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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."
... being an anonymous coward is the only way to protect my privacy?
Am I glad that my ISP account is registered to my cat.
Not sure if I agree with this or not. Subpoena's for information are generally thought to override any concern aside from providing the information requested (or, if an order to appear in court, than appearing in court). As a matter of privacy-rights, I think this judge is off his/her rocker. Seriously.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
It's amazing how prescient George Orwell was. His timing was off, but his prediction of a surveillance society police state was right on the money.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Sued for watching a Uwe Boll movie. My god, haven't they suffered enough?
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?
That isn't really a reason. That's just, "There's no expectation of privacy because I said so." That's like saying you have no expectation of privacy in your home as soon as you are granted a mortgage.
So... I convey my subscriber information to the Phone company... do I lose my expectation of privacy for making phone calls?
Don't download movies without paying for them?
Yes, yes, I know, there are far broader implications of the loss of privacy on the interwebs, and so forth.
However, my point still stands. Don't download movies you don't have permission to and this case never would have come up in this manner.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
And Mr/s Federal Judge might be enjoying a nice chewy steak later on, perhaps even some lobster if they feel like it.
Don't go down this road.
It leads nowhere.
From 1797 to date there have been only fifteen impeachments of a federal judge.
Ten ended in removal or resignation, five in acquittal.
There is only one impeachment trial pending, that of Judge Thomas Porteous of Louisiana. If it goes to trial, it will be the first since that of Bill Clinton in 1998.
As of January 2009, a total of 3,168 individuals had been appointed to federal judgeships, including 2,645 district court judges, 687 courts of appeals judges, 50 judges to the now-extinct circuit courts, and the 9 Supreme Court justices. This adds up to 3,492 total appointments United States federal judge
When this happened to US Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork the politicians were so outraged they created the Video_Privacy_Protection_Act. After all it's unfair to pry into a persons privacy, like what movies they watch. That's the principal right? Or is it all different if it's "pirates" on the "internets"?
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Of course, the judge probably never bothered to consider the fact that the studio in question played the exact same recording industry end-run around legal procedures by first suing a bunch of "John Does", subpoenaing the ISP for their names and numbers, then dropping the case without prejudice and suing the individual "John Does" using their real names-- a clear misuse of the courts that wastes time and resources, but thus far unchallenged and thereby silently encouraged, to my recollection. The judge also probably never bothered to consider that the names obtained in this fashion are notoriously unreliable, especially considering dynamic address allocation and the widespread use of wireless networks and the poor access security thereof.
No, the judge decided that this was permissible either because he (she?) believes that kids downloading movies online is a grave affront to justice akin to mass looting, or that the arguments that this judge can consider were filtered by a overly narrow consideration of the case. While young kids and their families are squeezed for millions of dollars (often sent straight to the media industry's legal counsels), the bootleg industry in Asia makes off with billions of dollars' worth of undeserved revenue.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
You can buy a house under a shell corporation and hide the owners of that if you want to put forth the effort.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
I guess that judge would consider renting and leasing to also have no expectation of privacy. So anybody that's renting or leasing something, especially a home or car, is screwed. Heck, even having cable tv would make your entire viewing habits obtainable with that his interpretation.
IMO the judge is an idiot. To have ANY paid for service, you have to provide that information to the provider. In no way does providing information necessary to the provider a waving of rights to privacy other than the minor level done with regards to the information the provider needs, and then, only with regards to the provider.
Sorry, but I think we need to get rid of a lot of these judges that would rather screw the public than to be fair and just. I know in some places you can vote them out, and others, it's a till they die/retire thing. Are there any other means like yelling at politicians until they do something? (Maybe letting the individual judges know how you disagree with their B.S. might help, but I doubt those types would give a rodents donkey about the public and what it/they think.)
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.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Reading 1984 and Animal Farm can be misleading if you don't understand that Orwell was, himself, a socialist. Read, for instance, Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's account of his time as a volunteer in a revolutionary socialist militia in Spain, and the way that they were attacked by the Communist Party.
" once people convey subscriber information to their Internet service providers, they no longer have an expectation of privacy"
" once people convey medical information to their health care providers, they no longer have an expectation of privacy"
" once people convey purchase information to their credit card company, they no longer have an expectation of privacy"
" once people convey voice data to their telephone company, they no longer have an expectation of privacy"
Judges are people. Therefore, any judge with an Internet connection no longer has any expectation of privacy. Got that, folks?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.