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]

I wonder if I can patent this as a business methodology?

Sure you can, but then you'll get sued by the RIAA because they hold prior art... : p

Re:Poor Comcast

[Andr0s]

Hmm. I am not a Comcast customer, but I might have a look at their TOS and EULA, purely out of curiosity... Even though this comment might invoke snickers and snorts (from me, as well as from others), I was under impression that USA Courts took privacy issues quite seriously.

Thus, unless Comcast's EULA/TOS clearly and specifically states that Company doesn't find itself obligated to protect its customer's privacy rights (which could easily bring them to their knees, because it'd open door for a myriad of 'naughty things' such as mail reading, web site visit logging and other privacy-invasive actions), the abovementioned action on Comcast's part, of giving out customer information to another company (Last I checked, RIAA wasn't US Government agency with power to demand such information outside proper court channels) is in blatant and violent offense of privacy laws & rights - which again, doesn't bode too well for them.

Bottom line, unless Comcast simply buys off the plaintiff with an out-of-court settlement, this could be grizzly...

Re:Poor Comcast

[superpulpsicle]

Well if RIAA was smart, they'd really go the distance and research the hell out of the candidates before sueing them.

- Rich or at least well off
- non technical
- old enough
- Doesn't work at a computer type company with any major contacts
- Not knowledgable about laws

Re:Poor Comcast

[XorNand]

IANAL, but something doesn't quite sound right here. Debt collection agencies typically outright buy someone else's contract at a discount. If I owed $10k to my credit card company and stopped paying my bill, they might sell my account to a collection agency for half that much so they don't have to deal with it. Now, if the collection agency is unable to collect a dime from me, they're out $5k unless they opt to sue me and can collect that way.

What I don't get is why a collection agency would buy this "debt". There is no contract between the RIAA and the woman. How can they possibly expect to collect? If they sue, what basis do they have? Either this story has some facts wrong, or the RIAA offered a very steep discount to the collection agency. If the later case, this really, really concerns me. Now the RIAA can collect money without even having to incur legal expenses!

Re:Poor Comcast

[sqlrob]

- Alive

Re:Poor Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

- Rich or at least well off

But more importantly, not rich enough to hire a lawyer!

Re:Poor Comcast

[Andr0s]

- Rich or at least well off
- non technical
- old enough
- Doesn't work at a computer type company with any major contacts
- Not knowledgable about laws

Umm... that -definitely- doesn't sound like a music pirate profile to me.

Rich? Buy original CDs, or better yet Vynyl.
Non-technical? Not too likely to posess enough 'net-savyness to download loads of mp3s or divxes...
Old? Not enough interest for tons of net-floated MP3s...
Doesn't work at computer type company - how is this relevant?
Not knowledgeable about laws? Rich, but stupid and without good lawyers?

LOL.

Re:Poor Comcast

[uberdave]

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 in order to enforce this Policy. This cooperation may include Comcast providing available personally identifiable information about you to law enforcement or system administrators, including, but not limited to, username, subscriber name, and other account information.

Sounds like the subscriber doesn't have a chance, once the copyright cops get involved.

Re:Poor Comcast

[technothrasher]

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.

You can, and in fact companies do this all the time. I've had it done to me on several occasions. But the collection agencies are all bark and no bite (unless, of course, they've really got a solid claim against you, that's a different story.) All you have to do is just send the collection agency a nice certified letter back demanding all of their detailed records showing how they have a valid claim against you within 30 days so that you can begin your lawsuit against them, and they back right off. More info from the FTC

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).

Re:Poor Comcast

[technothrasher]

What I don't get is why a collection agency would buy this "debt".

Because the agencies are all about volume. They buy lots of debts at steep discounts. They don't care all that much if the debts are valid or not, they just find the vulnerable people they can harrass and extort money out of them. Anybody who shows any kind of backbone gets quickly removed from the active collection pile. Too much work for likely little return. But if they're ignorant enough not to demand their full rights, their credit report gets crapped on as they get dropped.

Re:Poor Comcast

[wdd1040]

But the RIAA isn't a law enforcement authority. Thereby, they still have no rights to this information unless a law enforcement agency has a warrant and they are pending litigation (which isn't the case with this).

Re:Poor Comcast

[whoever57]

(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 in order to enforce this Policy.

Sounds like the subscriber doesn't have a chance, once the copyright cops get involved.

Exactly which of the 2 groups of people is the RIAA a part?

Re:Poor Comcast

[B1ackD0g]

From that FTC site:

Debt collectors also may not state that:

* you will be arrested if you do not pay your debt;
* they will seize, garnish, attach, or sell your property or wages, unless the collection agency or creditor intends to do so, and it is legal to do so; or
* actions, such as a lawsuit, will be taken against you, when such action legally may not be taken, or when they do not intend to take such action.

After reading TFA, it seems like they violated that last point. Wonder how they got away with that.

Re:Poor Comcast

[modder]

That != "anyone who asks." I would argue that the RIAA does not meet this qualification.

Exactly.

Though something bothers me about reading this in their TOS, (though I imagine it's fairly standard practice) this means your info could be passed along to other admins of other service providers. This could be anyone who owns a switch you went through while you were "sharing files" or doing whatever else you were doing, right? Your information is then at the mercy of their policies.

Could the RIAA (or anyone else) then pressure these companies as a pretext to obtain user info through this admin clause?

Re:Poor Comcast

[innocent_white_lamb]

Debt collection agencies typically outright buy someone else's contract at a discount.

Not here. Any collection agencies that I have dealt with (and I used to deal with several in a "former life") worked on a percentage of 1/3 to 1/2 of the amount collected. The debtor paid the full amount to the collection agency and the collection agency then forwards between 50% and 66% of that amount to the client. The difference in their commission comes from a combination of volume and amounts.

Re:Poor Comcast

[shawb]

Since when has prior art stopped the patent office from granting a patent?

Re:Poor Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

1- RIAA is not a law enforcement authority
2- RIAA is not a sysadmin
In other words: Comcast is still screwed.

Re:Poor Comcast

[blckbllr]

This probably won't be seen by anyone but...

This is a complete misstatment of the law. For a definition of "prior art," please see 35 U.S.C. 102(b).

If person A recieves a patent, person A cannot be sued by person B because person B holds "prior art." Rather, person B can attempt to have the patent held by person A held invalid through a declaratory judgment.

-BB

Re:Poor Comcast

[iamwahoo2]

According to the article, in this occurence "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"

Re:Poor Comcast

[enosys]

The "collection agency" is called Settlement Support Center. I thought that was an unusual name and wondered if it is a company set up for the RIAA lawsuits. I guess it is and it has a bunch of lawyers which can pursue lawsuits if someone doesn't pay.

Re:Poor Comcast

[B747SP]

This cooperation may include Comcast providing available personally identifiable information about you to law enforcement or system administrators, including, but not limited to, username, subscriber name, and other account information.

That's all well and good, but is that legal? It depends on the jurisdiction I suppose, but if its not legal to share that kinda of information where Comcast are, then the clause is worthless (to them - very profitable to their victims!).

You can write anything you like in a contract, but if its not legal to do what the contract says you will do, a court won't uphold the contract.

Comcast could (and truth be known, Microsoft probably do) include a clause that says "In consideration of The Service you will deliver to us the genitals of your first born son on the third night after the first full moon following his first birthday". Unless they happen to stumble into a jurisdiction where trade in body parts is legal, they're shit out of luck as far as collecting on the deal goes.

Lots of people put wild and crazy stuff in contracts "because they can". Most times, all it takes is to point it out to the customer and say "Look, you signed... genitals please, now" and the customer will, ahem, swallow it. Occasionally you get a more astute punter who recognises that what they've been asked to do "just ain't right" and pushes back.

Let the fun begin.

Re:Poor Comcast

[gorbachev]

So it's not a collection agency at all, but a RIAA's outsourced extortion division. The extortion attempt is not a collection agency trying to collect on a debt, but a bunch of scummy lawyers trying to intimidate her to settle the case before going to court.

Re:Poor Comcast

[pete6677]

Never talk to debt-collection scumbags. All communication with them should be done in writing, since it's much harder for them to later deny having said something. Since they ALL lie, you'll definitely need to protect yourself. That being said, they probably knew you were going to protest and decided to stop trying to collect, preferring to move on to people who just send the check as soon as they get any bill.

Re:Poor Comcast

[Eskarel]

If you RTFA or even TF Summary, you'd note it explicitly says no court authorized the release of the clients information. If there were a subpoena they would have court authorization(even if it were just some clerk stamping a form).

They might even be able to get away with not having a subpoena by that clause if some law enforcement agency asked them directly, but the RIAA is not a law enforcement agency, and without a court order they don't have the authority of one either.

If any clause came into affect it's the second one, but that's not a particularly good defense in this case as, though you can stretch it almost infinitely far, if you stretch it too far a court is likely to declare it invalid. It's even probable(though IANAL)that for a system administrator to reveal information obtained this way without involving some sort of law enforcement agency and a warrant might be illegal, or at least a violation of the non disclosure portions of their employment contract.

Re:Poor Comcast

[HAKdragon]

Hmm. I am not a Comcast customer...

I know you're not a Comcast customer because you're online instead of suffering with their randomm DNS outages /rant of a fustrated Comcast customer.

Re:Poor Comcast

[Boogaroo]

Sounds about right. I had a call from a collection agency and the debt sounded bogus. I really should have stopped talking to them then, but I refused to agree to anything at the time. I looked up my rights and asked them to send me proof on the second call. Their response was "Oh, you owe it all right, now what payment option do you want or would you prefer us to take you to court?" Obviously they weren't giving up. I didn't bend and they stopped calling.

In the end, they sold my "debt" off to another agency and I got a letter from agency #2 telling me what I "owed" them. I sent a letter back demanding proof of the original debt. Never heard another thing from them. I read of several people who had their debts shuffled from agency to agency and some who'd even paid the debt and still had to deal with the exact same thing later from another agency. I wonder how many of these bogus "debts" get sold off to another unsuspecting collection agency after the first couldn't collect...

Re:Poor Comcast

[Flamsmark]

no, dead would do: it's much easier to sue an estate: they tend not to defend themselves so well.

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.

Re:It all depends

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Well, car rental companies kept writing into their service agreements the right to track you via GPS and fine you for speeding, but courts have repeatedly ruled against the rental companies. You can't enforce an unconscionable contract.

Re:It all depends

[PDXNerd]

According to the privacy agreement:

We may disclose personally identifiable information as provided for in the Cable Act when it is necessary to render, or conduct a legitimate business activity related to, the cable service or other services we provide to you. These kinds of disclosures typically involve billing and collections, administration, surveys, marketing, service delivery and customization, maintenance and operations, and fraud prevention, for example.

Is theft a kind of fraud? Fraudulent use of stolen goods??? I don't know, but I bet the court lands on the side of the RIAA and Comcast.

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.

Re:Ok everyone, two things and quick!

[Loether]

I agree! Come on people let's help her out! I'm willing to forward the money I recieve on to her. Make all checks payable to cash or just email me the amount you would like to donate and your credit card numbers.

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?

Re:What's in it for Comcast?

[nightsweat]

Comcast provides content. MPAA has interest in provision of content as does the RIAA. MPAA and RIAA make life difficult with their members for Comcast next time agreements need to be signed for things like entertainment on demand.

Re:What's in it for Comcast?

[ignipotentis]

Is it worth losing a $49 monthly fee from each customer who leaves because of this?

You haven't spent much time speaking with comcast's customer service... have you?

Oh well, they are a corporation. They have A LOT of customers. They do NOT care about the few geeks who will leave due to some idealistic reasoning. I agree with you, they should see this as bad. Howerver, I'm sad to say that they don't.

Re:What's in it for Comcast?

[vdub12]

You know your an ass. We pay for the dam banwith. I am sick and tired of ISP's that offer high speed internet and then get pissed if you use it. To us we are not wasting it if we are using WHAT WE PAY FOR.

Interesting turn...

[vidarlo]

I suspect that ISP's have handed over personal data in a lot of cases, without court order. That is probably a break of their own TOS. But, the only thing that will happend, is that every damn ISP adds a clause to their TOS saying that they're free to do whatever they want with your information, including giving your address to a known spammer...

Re:Interesting turn...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But, the only thing that will happend, is that every damn ISP adds a clause to their TOS saying that they're free to do whatever they want with your information, including giving your address to a known spammer.

In many states that does not matter. The TOS agreement will not take precedence over state privacy laws that require any business to disclose to you any instance in which they hand over your personal information to a third party and in some cases need approval beforehand (note in some states I think this has to be on a case by case basis, you can't sign something that says you can hand it over to anyone anytime.) It's crazy how sometimes privacy laws actually, you know, protect people's privacy.

Thank god for america...

[racecarj]

Where one lawsuit can easily cancel out another.

Which Law?

[ThisIsFred]

What law is the basis for this legal action? Is this a law specific to her state of residence? Is it an anti-spam law? I'm not aware of any federal law that says ISPs are legally-bound to keep private their customer's names. The only laws that I can think of along these lines specifically deal with medical records.

Don't get mad at me, just tell me what is the legal basis. Show me the law with the specific wording, not just interpretation of intent or precedent. I'm interested.

Re:Which Law?

[blueadept1]

Well, here in Canada, all corporations have a legal obligation to keep customer's information private, unless you say that you are fine with them sharing your information for various purposes, or if they have a clause in the TOS.

Unless Comcast has already changed their Terms of Service, I fear that this may have been lost already, as it states under "Violation of Acceptable Use Policy":
"This cooperation may include Comcast providing available personally identifiable information about you to law enforcement or system administrators, including, but not limited to, username, subscriber name, and other account information."

Re:Which Law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Violation of contract:
http://comcast.net/privacy/#disclosure
We make every reasonable effort to protect subscriber privacy as described in this Policy. Nevertheless, we may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable information about a subscriber without his or her consent and without notice in order to comply with a valid legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search warrant.

She's complaining they didn't notify her or ask for her permission, AND they did not have a court order.

Re:Which Law?

[mrsev]

Not ture. Many many countries do not use legal systems based on precedent. They have law books no bigger than any other. Precedent rquires that you study huge volumes of case law. The countries with precedent tend to be anglo-saxon in origin. Those without are based on Roman type legal system. (I know this is a generalisation..please do not start a thread!)

Your comment about specificaly worded law is crap.

law book in "Roman" system: You can not divulge private information without consent, unless comanded by a warrant from a judge!

Law book plus case law in anglo-saxon system: You can not divulge private information without consent, unless comanded by a warrant from a judge!

But in "mrsev vs. universe, in 2005" It was decided that your IP address and real address are not private information.

But in "EZsue vs. John Paul II, in 1955" It was decided that your street address is private information unless held in public directory.

But, mlud, "EZsue vs. John Paul" was ruled not to apply to north facing appartments in sub-tropical regions on the firt tuesday of the lunar month."

but....

but but but.

But..

Im not making judgments about the two systems but dont pretend that "Roman" law is worse than the US system. At least with Roman law you can know what a law actually is!!!!

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:Deja Vu

[kfg]

You cannot legally "threaten" someone with the specter of legal adjudication, since legal adjudication is the proper and legal civil means of resolving a dispute.

In fact, the "threat" of a lawsuit is a virtually necessary step in bringing a case, since the potential defendant must be given reasonable opportunity to settle the dispute prior to a filing.

Your credit card company cannot sue you for your bill. They have to present it to you first, then you have to fail to pay it within the specified, and reasonable, time, then they have to notify you of your failure to comply with terms and "threaten" legal action if you do not pay.

If you still do not pay, then they may sue you. Suits are not supposed to "come out of the blue."

Redress of grievance through the courts is a right, and the process is one of impartial adjudication of liability. Where is the "threat" in impartial legal judgment?

The courts want lawsuits to be threatened, because they'd rather you looked at your credit card company's lawyers and think "Oh, shit, I better just pay what I owe, huh?" instead of making every $10 debt into a court case. Even after a suit is filed the courts will do everything they can not to hear the case and get the parties to settle before trial.

Of course you and I know where the real threat lies, in the crippling expense of showing that you don't owe anything, assuming you don't, but the law cannot make that assumption, since its role is in making that determination in the first place, no?

So do you think the RIAA should just sue her and then make the threats, after she's already deep in the system and deep in debt to a lawyer?

Of course we know this person has no contractual debt up front, the supposed monies owed coming from a violation of law and not from contractual agreement. So, to date, there is no actual "debt" in the legal sense. That would only occur through adjudication and a judgement, or a future contractual agreement to acknowledge the debt, which is what is being sought.

Note that the suit filed by Dawnell Leadbetter is against Comcast, not the RIAA or the "debt collection agency" (i.e. "Law Firm." Who woulda thunk that law firms threaten law suits? It boggles the mind.)

She was ratted out. She's going after the ratter, quite possibly in hopes of getting enough money to pay the $4500 which she knows she's going to have to pay, because she knows she violated the law (which doesn't at all mean that the RIAA are not fucking bastards. Don't get me wrong on that point. See my yesterday's post on using copyright to control the distribution channel).

Comcast squealed when they were under no obligation to do so, let Comcast pay her tab.

Frankly I hope the ploy works, so that ISPs all over the land will start saying "Not without a fucking warrant you don't."

KFG

Re:phew . .

[geminidomino]

Nice troll.

"Crimes" get reported to Law Enforcement. Contrary to what they, and apparently you, beleive, the Asses of America are NOT Law Enforcement agencies.

Comcast knows its customers?

[standards]

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.

That's funny... given Comcast's poor reliability this week, I find it shocking that she'd be able to upload or download anything.

Re:Comcast knows its customers?

[maelstrom]

Just so you know, any publicly facing DNS server can be used for this purpose, and in fact its probably a good thing to have one as a tertiary server, so if all of comcast's stuff goes down, you are still functioning.

Cheers.

Can I say "So What?" now?

[Mad_Rain]

Uhm, not to rain on the parade right now, but the suit just got filed. No one has won (or lost) yet. So all of this is just speculation...

If we're speculating, and this woman wins her fight against Comcast revealing her information to the RIAA, that means a victory for privacy advocates? Does it mean that Comcast loses, and has to foot her fine to the RIAA? Or does it means the RIAA loses the ability to sue her?

If Comcast wins, what does that mean? Does this mean they are legally liable to know and track ALL of their users, and know what they are doing 24 hours a day 7 days a week? Does that mean they have to start handing over music-swappers to the RIAA, movie-watchers to the MPAA, kiddie-porn people to the FBI, tax-fraudsters to the IRS, etc?

Re:Can I say "So What?" now?

[Richard_at_work]

If we're speculating, and this woman wins her fight against Comcast revealing her information to the RIAA, that means a victory for privacy advocates? Does it mean that Comcast loses, and has to foot her fine to the RIAA? Or does it means the RIAA loses the ability to sue her?

If the woman wins and the court rules that Comcast acted illegally in handing over her information, then all that simply happens is that the RIAA has to go to court twice - first to have the court order the ISP to hand over the information required and then the RIAA would sue the ISPs customer for copyright infringement. That is what is supposed to happen now, but when Comcast handed the information over, they basically jsut assumed that they would have been ordered to hand the information over anyway (which they probably would have, the RIAA can provide the grounds for a case, and IP addresses, dates and times and evidence of copyrighted materials being transfered is more than enough basis).

If Comcast wins, what does that mean? Does this mean they are legally liable to know and track ALL of their users, and know what they are doing 24 hours a day 7 days a week? Does that mean they have to start handing over music-swappers to the RIAA, movie-watchers to the MPAA, kiddie-porn people to the FBI, tax-fraudsters to the IRS, etc?

They arent legally liable for anything. They handed the data over voluntarily, thats it. If they won the case, then they would be legally allowed to hand it over voluntarily in further cases, regardless of the circumstances of the aledged crime commited.

Dont make the mistake of thinking that its Comcasts (or any other ISPs) job to defend you when someone accuses you of wrongdoing.

Re:Can I say "So What?" now?

[Mad_Rain]

They arent legally liable for anything. They handed the data over voluntarily, thats it. If they won the case, then they would be legally allowed to hand it over voluntarily in further cases, regardless of the circumstances of the aledged crime commited.

See, that's where I think this case could get interesting - at some point, I imagine that there will be a lawsuit where Comcast will have to fight with the RIAA about "well, you gave us their contact information, why not share your logs about what your users are doing? If you don't let us see those, we'll sue you next for criminal facilitation (or some other BS)"(It's probably the beer post-work and taxes at this point, but) At what point does this become a slippery slope for Comcast?

Re:Can I say "So What?" now?

[pete6677]

The issue of common carrier status (which is what ISPs operate under) has been addressed by the courts numerous times. Comcast would face no legal problems by refusing to turn over subscriber data without a court order.

Heh.

[ErZo]

It's kinda weird it took so long, really.
Didn't ANYONE think of doing this before?

Besides, I ask you /.'ers; HAve you ever been so bored (excited) about something, that you read the whole Terms ? For example, your will arrive in 1day and 10h, what would you do? :D

Fined for downloading?

[almostmanda]

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.

Wait, what? She was given a bill for simply downloading (not SHARING) music? And she was told "pay us NOW or we will litigate you into oblivion" ? So, the company flat out said "the value of this music is $X, but if we take you to court it will become $Y" ? Call me crazy, but something about this story doesn't add up.

Re:Fined for downloading?

[Anonymous Coward]

Statutory damages. What she is liable for is not the same as the value of the item taken.

There's at least some logic here--if you shoplift a CD from a music store and get caught, do you think all you have to do is pay what the CD would have cost and you're home free? That implies there's no penalty for theft, which isn't the best of systems. Hence the concept that intentionally stealing an item of value has the potential to cost more than the actual value of the item.

This is the big hammer that the **AA is swinging against downloaders these days.

What puzzles me is that all of a sudden she got a bill from a COLLECTION AGENCY. Huh? I was under the impression that debts could not be placed for collection until the debtor was notified of the debt, given the opportunity to contest the debt, and be notified that the debt was going to be placed for collection.

I didn't think the "Proceed directly to the collection agency. Do not pass go. Do not make any attempt to collect $4,500." was a kosher process for handling a debt (even a disputed one).

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:Fined for downloading?

[MAdMaxOr]

> "MP3 is lossy compression - my copies are not copies but derivative works"

Every copy of anything macroscopic is a degraded version. It's hard to imagine a court ruling that copyright law doesn't apply because your xerox copy of someone's book was smudged or otherwise imperfect.

Re:Fined for downloading?

[metamatic]

I found out a collection agency wanted $5k from me. First I knew was when it turned up on my credit report. In two years, they had made no attempt to contact me at the addresses shown to be active on said credit report. I had to waste my time and money writing, printing and mailing documents telling them to go away because the alleged debt was incurred in a city I'd never been to, on behalf of a company who should have known that I was actually a customer of theirs on the other side of the country the whole time.

If you try to contact the collection agency or credit rating agency, they'll try to make you jump through all kinds of hoops. The best thing is to go straight to the FTC and download their template for an affidavit, write one up including all the relevant proof, send it in via certified mail, then just reply to every subsequent letter with "Read the affidavit and stop harassing me" until they get the hint.

Re:Fined for downloading?

[Qzukk]

You forgot the third option, that she was using a system like bittorrent where her activity in downloading the file was publically broadcast, and could easily be tracked using the tracker (well, what else would you call it? ;) without approving or otherwise participating in the transfer, or tapping her wires or anything.

Re:Fined for downloading?

[TWooster]

Ianal.

Like many defense arguments amounting to semantics, the RIAA wouldn't have a leg to stand on for this. If P2P networks, are, as they claim, only used to transfer illegal files anyway, the moment they "set up shop" on a P2P network, there's implied consent. They are advertising the presence of their files.

This is the same as the RIAA having links to their audio files on a website, for the public to see, saying "click here to download!" (With not so much as an click-through license.)

They are offering the files in what amounts to an opt-in, free-for-all network. When a file is requested, they give it. This isn't cybercrime, and it isn't misusing the offer of the file.

Re:And when she's found guilty...

[geminidomino]

"Home address" is still personal information.

If they want to turn the info over to the cops because she's committing a crime, fine. That's their job.

*AA is not Law Enforcement.

Re:I'm guessing...

[ZenShadow]

Tell that to SCO. :-)

It's been said before, but...

[Valiss]

"I don't get it. We sue the fuck out of our customers and they STILL won't buy our products."

Re:It's been said before, but...

[Travelsonic]

Downloading music without paying for it is illegal even if you intend to go buy the album if you like it.

Bullshit, if this is true, then why are sites like DMusic allowing artists to put up their music up for free then?

Seriously though, this is a phrase just asking for it. I mean, the actual issue is not whether payment or lack of makes downloading illegal, or whether or not the copyright status = copyrighted since indie artists for example allow downloads of their songs for free, but still copyright them for example, but the issue really is permissions. In my example the artist gave permission, in the case here that is doubtful, but it doesn't matter to your interpretation of the law since it would be illegal anyways!

RIAA might come in

[northcat]

If this case goes against Comcast, then other ISPs will get intimidated. That'll be bad for RIAA. So, maybe, RIAA might demand an unreasonably high amount from that woman (for downloading copyrighted music, RTFA) or sue her pants off, so that she can't go ahead with the comcast case. Maybe even ask her to "settle" so that they'll drop anything they have against here if she drops the comcast case.

I think I have a new business model

[Darth Muffin]

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

1. Open my own "collection agency"
2. Find name/address of random broadband user, preferably one with under-18 children. Maybe I can find some random comcast IPs and then ask them for the personal info.
3. Send them a bill from the "collection agency" for the "settlement" for the copyrighted material they have downloaded (I challenge you to find a household fitting step #2 that can prove they haven't downloaded anything copyrighted, ever) under threat of lawsuit.
4. Profit!

Re:I think I have a new business model

[Feztaa]

preferably one with under-18 children

*whew*! As a father of 19 children, it's good to know that you won't be coming after me.

(I challenge you to find a household fitting step #2 that can prove they haven't downloaded anything copyrighted, ever)

You're right, the moment that 18th child is born, all downloading ceases.

Poor Comcast? Poor Me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Comcast...

Here's a list of their terms. (I'd provide the text, but Comcast may revise this Acceptable Use Policy (the "Policy") from time to time without notice by posting a new version of this document on the Comcast Web site at http://www.comcast.net (or any successor URL(s)).

There must be more to this story...

[n6kuy]

How could they bill her for products or services she didn't obtain from them?

If I go to my local record store, and they give me free copies of albums they've illegally replicated, the RIAA is gonna bill ME?

They need to go after the illegal distributor, not the end user.

expand your "music" tastes

[adbudha kusu]

Doesn't rest of the world have decent music to offer? So listen to that for the next few years. I recommend U Srinivas renderings. Boycott RIAA/MPAA backed offerings and maybe someone more humane will take their place after they go extinct.

Stay focused...

[Krypto420]

Don't forget the point here people.... I didn't read anything in the article about her getting off from the lawsuit with the RIAA. I think she has a right to sue Comcast for giving out her personal information to ANYONE, let alone someone that wants to use that information to sue her. While the article seems to focus on the fact that it was the RIAA, it could have been anyone/any company.

This is not intended to be flamebait, but I'm not sure that the RIAA is guilty of any wrong doing. They asked for her info and Comcast gave it up. While I don't how that will affect the case that the RIAA has against her, if the facts in the article are indeed true, it seems only fair that she receive some restitution from Comcast. If that ends up being the case and I were her, I would pay off the RIAA and end the ordeal. In the end, she will most likely come out ahead ($$) from this whole debacle.

From Comcast Service Depart:

[OldManCoyote]

I called the Comcast service department (1-800-Comcast) and ask about this story. They have denied ever hearing about it, but they did mention I could be put on a non disclose list (which I then added myself to). They are also sending me their contract and policy concerning disclosing my personal information to any outside 3rd parties. Lets all call and crack the whip!

Re:From Comcast Service Depart:

[Admiral Ackbar 8]

I called and told the lady on the phone what site to look at for the story. She gave me legal's number: 886.281.2100. She also said something that was quite scary, she said that they "contracted" with that company (read: RIAA), and that the woman in question was doing something illegal (against that company). That is why they turned the information over. Cost be damned, Speakesy here I come.

Re:Poor Comcast (Bamboozled!)

[Andr0s]

Wootness!

This pretty much clears the story... all I could say is, 'BAMBOOZLED!!'

On a completely off-note, I'm growing increasingly curious about a certain thing...

Does RIAA even bother with trying to find 'media pirates' anymore? Or do they just offer ISPs a headhunter commission? Is it a fixed fee, or a percentage of lawsuit fines? I have some 'friends' I could report!

Straight from their TOS...

[gosand]

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."

Directly from their website:

" Important Note: Comcast may revise this Acceptable Use Policy (the "Policy") from time to time without notice by posting a new version of this document on the Comcast Web site at http://www.comcast.net (or any successor URL(s)). All revised copies of the Policy are effective immediately upon posting. Accordingly, customers and users of the Comcast High-Speed Internet Service should regularly visit our web site and review this Policy to ensure that their activities conform to the most recent version. In the event of a conflict between any subscriber or customer agreement and this Policy, the terms of this Policy will govern. Questions regarding this Policy and complaints of violations of it by Comcast customers and users can be directed to http://online.comcast.net/contactus/ "

And this...

"Copyright Infringement Comcast is committed to complying with U.S. copyright and related laws, and requires all customers and users of the Service to comply with these laws. Accordingly, you may not store any material or content on, or disseminate any material or content over, the Service (or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement of third party intellectual property rights, including rights granted by U.S. copyright law. Owners of copyrighted works who believe that their rights under U.S. copyright law have been infringed may take advantage of certain provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the "DMCA") to report alleged infringements. It is Comcast's policy in accordance with the DMCA and other applicable laws to reserve the right to terminate the Service provided to any customer or user who is either found to infringe third party copyright or other intellectual property rights, including repeat infringers, or who Comcast believes in its sole discretion is infringing these rights. Comcast may terminate the Service at any time with or without notice for any affected customer or user. Copyright owners may report alleged infringements of their works that are stored on the Service or the Personal Web Features by sending Comcast's authorized agent a notification of claimed infringement that satisfies the requirements of the DMCA. Upon Comcast's receipt of a satisfactory notice of claimed infringement for these works, Comcast will respond expeditiously to either directly or indirectly (i) remove the allegedly infringing work(s) stored on the Service or the Personal Web Features or (ii) disable access to the work(s). Comcast will also notify the affected customer or user of the Service of the removal or disabling of access to the work(s). If the affected customer or user believes in good faith that the allegedly infringing works have been removed or blocked by mistake or misidentification, then that person may send a counter notification to Comcast. Upon Comcast's receipt of a counter notification that satisfies the requirements of DMCA, Comcast will provide a copy of the counter notification to the person who sent the original notification of claimed infringement and will follow the DMCA's procedures with respect to a received counter notification. In all events, you expressly agree that Comcast will not be a party to any disputes or lawsuits regarding alleged copyright infringement."

However, nowhere does it say that they may give away your personal information. It just says that they can shut off your service. You can read the entire TOS here: http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp

Re:Straight from their TOS...

[Macadamizer]

So basically Comcast has decided to treat its customers as guilty until proven innocent when it comes to compyright infringement.

This is a requirement under the DMCA -- the ISP's HAVE to do this, or they lose their "safe harbor" and may themselves be sued for contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringement. As long as they follow these rules, they don't have to be worry about being sued for infringement themselves.

See 17 USC 512(c) for all of the gory details. 17 USC 512

Re:phew . .

[Gigs]

Except that the RIAA didn't contact the authorities, they contacted their Dept Collection Agency to EXTORT money from the accused. It is not the the ??AA's interest to put this case in criminal court. If they do and lose then they have established a precident which must be overcome on every trial after that one. Instead they threaten to sue you if you don't pay up. The difference is that in criminal court you get some level of councel for free. In Civil Court you are granted no such plesantries. It matters not if you are a pirate, you lose money either way.

Quite frankly, I don't understand why general /. population is so pro-copyright infringement when it comes to media, but god-forbid someone infringes on GPL and all hell breaks loose.

It has nothing to do with infringement, the market does not want to bear the outragous prices that the Record Industry wishes to maintain. And as is quite obvious it does not have to.

Let's get together on this one everyone!

[ArcticCelt]

Excellent idea! Let's start somewhere.

I propose to write an email, fax or call to EFF first to ask them if they are willing to help the lady + create a found where we can donate. If the EFF is associated with the project, the people will probably be more willing to contribute. I'll be the first the give something. I have already started to write my letter.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA

Phone: +1 415 436 9333
Fax: +1 415 436 9993

information@eff.org
EFF Contact

Waive your rights...?

[irving47]

Is it really legit. or legal to waive your legal rights via a TOS agreement? Especially one that you didn't sign?

On the other hand, do we *really* have a right to privacy when it's the cable co. that is making the records, and therefore, their property to do with as they please?

If I have a place of business, and I set up a CC camera system recording all entries/motion in my shop to a hard drive, (and have a sign up saying all activity is being monitored by cameras) can it possibly be illegal to do with that footage as I please?

I'm not taking sides, as I can see both arguments, but I just wonder what the legality really and truly is, and then what would actually hold up in court...

Re:Poor Comcast? Poor Me!

[reezle]

Here's a nice place to ask their customer rep about your privacy: (Link to their onlinechat support)

Re:Denied

[Phil246]

In America, from the horror stories ive heard, it would seem people sue for the sake of it, regardless if they dont have a decent case - in the hope they`ll get an out of court settlement.
Now, i dont live there so i cant be sure, but ive a feeling thats how things are over there.
The rise of the 'compensation culture' deeply troubles me, with the frivolous lawsuits which are flying about, in the face of things such as common sense.

Re:I'm guessing...

[geminidomino]

This is slashdot.

So, "yes"

Re:Nice to have this on file:

[Anonymous Coward]

chat id : ce51a231-b623-4d9f-b571-edc082b8f760
Problem : Billing/General Inquiry

David > Thank you for contacting Comcast High Speed Internet Support. My name is Dave. How may I assist you with your billing issue today?

robert > Hi, I'm worried about what you might do with my billing information

robert > I was made aware you turned over records for Dawnell Leadbetter of Seattle, WA without her prior consent or notification to the RIAA

robert > I would like to know if your company is willing to turn over my information to anyone who asks you to.

robert > Hello?

David > No, we cannot give out account specific information unless they can verify the information that we require.

robert > Which information is that?

David > For security purposes I will need the following before I can provide any account specific information. This information includes the last 4 digits of the Primary Account owner's Social Security number/Security Code (If applicable), the full 16 Digit Account number or the exact amount of the most recent payment on the account.

David > That is the information that we request.

robert > OK, you will not divuldge my information unless they can provide proof they are me? Is that the gist of your statement?

David > No, that wouldn't be a gist, that would be an accurate statement.

robert > good enough... thank you

David > Customer has closed chat and left the room

David > Is there anything else that I can assist you with?

David > Thank you for choosing Comcast as you Internet Service Provider. If you have any more questions feel free to email us or you can chat again with one of our Online Customer Support Specialists 24 hour a day, 7 days a week at http://www.comcastsupport.com/sdcuser/asp/default. asp. Have a great evening.

David > Analyst has closed chat and left the room

The real story

[gorbachev]

The real story here is the fact that a collection agency is trying to collect money from this woman, not that she is sueing Comcast over alleged privacy violations.

How did the collection agency get involved? The information in the news story says nothing about it. Did she settle with the RIAA (the story implies she did not), but then not pay? Or did RIAA just hand over the "bill" to the collection agency without a settlement or a court case?

Something's fishy in the story. Either details were left out, or RIAA is up to something really fucked up.

I call collusion

[murderlegendre]

Wait a second.. two 800 pound gorilla companies, who might ostensibly be considered competitiors (The RIAA and Comcast are both involved in distributing media content) are working together to gain additional control over a marketplace.. I know there's a name for this.. what is it again.. oh yeah, it's:

Collusion: In the study of economics, collusion takes place within an industry when rival companies cooperate for their mutual benefit. Collusion most often takes place within the market form of oligopoly, where the decision of a few firms to collude can significantly impact the market as a whole.

Collusion is largely illegal in the United States due to antitrust law, but implicit collusion in the form of price leadership and tacit understandings still takes place.

(The above is courtesy Wikipedia.org, reprinted here under fair-use terms)

Debt Collection? Awesome!

[That's Unpossible!]

If I was downloading copyright protected music, I would much prefer to receive a notice from a debt collection agency, rather than be sued.

After all, with the debt collection notice, you can easily and legally get the to cease and decist by simply sending them a "Drop Dead Letter", certified/registered for delivery.

http://clarkhoward.com/topics/drop_dead_letter.h tm l

Once they receive this letter from you, they are no longer allowed to contact you, and the alleged "debt" will not show up on your credit report, either.

I have used this technique twice now on bogus debts. Once, I told WIRED magazine to stop my subscription, but they never did. They continued to mail me magazines, even after I received notices telling me if I didn't pay to re-subscribe for another year, they would cease sending the magazines. I thought, cool, I won't pay, and they will stop sending the mags. Then I got a letter from a debt collection agency for $11 (one year's subscription). Since you pay for magazine subscriptions in advance, I was amused at how WIRED had decided to operate. I sent the DDL, never heard back from the agency, and furthermore, stopped buying WIRED even on the newsstand.

Similar situation happened with Microsoft. I was subscribed to their technet monthly service where they send out CDs and information each month with updated software, beta software, etc. They asked me to re-subscribe for another year, I declined. Later I received a debt collection notice. DDL sent, seeya later.

Thank you Clark Howard!

Re:Debt Collection? Awesome!

[Richard_at_work]

Yes, but that course of action doesnt negate the ability of the initiator (in this case the RIAA) from suing you. You can get the debt agency off your back by doing that, but you will probably just find yourself being served a court summons.

This is perfectly allowed under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Section 805 Part C which handles ceasing of communication allows for three exemptions :

(1) to advise the consumer that the debt collector's further efforts are being terminated;

(2) to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor may invoke specified remedies which are ordinarily invoked by such debt collector or creditor; or

(3) where applicable, to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy.

Under subsections 2 and 3 a specified remedy can be sueing you to recover the debt. In other words, that letter you link to is not a 'get out of jail free' card.

What bothers me...

[ZenPirate]

What really bothers me is how a lot of folks are equating the RIAA with law enforcement agencies. It's a private company that seems to have an easier time getting information than the FBI does. WTF is wrong with that picture? On second thought, maybe we could tell the RIAA that Bin Laden used Kazaa to download some Britney Spears mp3s... I bet they could get his whereabouts in 15 minutes flat.

Letter from Adelphia

[Anonymous Coward]

On Feb. 15th I recieved a letter from Adelphia Cable saying that MGM had complained about my use of their copyrighted material by using bit torrent .

On page 3 of their 7 page letter, they state:

8. Under what circumstances will you release my information?

Adelphia will only release your information to the copyright owner when legally required to do so by court order.

I decided it would be best to not respond and see what happens. Nothing so far.

They also said they had shut off my service until I contacted them, but two months later I'm still with service and haven't heard anything yet.

By the way, I've never seeded any torrents, so MGM must be going after "leeches" also.

Re:Letter from Adelphia

[kelnos]

By the way, I've never seeded any torrents, so MGM must be going after "leeches" also.

Nope. If you use BitTorrent at all, you're uploading. Granted, you didn't actually say you were downloading via BitTorrent, but I'm not sure why you'd mention it otherwise.

This ain't the first time

[PapalMonkey]

"...The Settlement Support Center, a group that works exclusively for the RIAA handling settlement negotiations. "

"...The RIAA referred all of the Drexel cases to the Settlement Support Center, a group of lawyers who specialize in settling."

"...recieved calls from the "RIAA Settlement Support Center". A disgusting attempt at making themselves sound like the nice-guys they are known to not be."

Suspicion of Illegal acts

[nurb432]

The problem is there isnt a court ordered investigation, the information was released to a PRIVATE company 'just beacuse'.

Once this is a legit, police run investigation with a legit warrant, then comcast has some ground to stand on in releasing this information to the COURT.

But just because some company thinks there *might have been* a violation isnt a reason to release anything, especially not to a private company.

What exactly can the RIAA even do anyways?

[saleenS281]

Even if they found out it was come from her IP... what proof do they have that "SHE" downloaded the stuff?

Let me make up a quick defense or two here...

"I had an open wireless access point, someone else must've been stealing my bandwidth."

"There's a trojan on my computer, I didn't download that stuff, I don't know how it got on there."

They didn't even seize her computer, they don't even have proof of it being on her hard drive, so how the hell can they make a claim against her?

If I leave my car in my driveway, and someone steals it and kills someone, since when am "I" the one who's charged with murder? This is news to me, and I think I need to leave the country if that's how it really works.

Or better yet, if someone cuts my brake lines, and I hit another car, that's "MY" fault? Apparently the RIAA decided there are no longer laws in this country... I'm pretty sure their are still one or two though, and that their case has about as good of a chance standing up in court as a piece of tissue paper has of replacing the hoover dam.

**Note I only feel confident posting this because I am *NOT* on comcast. I'm sure the RIAA would be sending me a bill/collection agency for "defamation of character" if I were.

Re:What exactly can the RIAA even do anyways?

[oneiron]

None of that matters... They're just trying to scare people into settlements. You don't need a solid case to do that. All you need are a few expensive lawyers...

Re:What exactly can the RIAA even do anyways?

[DeanFox]

This is the way it works, so go ahead and start making plans to leave. I am. I figure my retirement will stretch further in another country anyway. Somewhere like Belize. I can get a coastal villa for $50K and a full time maid and cook for $40 a month. I can hire a full time bartender who will make me drinks with little umbrellas in them for $25 a month. But I digress.

A man is arrested for drunk driving. He is booked and released on bond. Not having a ride home, at his request the police call his friend Joe, they explain the situation, and ask that he come get his friend. At 2am Joe gets out of bed, gets dressed and goes to pick up his friend. Rather than to take him home, at his friends request, Joe takes him back to his car. He drops him off and then goes home and back to bed. His friend gets back in his car, still under the influence, takes off and this time kills someone in a collision. Later that morning Joe is woken up by the police and arrested for vehicular manslaughter. He contributed by taking his friend to his car rather than home making him just as guilty. It's that law in where everybody involved is guilty of murder even if they didn't pull the trigger.

A mother has a 19 year old daughter living with her. The daughter has friends over and they're listening to music. It turns out they also had alcohol. The mother did not buy the alcohol, she didn't even know they had any. The mother goes upstairs to bed. Later, the friends leave, under the influence, and kill someone in an auto accident. The mother is arrested for vehicular manslaughter. Again, the contributory guilt. The mother asleep in bed is "just as guilty" as the drunk driver. The mother contributed by negligence not stopping them from drinking even though she didn't know they were.

In both these cases these "victims" of our laws were found innocent by a jury. But that's the point. The laws already exist in the U.S. to be arrested and considered guilty for anything, whether you did the crime of not. Property can be seized without trial in direct conflict with our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The only thing standing between you and prison are not the protections afforded by the Constitution or even common sense, it's 12 people in a jury box.

Ever do laundry and pour the bleach in without measuring? You're a felon. It is against federal law to use that product inconstant with it's product labeling. A felony punishable by many years in prison.

It's not laws that keep me free and when socialites values change with the wind, so does my freedoms from an oppressive government. The laws in the United States are not dissimilar to those in 1930's Germany. Our SS and take you from your home, imprison you without charges, without access to legal counsel, hold secret trials, convict and punish you in secret. All the time your family is filling out missing person's reports and stapling posters to telephone polls with your picture.

Our freedoms do not exist on paper. They only exist in the minds or our citizens.

Go ahead and plan on leaving if that's how you feel. But I'd ask that you stay only because I'd want you on my jury if I'm ever unfortunate enough to be caught up in one of our police squad raids. You and people like you are the only reason I'm free, not because of any law. Stay just long enough for me to build my retirement to Belize. At least there I can avoid trial with a payment to a judge that's half the cost of an attorney defending me here.

Very Suspect

[max born]

What interest would Comcast have in giving away personal customer info to a debt collector? It's bad publicity and what could Comcast possibly gain?

Verizon, for example, fought the RIAA even when they had court subpoenas, RIAA v Verizon. So I have trouble believing that Comcast is going to violate a user's privacy and perhaps drive customers to Verizon, a competitor. Something is not right here. Perhaps Comcast gave away this user's info by mistake?

Suing is easy. Winning is hard.

[wheelbarrow]

Remember that anyone can sue any person or business over anything they want. That's the easy part. Those of you crowing about justice being served should wait and see. Depending on the agreements that the subscriber signed when she joined the ISP, this case could be dismissed on Monday.

Re:Taking privacy seriously

[symbolic]

I was under impression that USA Courts took privacy issues quite seriously.

If that were true, neither Lexis Nexis nor Choicepoint would be in business. There would not only be serious constraints on the amounts and kinds of information that could be aggregated with respect to US Citizens, but also under what circumstances it could be used. None of that exists, and as long as Big Bu$ine$$ has its way, it never will.

Re:phew . .

[LtOcelot]

BSD license does not require anything of the code put under it.

Exactly. Since yours is more restrictive and does, your code can't be incorporated into a BSD-licensed project.

Passed on to Debt Agency == Automatic punishment

[Oori]

I just wanted to remind everyone that passing one's bill onto a debt collection agency is often tantamount to immediate punishment. Once the agency gets an unpaid bill, they often register the uncollected bill with the credit agencies. Once that happens, all sorts of strange things start happening -- your APRs on the credit cards go up, loans become more difficult to get, etc'.
This "negative information" having to do with your debt being assigned to an agency *stays* even after you had paid your bill. IN fact, it takes quite a bit of work to have them remove it for you. So even if the RIAA eventually turns out to have made a mistake, or the debt agency turns out to be wrong, simply starting the process corresponds to immediate punishment.

Re:Nice to have this on file:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Dave didn't at all have an Indian accent. I'm actually quite suprised!

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.

Re:Seattle area people really care about privacy

[wronski]

Ok, dont get a political flameware started. Quite frankly im pissed off with everything became a redstate bluestate thing. we're ALL americans, no matter what state we're from, and no matter our political affiliation. And where are the libertarian states?

No, we are not all american. Some of us are, like, from the rest of the world...

Anonymous Internet

[ArticleI]

What would be good for consumer privacy would be an internet service where they can't pinpoint your physical location. Satellite internet connections have the potential to do this, but companies like Earthlink would not take advantage of it. The idea is you would buy the hardware and pay for the connectivity with "internet cards". It would be similar to the way pre-paid cellphones work except that instead of minutes you would pay for monthly access with them. With current satellite internet they can't find exactly where the hardware is but they can find out who pays the bills and that is where the RIAA/MPAA goons come knocking. Of course the proposed system has great potential for abuse and depends on the company not tracking where individual cards are sold, but it is still an interesting idea.

Enter 1984

[yasuo.hiroshi]

When did the Movie Industry and the Music Industry become the police of the internet? They are even working to get ISPs to regulate port activity and bar users who uare using too much bandwidth. So what if all that bandwidth I'm using is for legit purposes such as hosting my own website. Sounds like the MPAA/RIAA might hbe doing some shady business with the tech industry.

On top of that, what give a company the right to store someone's personal information on their servers for these IP bullies to review. If I was {insert big tel-com co here} I would NOT be storing such sensitive information, nor would I allow any information be disclosed to any organisation that wasn't OFFICAL government law enforcement. So whose side are the ISPs on anyways?

Perhaps this lawsuit is long overdue. And so too I hope the MPAA/RIAA get what they deserve too... a boycott and multiple lawsuits by hundreds of people over the issue of privacy and IP bullying.

Re:phew . .

[bechthros]

Congress disagrees.

They passed a law in the 80's to specifically state that it was OK to make mixtapes for your friends. Their reasoning was that a) the person making the mixtape had paid for the music in the first place and b) cassettes weren't exact copies of the original, that people could make tapes for their friends. This law being passed was the only reason music-oriented casette recorders (as opposed to voice-oriented casette recorers) ever became legal to own in the US. For many years, they weren't - and I'm old enough to remember it.

So, Mr-know-it-all-AC, since I paid for my 300+ CD collection, and mp3's are lossy (read: not exact) copies, am I allowed to share them with 10 friends on the net? 20? How many friends am I allowed to have and make the equivalent of digital mixtapes for, of stuff I bought with my own money? Remember, mp3's are lossy compression and nowhere near as high quality as the original PCM streams. They're not exact copies. And "not exact copies" is exactly what Congress passed a LAW to protect our ability to make, and share with our friends.

And what started all the controversy, you ask? Funny thing - it was the fucking RIAA running around like fucking Chicken Little screaming that the fucking sky was falling and that they'd all be bankrupt in six days and all the recording artists would fucking starve and it would be the end of western fucking civilization! Sound just a little bit familiar?!

But gee, the RIAA is still around. In fact, now that I think about it, the RIAA made fucking SHIT TONS of cash off of selling cassettes - once they had been forced by the marketplace into accepting a new distribution mechanism.

I'm getting SO tired of repeating myself over and over and over because all you twenty-something self-righteous oh-look-I'm-a-good-corpofascist little twerps have absolutely ZERO sense of history!

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

[NormalVisual]

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.

She should. If it truly was a collection agency that contacted her, it's a simple matter for her to send a letter right back to them demanding verification of the debt. There's been no court case establishing said debt, and I don't see how she could owe the RIAA itself anything. A member company, perhaps, but the RIAA is a separate corporation. I suppose the member company(ies) could have assigned the "debt" to the RIAA, but I don't think the collection agency would have a very fun time trying to prove the debt exists, and when they can't, the real fun can begin where prizes can get up into the thousands and thousands of dollars.

Somethings fishy..

[acomj]

This is a patently BS law suit. Somethings not being explained. Here's why. At first the RIAA used the DMCA to get information from isps. No court, just a letter. Well a court ruled they can't do that anymore (I think some of the DMCA was struck down, lack of due process?).
Now the RIAA file lawsuits, send legal documents to isps to compell them to reveal information about customer at ip address x.x.x.x. ISPs don't want to be in contempt of court so they comply.

This behaviour would be very out of character.

I'm betting her kids have something to do with it...

Re:Poor Comcast? Poor Me!

[Frobnicator]

HOw can any such provisions really be ok and acceptable in a contract, especially in a consumer retaled situation?

Standard "IANAL but I work with them" disclaimers apply.

First, this is a policy and not a contract. If it were in a contract, they would have to include a way for the customer to escape. Probably in the form of: "We'll send an email to the address on file, which you agree to keep current. If you keep using the service after that date, we'll assume you agree. If you don't get the email message for whatever reason, it's not our fault, we sent it."

It does *NOT* mean, as you suggested, "we can change the entire meaning of this thing on a whim, do whatever we want, and there's nothing you can do about it."

It is normal legal boilerplate with a fairly simple meaning.

Generally speaking, that boilerplate lets them make small wording changes and minor meaning changes that don't change the overall spirit of the document.

To say they will "revise from time to time" is simply a standard legal expression saying they don't know how frequently they will update it. It is generally interpreted to mean a relatively long while, and as a stable thing. It also normally means that it will only be minor revisions. Revising their policy to do be the exact opposite of what it used to be is not really a revision, more of a replacement.

To say that they won't be notifying custmers is also a standard legal expression so they don't have to notify every customer, and possibly get acceptance from every customer, any time they modified their policies. Even if it was as simple as changing a typo, they'd have to notify their entire customer base, possibly through a paper mailing.

Major changes, or things that do affect the overall spirit of the document, will still generally need to be sent out to the customers unless they want to be sued.

frob