Reddit Tells Label It Won't Cough Up IP Address of Prerelease Music Pirate (arstechnica.com)

David Kravets, writing for Ars Technica: Reddit says it won't give Atlantic Records the IP address of a Reddit user who posted a link on the site of a single by Twenty One Pilots a week before the song's planned release. The song, "Heathens," was originally uploaded on June 15 to the file-sharing site Dropfile. That same day, the file landed on Reddit. According to a lawsuit (PDF) in New York State Supreme Court, the file was posted to the Twenty One Pilots subreddit with the title âoe[Leak] New Song -- 'Heathens'. The Poster submitted the link under the username "twentyoneheathens," according to Atlantic. Atlantic and its subsidiary label, Fueled by Ramen, want the IP address of the Reddit leaker. The company said the file fell victim to "widespread distribution" on the Internet, so the company released the single June 16, a week ahead of schedule; the label also said the early release hindered a planned rollout on Spotify, iTunes, and other platforms. Atlantic says the leaker must be an Atlantic employee who was contractually obligated not to leak the track, which is featured in the movie Suicide Squad that debuted earlier this month. Reddit, however, said that Atlantic "has failed to show that its claims are meritorious." Reddit claims Atlantic has embarked on "an impermissible fishing expedition."

Comments

They disrupeed our plans! We want blood!

[wierd_w]

Because this is not about the fans, nor is it about the music, nor about the artist. No, this is about the exclusivity deals and big plans for all of those to make lots and lots of money.

They demand blood, because somebody wanted to give the fans what they wanted, sans the liberal bloodletting, and bundling with bads.

That cannot be tolerated. No sir. Money is at stake here.

Re:They disrupeed our plans! We want blood!

[nanoflower]

All too true. If the record company really wanted the person responsible they would be going to Dropfile and try to get the address of the person who uploaded. That very well could be an employee. The person who posted the link to Reddit could have just read about the song elsewhere and thought it would be great to share the link and have no connection to the company at all.

They did not ask Dropfile for the IP of that user?

[Anonymous Coward]

They did not ask Dropfile for the IP of that user? That would make more sense because that guy definitely is guilty. The Reddit poster, although guilty of bad taste, just posted a link to something already on the internet. Good luck proving he actually uploaded it to Dropfile.

In Canada, this is a special request to the court

[davecb]

It's an extraordinary remedy called a"Norwich Order", and to oversimplify, the requester has to swear they're suing someone, and the suit has to have a "prima facie case of" an offence and the claim has to appear to be reasonable and made in good faith. See also http://www.canlii.org/en/on/on...

Ordinary suits are filed against John Doe, and the courts asked to issue a order to third parties to help identify the defendants.

Re:Idiotic

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Ah, from the TFA:

What's more, Reddit suggests that Atlantic is targeting the wrong website. "Notably, Atlantic has failed to describe its efforts, if any, to obtain such information from Dropfile.to, the website to which the song was uploaded," Reddit's brief said. It also said that "a petition for pre-action discovery should be granted only if a petitioner demonstrates that he has a meritorious cause of action and the information sought is material and necessary to an existing and actionable wrong."

At least someone at Reddit is on the ball.