue their interests without that peksy court system in their way.

Too bad I can't just go around and asking debt collection agencies to gather up money for me. I'm sure someone would disagree with me if I randomly decided some poor bastard off the street owed me $3000 or face a very long trial attempting to prove that I don't.

Yee gads! I wonder if I can patent this as a business methodology?

Ominous...

Re:Poor Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Reread clause ii.

Comcast is allowed to cooperate with "system administrators at other Internet Service Providers or other network or computing facilities."

That != "anyone who asks." I would argue that the RIAA does not meet this qualification. This clause is to allow them to deal with people who spam, threaten, harass, or otherwise harm others in dealing with a complaint. It's specifically tailored to responding to sysadmins and other computing professionals. Not someone involved in a business dispute.

Second issue with this clause in general "You expressly authorize Comcast to cooperate....in order to enforce this policy." Again, this isn't a blanket license--there is the need to show that the activity in question violates some OTHER aspect of Comcasts' TOS. Granted, this may be open and shut if the TOS expressly prohibit viewing copyrighted material, but that's not a clean win either.

Re:Poor Comcast

[Talondel]

You expressly authorize Comcast and its suppliers to cooperate with (i) law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected legal violations, and (ii) and system administrators at other Internet service providers or other network or computing facilities I fail to see how this clause is pertinent to this law suit in any way. The RIAA is neither an internet service provider, nor a law enforcement agency (no matter how much they want to be).

It all depends

[mwsmith824]

Depending on the TOS she agreed to, they might not have needed anything from a judge. Do I think it's criminal to release that information without a warrant, sure. But I've seen stranger things in TOS's and EULAs before.

You hear that?

[nightsweat]

It's the sound of a thousand TOS agreements being rewritten in every ISP/broadband provider across the country.

"Well you agreed to it when you clicked "yes" on that 400k text file."

Ok everyone, two things and quick!

[Weaselmancer]

1) Where is the EFF? They need to be in on this.

2) Is there a place to donate directly to her legal expenses?

Let's get together on this one everyone - this one is important.

What's in it for Comcast?

[d2_m_viant]

I'm curious as to why an ISP would even be compelled to do such a thing. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the courts have ruled that ISP's are not responsible for the actions of their customers. It would seem that Comcast would have no interest either way...so why would Comcast bend customers over like this? Is it worth losing a $49 monthly fee from each customer who leaves because of this?

Deja Vu

[BrynM]

Dawnell Leadbetter said that she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars

I know I've heard of something like this before... There's a word for it... Never given a chance to exonerate herself of the "charges". From acusation to credit damaging collection agency without even a notification... Threat making folks plying her with further threats... Oh yeah:

extort - verb
obtain by coercion or intimidation; "They extorted money from the executive by threatening to reveal his past to the company boss"; "They squeezed money from the owner of the business by threatening him"

Re:Fined for downloading?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question I want to know is...

How did the RIAA know she had downloaded said files?

IANAL. TINLA.

If she downloaded them from an RIAA agent, the agent, by making them available to her, also gave permission on behalf of the RIAA to download them... so they are legal copies. (estoppel prevents the RIAA from suddenly deciding they are now illegal copies)

If she *didn't* download them from an RIAA agent, then the RIAA must have been tapping her wires... an illegal act in and of itself because the RIAA is not law enforcement and cannot serve warrants. If this is the case, it is illegally and improperly collected evidence and will not be permissible in court.

A third question... if an agent of the RIAA downloads a copy from you (i.e., you're uploading), did they not authorize the new copy in the first place (see objection #1)? If they don't download the copy, can they be sure the file name is analagous to the actual song? And to download the copy, their agent has to approve the creation of the download (by starting it) and therefore the upload to the agent becomes legal.

Seriously... I cannot for the life of me figure out how the RIAA collects evidence that will actually get into court... either the RIAA agent has authorized a copy to be made (and so the copying is not illegal) or the RIAA has used illegal methods to wiretap a computer (and therefore the evidence is inadmissable). In the first case, you have no case because there is no crime; in the second, you have no case because there is no court-admissable evidence.

Could someone please enlighten me?

Re:Where is the EFF!!111!!!!!1118

[Weaselmancer]

I'm going to respond to you AC because you've illustrated my point the best.

This is not about what you download.

This is about your ISP divulging personal info about you and about what you do online.

The lady in question did not sue the RIAA, nor dispute the charge. Her two teenage kids probably did do exactly what they are accused of. Nowhere in the article does she say she is going to contest that.

What she has a problem with (and she should) is her ISP giving her personal and private info to a non-legal body. Despite the noise they make, the RIAA is nothing more than a business consortium. they are not, repeat, not the cops.

To put it another way, what if Pepsico or Johnson & Johnson demanded her info? Still okay with that?

So rather than whine about the erosion of our rights and the ability of modern business to crush the individual - here we have an opportunity to set a precedent. So let's do exactly that. While we still can.