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Comcast Refusing To Comply With Piracy Subpoenas
New submitter nbacon writes with news that Comcast, apparently tired of the endless BitTorrent-related piracy lawsuits, has stopped complying with subpoena requests, much to the chagrin of rightsholders. From the article:
"Initially Comcast complied with these subpoenas, but an ongoing battle in the Illinois District Court shows that the company changed its tune recently. Instead of handing over subscriber info, Comcast asked the court to quash the subpoenas. Among other things, the ISP argued that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over all defendants, because many don’t live in the district in which they are being sued. The company also argues that the copyright holders have no grounds to join this many defendants in one lawsuit. The real kicker, however, comes with the third argument. Here, Comcast accuses the copyright holders of a copyright shakedown, exploiting the court to coerce defendants into paying settlements."
I take back every nasty thing I ever said about Comcast.
Well, on second thought, I temporarily suspend my badmouthing of Comcast. ...
Ok, time's up.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I had my doubts about Comcast for some time now, but if they keep this up, they may keep me as a customer.
For a second I thought I was pulled into an episode of the The Twilight Zone. Comcast is the last company I expect this from. Go Comcast?
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Finally. This is the only way that the RIAA/MPAA will change its ways: when other massive corporations start to fight back in court. Triple bonus to Comcast for calling this what it is: a shakedown organized through the legal system. I normally hate Comcast with a passion, but I will cheer them on in this fight. Bring out the popcorn!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Wow Comcast... What happened to you man, you used to be sooo evil. First removing data caps, now this? What's next free nbz?
Guess corporatism does work after all.
I hope this copyright nonsense and abuse of the court system gets curbed by this.
I know that Comcast has alterior motives, good pr and more traffic, but this is nice.
Just imagine if SOPA had passed. They would have been shut down overnight for taking a stand like that.
I take back half the nasty things I've said about Comcast. Or at least 1/4 ...
celebrate the action. But remember -- Comcast doesn't give a damn about you.
They don't want to comply with this because it's too damned expensive for them to maintain the teams that answer it without exposing them to customer litigation
As soon as CEO man gets a check, they'll go right back to complying.
Really Comcast? I think my head just exploded. There must have been something really expensive going on corporately to supply the data. I can't believe that they would ever do anything for a customer.
It's about time they did something right. Maybe all the Anonymous threats against them is having an effect.
An article featuring Comcast in a positive light on Slashdot, truly this is the end of days.
So I (heart) Comcast now?
Really, you've got to make up your mind; it is getting harder to remember who to hate and who to like.
PS: We still hate Apple, right?
While it's nice that Comcast is standing up to them, if you read through you'll find that it's four porn companies. In other words, they're not standing up (in this case, at least) to any of the MAFIAA members.
Do you have ESP?
A few Subpeona's here and there are fine, sure they cost you, but it's a cost of doing business.
That's that right up until some company wants to subpeona 4,000 of your users, per week.
And the thing is these subpeona's, they aren't for john doe at 127.0.0.1 on 6/15/2010, they're for MAC addresses, traffic usage reports, etc and the requestor gets NASTY if they don't get what they want.
Either you spend an ungodly amount of cash complying, or you go the cheaper route; get the lawyers to tell them to go pound sand.
Repeatedly, that is.
Have gnu, will travel.
They're only protecting their customers to secure their ability to keep screwing them up the ass.
If you get bills through the mail (from Comcast included), then you've been urged to "Go Green!" by going paperless. We know they don't give a crap about saving a few trees. They're trying to reduce their costs (paper, stamps, design, etc.) If emailing statements was more expensive, they would not push us in that direction.
I'm guessing Comcast is doing this exclusively for the same reason (saving money) and covering it up with the same moral wrapping paper.
They're sick bastards but, hey, if it puts a stop to this....
:slow-clap:
I was just seriously shopping to dump Comcast for forgetting who their paying customer is with their sleeping-with-the-RIAA crap. This will buy them one month.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...for a good cause.
Seriously, why is the only reason good things ever happen online laziness? It doesn't reflect well on those in power.
Great Intellect...
First, and foremost Comcast is in business to make a profit. Make no mistake, if they thought they could profit from turning folks in, they would. Read some of the supporting documents. Verizon (a Comcast competitor) has taken a stand and started saying "Nope" to the courts/. Apparently they have enough legal ground to quash the "track this IP for us" requests. This is a two fold benefit to any ISP. First, you don't have to waste time and money having your staff searching though logs to find out who had that IP at that time. Second, you keep a small segment of your customers who care about such things from running to your competition.
Surely this problem will go away for all ISP's in fairly short order. Once an ISP starts successfully protesting such requests for information, the guys doing the shakedowns will eventually stop wasting time/money making the requests. ISP's will have to pay their lawyers a bit more up front to stop such requests, but eventually this will get them OUT of the business of turning in their subscribers by keeping them out of court. With the profits fading away, the shakedown artists will have abandon the courts and try to come up with some other way to do their shakedowns.
This is NOT over. Verizon, Comcast and others have signed on to start giving their customers warnings on behalf of various copyright holders for various types of infringing content passing over their networks. It's called something like "six strikes" and the providers are hoping it will allow them to generate more business for their "legal" services, by working in cooperation with MPAA and others. I hold now illusions that this "solution" is a good thing for anybody, except perhaps for the ISP's who see it as a marketing opportunity. I wonder if my bittorrent activity (all legal by the way) will draw a warning from Verizon (my ISP). I know they don't like bittorrent and it sure seems that they throttle my connection when I have active transfers, so I'm half expecting to be "warned" about the Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS distributions I try to seed over my 25Mbit connection.
They are in this for the profit. If they got a percentage of the shakedown take, you'd bet they be out there actively turning folks in before they got asked. They are simply making a business decision that it will cost less and maximize profits to take this route, and given that there seems to be legal justification now for saying "Nope!" that the court is accepting you can bet this will continue. If alternate legal tactics alter the economics for the ISP's, you can bet they will be turning folks in once more. If it proves profitable to start the "warning" process with their customers, even before a copyright holder complains, you can be the will do that too.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
FARKIN TIME!
ah... must be April's Fool day in the Mayan calendar... else some sneaky ninja has changed the dates on all my clocks/watches/phones at home again!
The plaintiffs in case are in the adult entertainment business. 90+ comments so far and not one "Or vagina" comment when it is now appropriate.
What is wrong with you people?!!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wow - two sleazy set of company lawyers at odds - this should get good! Maybe the only way to defeat evil, is with more evil...
This is nothing more than Comcast complaining about the cost of complying with the subpoenas. If they could make money out of it, they would be ratting on every customer ... even if they did nothing.
This story is trying to turn a business decision into an ethical stand. It is not. Comcast is still Comcast.
They mistook the plaintiff for one of their customers.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
I'll applaud this 1%, now just need to fix the rest.
I'll take it to the next level!
Since we know the **AA and the ISP's are Rule 34'ing with each other, just what if they switched from a lawsuit business model to a data-cap model? There would be a few other things to solve, but I'd consider being satisfied with higher bandwidth caps *if it meant an ironclad guarantee, in law, to no more piracy lawsuits*. So then the user can make a pricing decision if they really want that movie or not. Or that song, or not. Or that Lolcat pic or not.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
... suddenly I'm conflicted. :(
Commenters above have demonstrated clearly why this should not be regarded as a sudden dawning of divine light on the brows of Comcast executives. Yet I still hold out a little bit of hope here. IANAL, but if YOU are, can you tell us whether Comcast (and Verizon) putting forth defenses like that can help establish precedents to be used in cases involving other parties? Are we getting any fresh ammunition out of this?
Interesting.... then would that make some forms of compression illegal? Similar to how not watching (or downloading) the commercials is stealing?
Would that make data transfer outside of approved channels become smuggling? Flash drives become contraband?
That huge bandwidth of a truck full of tapes going down the highway would be the equivalent of a bank robbery?
Comcast sucks...don't make me like them. please..
On a more cynical note, why should they care about piracy of their competition? Remember, they are also a content creator.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wish we lived in a world where I could calmly tell you straight in your face that you're a deluded conspiracy nut. Alas, I can't. There will be probably an Ivy MBA somewhere who will think of this, implement it, and get a bunch of golden parachutes for his efforts :(
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I've been a Comcast subscriber for nearly 2 years and unlike many of you, have always been happy with their service, despite having misgivings about Comcast behavior which I believe to have been truthfully reported.
However, my respect for Comcast has now soared. They not only grew a pair, but they're big and they're solid brass :D
Sudden outbreak of IT'S A TRAP!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I'm a rightsholder, too. Copyrights, even. It's not to my chagrin.
a company the size of comcast doesn't do favors for customers. they do favors for internal divisions, subsids, and child companies.. and their bottom line... never the customer.. and never the competitor.
squashing subpoenas that were filed on behalf of their competitors isn't necessarily bad for comcast (the media company).. and they already have access to their own (comcast the internet provider) records so they don't need to file john does to get user data.
honoring all the subpoenas has probably gotten to the point where fighting them is cheaper.. honoring them is, again, for their competitors, not themselves.
When you comply with a subpeona for information the flood gates on your ISP are opened... they all come flooding in and your time is wasted. By demanding a judge issue the order or fighting it the flood gates close and you free up resources that can be better allocated to making things or providing services people want.
Have you found an answer to my question yet?
Why can't Comcast charge the user (the porn companies) for the service provided? Say at $100 per IP address per week. Obeying the law is usually tax-deductible so the IRS should like this idea. And the shareholders because it generates revenue. Even the customers, since compliance is no longer is a hidden cost.
Bounties. They want a cut of the profits that rights holders are making via open-and-shut settlement cases. If they're going to incur the costs of meeting rightsholders demands, they want a cut of the pie.
I can see the slashdot article now "MPAA/RIAA sharing settlement earnings with ISPs that turn over customer data".
My kingdom for a donkey!