Slashdot Mirror
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."'"
A better title would be "court upholds right to serve warrant".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That judge better keep track of what his (or her, I didn't RTFA yet) kids are doing online. This is the kind of ruling that can come back to haunt them. Of course, once the RIAA discovers that it has nailed a Federal judge's kid, they'd drop the case like a hot potato.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
now thats a first.
i wonder how low u.s. judicial system will sink under the weight of the money of riaa.
Read radical news here
Anonymity and political speech have been connected for quite a bit of the US' history, starting even from before independence: many of the messages pushing for independence from the UK were sent around as anonymous pamphlets. So, while it may not be explicitly mentioned the inferred right to privacy and the tradition on anonymous free speech does exist. Whether either of these are applicable to a college kid sharing music is a whole other story, though.
As far as I can see, the best way to change this stuff is civil disobedience - breaking the law, asserting rights to use all human knowledge as a human right, and accusing the law of denying the rights to freedom of thought, expression, assembly, knowledge and communication. As a political campaign, ideally I think this should be public, not anonymous, and in great numbers, accompanied by media communications. A public wifi network in a public square, public distribution of copyrighted works on media, etc. Sheets of paper with links and instructions on how to share files, addresses, etc. Following this, public debate on the law will begin, and the more public involved in the debate, the vocal they are, the more likely the public will win, not the copyright holders.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I'm not a confused hippie constitutional scholar but I did just take a political science class. The teacher talked about something called precedent and about unwritten or "unenumerated" rights. The 9th Amendment counsels against dismissing such rights. The actual right to privacy was handed down in Roe v. Wade when the supreme court ruled in the favor of Norma McCorvey saying she had a right to privacy in general, and a right to abortion more specifically. Of course the right to an abortion is not equal throughout the entire pregnancy term as I am sure you know.
So don't be so quick to toss away your unwritten rights, yes you do have them, and accept that the consitution is not the final paper on where your rights are. Start looking at court cases too.
This is what the supreme court said in 1995:
Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.
That's not to say that everyone doing anything bad is protected by anonymity. But it should put strong bonds on whether the government can force a company (your ISP) to disclose your personal information to a third party. For example imagine that someone anonymous is coming with scolding political criticism and you file a slander case against them, not with any intent of winning only with the intent of exposing that person. But no, the word "anonymity" is not in the constitution so the question is very much real and on topic. Shame on the moderators.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except - I don't see any examples here of any 'loss of freedom'. John Doe was sharing copyrighted material, which has been illegal for a very long time, so being prosecuted for it hardly represents anything new.
We've never had the unlimited right to share what does not belong to us. There's nothing here preventing the defendant(s) from getting a fair trial. The unlimited 'right' to use what bought in whatever way you want has never been a right - it's strictly a creation of pirates to justify their actions. And you've never been able to claim anonymity to avoid prosecution except in the limited case of whistle blowers.
Or, in short, while your statement is essentially the 'perfect storm' of karmawhoring - it bears very little connection with reality.
He does commit great fallacies, but an improper argument does not imply its results are wrong.
The fact is that our online interactions can be as private as husband/wife interactions, doctor/patient interactions, or lawyer/client interactions (which are all protected heavily by law). And if you are snooping a connection, you get it all, and violate that privacy regardless of how little you are searching for. We have the right to peaceful assembly, and last time I checked that didn't come with a clause saying "monitored by the government" after it.
And we do live in a damn police state (USA) whether you want to believe it or not. Children can be sent to prison at the whim of the school principle. Curfews. Drug war. Internet monitoring. Reduction of probable cause to reasonable suspicion to 'he looked funny'. Hell, in middle school I was bullied, and because of 0 tolerance policy they told me for being bullied 5 times I was involved in 5 events and could either go to juvenile detention or anger management. Virtually everything we do is controlled too far.
Have you ever actually tried to walk around and find a place where you could not be seen by cameras? They are incredibly rare. Traffic cams, if you are within 15ft. of a schools property you can easily be seen, any atm, any commercial building. This has been true whether I was in Fascist NY state, hicktown PA, Nowhere OH, Illinois or Missouri. Try just living at home. Want to walk from the shower to the bedroom naked? Don't, someone could be looking in your windows and press charges, and you could be classified as a sexual predator and the rest of your life is ruined. The standards for searches are practically non-existent, illegally obtained evidence is always used, and your local municipality can tell you what brand of toothpaste you are allowed to buy. We are living in this RIGHT NOW. No slippery slope to the future, no appeal to fear, no false dichotomy. I can walk out my door or IM a friend and this is happening. No two ways about it.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,