Court Allows Unmasking of P2P Downloaders

bricko writes "A federal appeals court says copyright-infringing downloaders can now be outed. If you use or have used P2P, this may interest you. From Wired: 'The RIAA detected what it claimed to be infringing activity on an IP address the university linked to the student. The unidentified student moved to quash a federal judge’s order that the university forward the student’s identity to the RIAA. The student asserted a First Amendment right of privacy on the Internet, in addition to a fair-use right to the six music tracks in question. The appeals court ruled in the RIAA’s favor (PDF) after balancing a constitutional right to remain anonymous against a copyright owner’s right to disclosure of the identity of a possible “trespasser of its intellectual property interest."'"

Comments

Bleh

[sonicmerlin]

This is just another example of the poison of Corporatism spreading its infection throughout American politics. I wish Obama's calls for campaign finance reform were much more progressive. Perhaps he doesn't want to step on anyone's toes in an election year where a slow-moving Congress obstructed by Republicans simply can't act on finance reform until next year.

I just hope that if Democrats maintain a majority in both legislatures after November that Obama will go full-speed ahead on reform (abolition of corporate personhood, super-strict limits on corporate donations, perhaps even government financing of campaigns).

Re:The court is corrupted by corporate influence

[sonicmerlin]

I think the vast majority of people realized how corrupt the Supreme Court was after the 2000 Bush vs. Gore decision that essentially gave the presidential election to Bush. The subsequent fallout of that disastrously political decision will be felt for decades due to Bush's abuse of his position.