California Judge Denies Discovery In Bittorrent Case

New submitter PhxBeau writes with news of a particularly sane judge in a copyright case. Quoting TorrentFreak: "In yet another mass lawsuit against alleged file-sharers, a California court has said that while it's sympathetic towards the plight of the copyright holder, it will not assist in the identification of BitTorrent users. It's a shame technology that enables infringement has outpaced technology that prevents it, the judge wrote, but added that his court won't work with copyright holders who pursue settlement programs with no intention to litigate." The core issue is that an IP does not identify more than the bill-payer — the good cause standard therefore is not met because the actual infringer is not identified.

Comments

Thank you.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

his court won't work with copyright holders who pursue settlement programs

And this is how it should be.

Re:Thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

...with no intention to litigate.

Do keep in mind that if there is actual intent and effort to prosecute, the judge would cooperate. He is merely stating that these evidence-free shakedowns are not part of his job and he will not waste his time assisting them.

Better than many possible judgements, maybe it will deter some of the intimidation ploys.

Re:Thank you.

[Jane Q. Public]

"Do keep in mind that if there is actual intent and effort to prosecute, the judge would cooperate."

Very doubtful. If he meant that, he could simply have refused based on the perceived intent of the claimants to settle rather than litigate. Instead, he took the trouble of mentioning that it did not meet the "good cause" standard.

But the good cause standard applies whether they are litigating or not, so no, he probably would NOT "cooperate".

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Microlith]

It sounds almost as if you're shilling for the plaintiff, defending their misfortune by using the worst of all arguments to criticize the judge's decision.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[SupportLine]

Or maybe it's more about the double standards in legal systems? Do you honestly think the judge would make the same decision in such "more provocative" cases, even if the issue in hand is technically same in all?

Huh? What?

[PPH]

The core issue is that an IP does not identify more than the bill payer -- the good cause standard therefore is not met because the actual infringer is not identified.

That would depend on the terms of service. If your broadband provider holds you responsible for the users you permit on to your connection, then a part of that responsibility would seem to be knowing who is using your connection and when. If the TOS allow you to give connections away to third parties anonymously (like the coffee shop I'm sitting in now does), then I'd agree with the above statement.

I wish they (the court) would have emphasized the denial based upon the use of the courts as an empty threat and/or means of discovery for the subsequent pursuit of a private settlement. In other words, once you approach the court to do your dirty work, you've got to use them to mediate the settlement*. If you want to settle privately, hire your own detective agency. P>*Which gets you reasonable and uniform penalties and makes settlements a matter of public record.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they (the court) would have emphasized the denial based upon the use of the courts as an empty threat and/or means of discovery for the subsequent pursuit of a private settlement. In other words, once you approach the court to do your dirty work, you've got to use them to mediate the settlement*. If you want to settle privately, hire your own detective agency. P>*Which gets you reasonable and uniform penalties and makes settlements a matter of public record.

Well, the judge did exactly that in a surprisingly explicit way. From the article:

“The court recognizes that plaintiff is aggrieved by the apparent infringement and is sympathetic toward its argument that lawsuits like this one are the only way for it to find and stop infringers. However, the court will not assist a plaintiff who seems to have no desire to actually litigate but instead seems to be using the courts to pursue an extrajudicial business plan against possible infringers (and innocent others caught up in the ISP net).

“Plaintiff seeks to enlist the aid of the court to obtain information through the litigation discovery process so that it can pursue a non-judicial remedy that focuses on extracting ‘settlement’ payments from persons who may or may not be infringers. This the court is not willing to do,” Judge Lloyd concludes.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Anonymous Coward]

Identifying the bill payer doesn't do anything other than give the RIAA/MPAA someone, who may or may not be a copyright infringer, to sue.

Look at it this way: If I download pirated material while using Starbucks's free wi-fi, Starbucks is the one who gets accused for copyright infringement..

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Anonymous Coward]

One case is civil, the other is criminal. Hence the double standard.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Myopic]

First of all, you wouldn't go to jail because this wasn't criminal copyright prosecution. This was a tort.

Second of all, if the judge HAD allowed discovery, then you would have been very inconvenienced, and then the discovery process would uncover that your friend downloaded the file. So you still wouldn't have paid a fine. But you would have been inconvenienced, and you probably would have paid a lawyer, and lost your computer for a while, and maybe a bunch of other stress.

This is a good decision based on the law, and also because it will save innocent people all that stress.

Anyone can write any IP number anywhere

[ODBOL]

An IP number isn't even vaguely comparable to a license number. These IP numbers are taken from IP packets that could be written by anyone, anywhere. They are comparable to addresses on envelopes in the US Mail, except that there's no handwriting to analyze and no authoritative cancellation mark to identify the general location.

Anyone can write any IP number in the sender field on any IP packet and send it to any other IP number.

Even if you establish that a particular ISP has assigned a particular IP number for routing packets to a particular customer, you have no evidence that a packet marked with that IP number has anything to do with that customer, unless you can get much more stringent information from router logs and/or content that only that customer could have produced. I've never heard of any such evidence being presented.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Baloroth]

I'm pretty sure they would overlook that in an overtly criminal case CP or terrorism, probably by casting the bill payer as an "accomplice" of some sort who could have information about the crime. That would be enough to get the address from the ISP. Whether it would lead to a friendly chat or a SWAT team raid is the biggest unknown, but there's no way they would let a pesky little bit of precedent get in their way for something like that.

Except those would be criminal cases, not civil as is the case here, so the same legal standards would not apply.

To give an extreme example, if someone sent an image of your kidnapped daughter from a given IP address, you would sure as hell want the police to find out who owns that IP. So yes, they would deal with it differently, because an overtly criminal case is different.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Anonymous Coward]

"more provocative" cases would have more evidence, the IP Address only opens a door for them to look at the person. Then they devote resources into gather real evidence.

I like this ruling very much, and it is a very important aspect that needs to be brought up, if this IP address could be someone else then they haven't identified the person at all.

The analogy I use for this is: "If you see someone whole stole something run into my back yard, am I then arrested and jailed with no other information?"

They have eye witnesses of an unknown individual who they know stole something go into my backyard. They are claiming to know who the individual is because they went into my back yard. Yet they didn't even look for match, they go after who ever the owner is. Never mind that the owner could also be a victim of that same individual (virus).

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[PPH]

Look at it this way: If I download pirated material while using Starbucks's free wi-fi, Starbucks is the one who gets accused for copyright infringement.

Which is why the other part of the judgment is equally important: The court should not be locating the deep pockets just so that the plaintiff can take the settlement private. Once the court has been asked to participate, they should have the right to look at their own work product (the validity of an identity in this case) and block a subsequent private action based on it.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how he said that he wouldn't support it in pursuit of settlements with no intent to litigate.

That's not a double standard, if they intended to actually pursue these individuals with a real discovery phase where a warrant is obtained to search those individuals' computers to identify the real infringer, then it sounds like he would have found differently.

If criminal (not civil) activity is taking place, the bill payer can be a good first step toward identifying the perpetrator. Those individuals would also be afforded a court provided attorney so they don't end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole just to make a copyright troll go away.

Youre missing the point.

[metalmaster]

I think the naysayers here are emphasizing the wrong point. According to the summary(cause no one RTFA) This judge wont assist the copyright holders who insist on settlement programs. These guys arent going after Joe Schmoe. They're stuffing mailboxes in Everytown, USA and hoping scared people just settle. Its a racket

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Muad'Dave]

You should be aware of the contents of your hard drive though. If ... they find the content ... there, I can see you being held responsible.

So if I drop a baggie of heroin in your car's gas tank (or tuck it into in the grill, or stick a magnetic key hider in the wheel well, etc) when you're not looking and the drug dog 'indicates', you're ok with going to jail?

I didn't think so.

Re:IP does not identify more than the bill player

[Alex Belits]

Except the company had no intent to file a lawsuit, so there wouldn't be a discovery phase, they would just send you a bill with "settlement offer" with no recourse other than suing them.