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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."
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
Shutting down an ISP as large as Comcast and leaving 17 million people unable to connect to the Internet. Somehow I doubt our government, while pretty dumb, would be dumb enough to cause a shit-storm that massive.
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
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.
Rubbish. If Capitalism hits on a morally good outcome, it's by pure fluke.
Capitalism is often exploited by people who are following their human nature to lie, cheat, steal, and other stuff. You know, things like putting melamine into baby formula.
Capitalism doesn't give a fuck about you, and is in fact amoral (note I don't say immoral, but it does yield a lot of immoral things).
If you believe what you wrote, you're an idealist who still believes the system works -- it doesn't, it only works for those who have money and can pay to exploit the rules.
As it exists, Capitalism is mostly about trying to make sure the loopholes are all stacked in your favor instead of anybody else. This great wonderful thing you call Capitalism which always arrives at good outcomes is a myth. Companies would make skin care products out of 3rd world children if they could get away with it and if it was profitable.
You are looking at it the wrong way.
This is Comcast not complying, that is their standard operating procedure. If they can find a way to not do something, they will not do that thing.
The fact that this actually helps their customers is purely unintentional.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It's a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure if it's out of any charity towards their customer base, or if it's because the previous policy of blindly complying with all these subpoenas was an expensive PITA for them.
I'd still rather masturbate with a fistful of broken glass than voluntarily use their services, but this act is a good first step towards reversing that opinion.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It's simple math. The more money Comcast's customers shell out to copyright trolls, the less money they have to shovel into Comcast's coffers.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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.
True, but precedent doesn't care who the parties in the case were. If Comcast succeeds, this argument can be used in the future just as effectively against Comcast's overlords.