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Comcast Refusing To Comply With Piracy Subpoenas

Posted by Soulskill on from the actually-comcastic-for-once dept.

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."

2 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Twilight Zone by C_amiga_fan · · Score: 5, Informative

    P.S. I just noticed all four companies that Comcast is saying "no" to are pornography companies. I wonder what the downloaders acquired which made them targets for extortionate letters?

    --
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  2. Re:The Twilight Zone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    fightcopyrighttrolls.com is a good site for finding out what exactly has been going on. Specificyally, yes, this has been a copyright shakedown in which the companies involved have almost never actually taken anyone to court. They've been filing lawsuits with hundreds or thousands of defendants and mailing them threatening letters regarding how embarassing it would be to have their name publicly associated with a lawsuit regarding this type of content. If they drag it out long enough, many people don't know or are to scared to fight it and settle out for 2,500 or so a piece. Anyone who fights back, or in many cases simply ignores them is eventually dropped from the lawsuit.

    Some of the site owners have been bragging that they made more from the lawsuit settlements than all their memberships fees for the year.