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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.
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..
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.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
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.
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.
...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.