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).