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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)
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.
1984 was written in 1947-48, when the Soviet Union was busily suppressing any kind of freedom in Eastern Europe. Orwell wasn't prescient, merely observant.
So... I convey my subscriber information to the Phone company... do I lose my expectation of privacy for making phone calls?
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
You mean don't be accused of downloading movies. Even assuming this would never be used by someone solely for the purpose of discovering someone's identity and assuming that the ip addresses are accurately identifying computers sharing copyrighted material without permission, both of which are HUGE assumptions, the number of people who did not download movies but have their information released and get extorted simply because of clerical error is almost certainly non-negligible given the large number of people getting sued in this way.
You are missing the forest for the trees. People are against these kinds of decisions not because of the results for the pirates, but because the laws can be abused. Copyright law is currently being misused to quash political campaigns, as an example. The "First they came for the Jews..." quote is incredibly appropriate for any privacy issue.
Do you not see the implications of any company being able to request private information from your ISP on a subpoena, even when that private information doesn't always reflect the person using the IP?
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.
Rubbish. 1984 is nothing to do with the Soviet Union and Communism (see Animal Farm for that). 1984 is all about Britain of the day, the growth of domestic fascism and what the totalitarian nature of the wartime regime the country imposed to survive the war with Germany. Orwell was a propagandist for the wartime government. The Daily Hate of 1984 was directly inspired by the Daily Mail (and still justly merits that description today). Orwell's warning was aimed at Britain and America not Russia.
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USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
More specifically, Orwell was a Socialist who hated Fascism, but saw that unless people were very careful, Socialism could lead to a totalitarianism indistinguishable from the totalitarianism of Fascism. He was warning in both 1984 and Animal Farm: be careful lest what I advocate (Socialism) become what I hate (Fascism).
And his warnings were right on target. England hasn't become a SciFi distopia, but it has developed precursors: the panopticon, the frequent stories of people, even members of government, being hauled into police stations for policially incorrect speech. They're seriously talking about using military UAVs to hunt for speeders and litterers. It's not 1984 by a long shot, but that's clearly the direction England is currently heading: exactly the direction Orwell feared and warned about.
Here in the US it isn't nearly so bad, and comparisons to 1984 are still hyperbole, but nevertheless that sure seems to be the direction that we're headed. Only by vigorously defending your right to keep the goernment out of your daily life even if that means your neighbor can endanger you more than otherwise do we stop heading in that direction.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.