Judge Allows Subpoenas For Internet Users

crimeandpunishment writes "A federal judge has ruled that the company holding a movie copyright can subpoena the names of people who are accused of illegally downloading and distributing the film. The judge ruled that courts have maintained that once people convey subscriber information to their Internet service providers, they no longer have an expectation of privacy."

Comments

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

... being an anonymous coward is the only way to protect my privacy?

Eh?

[pr0nbot]

Er... how exactly do you get an internet connection from an ISP without giving them any subscriber information?

Is there such a thing as an anonymous ISP subscription?

Re:Eh?

[erroneus]

If there were, many would not allow it. There are no anonymous bank accounts. Things like "credit card 'gift cards'" as payment are on the edge of matters and are closely associated with money laundering.

Basically, there is no anonymous money. That freedom disappeared quietly long ago under the guise of many reasons -- war on drugs, war on terror and a lot more. Of course, we all volunteered much of it away by shifting from a cash and saving based society to one that is based on credit and debt.

Re:Hrm

[pitchpipe]

RIP
Privacy
December 15, 1791 - September 11, 2001
You had a good run...
You were too good for us.

Re:Hrm

[Jane Q. Public]

"Making something available for download..."

That's not what OP or TFA said. According to this judge (and what a bizarre decision it is), giving your "subscriber information" to your ISP removes any right you have to privacy. That by itself has nothing to do with uploading or downloading files.

Since ISPs are basically Common Carriers (in every sense except the legal one), a good analogy would be "by giving your personal information to your phone company, you agree to allow others to listen in on your phone conversations".

This ruling is so bizarre and out of "left field" I have a hard time imagining that it will stand up to scrutiny or appeals.

The judge also appears to have completely ignored the plethora of prior decisions to the effect that IP addresses do not identify people.

Tempted to post anonymously

[xigxag]

Three points:

First, I find it interesting, to say the least, that the plaintiff in this case isn't Disney, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, etc., but "Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteiligungs Gmbh & Co KG" a crapware movie distributor so obscure that Googling seems to 95% turn up links for this lawsuit. Wearing a tin foil cap, one could almost think they were acting as a front for the MAFIAA, much in the way that SCO was to some degree a front for Microsoft in its anti-Linux crusade. In the end, as we in the USA further lose our rights, the major studios will shrug and say, "It wasn't us, blame the Germans..."

Second point is that there seems to be a conflation of the concepts "Privacy" and "anonymity" not only in this thread but in the original legal documents.

Privacy = You may know who I am, but you don't know what I'm up to.
Anonymity = You may know what I'm up to, but you don't know who I am.

They're complementary terms, and both important rights, but for accuracy's sake we should be clear that, since the deed (file-sharing) is already known, just not the perpetrators, this is primarily a blow to anonymity.

Alternatively, given that it is accepted legal practice to refer to internet anonymity as "privacy of subscriber information," one can think of anonymity as a subset of privacy, "privacy of subscriber information" being one tine along with "privacy of home", "privacy of beliefs", "privacy of association," etc. Even so, treating this ruling as a generalized blow to privacy to some extent muddies and obscures what's going on, particularly the salient issue at hand: Should we be entitled to an expectation of anonymity/"privacy of subscriber information" on the internet?

Third, probably mentioned elsewhere by now, but here's the ruling. In point of fact, it's a mixed bag. While denying anonymity, it also says that jurisdiction may be a real problem for the plaintiffs.