Hot potato: Lawyers submitting a film piracy lawsuit have requested for the identities of 9 Reddit customers who “could” have mentioned piracy on the platform. Reddit posted one thing a couple of person (or two) who seemed to be having a “how-to” dialogue about pirated motion pictures; the plaintiffs wished all customers uncovered. Reddit mentioned, “No. I’ll see you in courtroom.”
On Tuesday, Reddit filed authorized papers with the Northern District Court of California, refusing to disclose customers’ identities in response to an injunction movement filed final week. The authorized battle stems from a lawsuit over piracy between the movie studio and Astound Broadband (previously RCN).
background: In 2021, Bodyguard Productions, Millennium Media and several other different movie studios filed a lawsuit towards RCN in New Jersey federal courtroom. The swimsuit alleges that RCN knowingly allowed its clients to illegally obtain 34 copyrighted motion pictures, together with “Hellboy,” “Rambo V: Last Blood,” and others.
The studio subpoenaed Reddit handy over the “IP deal with registrations and logs, names, e-mail addresses, and different account registration info from January 1, 2016 to the current” of 9 Reddit customers. Its basic foundation for wanting this info is that it believes these customers are concerned in pirating motion pictures via RCN as a result of they take part in discussions on the topic.
After investigating the accounts, Reddit launched some details about a minimum of one person, however mentioned the remaining had nothing to do with the lawsuit. Its authorized counsel claimed that the subpoena amounted to a “phishing expedition” and that Reddit wouldn’t infringe on a person’s First Amendment rights with out laborious proof linking the person to the case.
So final week, plaintiffs filed a movement in California federal courtroom looking for enforcement. On Tuesday, Reddit’s authorized staff responded with an objection submitting. In it, Reddit famous that the person’s put up in query was “utterly unrelated” to the lawsuit in query.
“Based on proof introduced by plaintiffs, 4 of the seven customers at problem don’t seem to have talked about RCN in any respect. They merely referred to ‘my supplier’ or ‘our ISP.'” These quotes are all on Comcast Discussions are carried out, not RCN. Two of the three remaining customers did point out RCN, however the points mentioned (corresponding to their customer support expertise) had nothing to do with copyright infringement or the plaintiff’s allegations. The end-user’s equivocal point out of RCN within the context of copyright infringement was first talked about 9 years in the past, properly past any disputed related time-frame of the plaintiff’s allegations. “
Reddit’s authorized staff additionally asserted that plaintiffs’ assertion that these customers have been “seemingly” referring to RCN is speculative and that the courtroom ought to reject that argument.
“One of RCN’s rivals, Comcast, has greater than 30 occasions the market share of RCN,” learn the Reddit rebuttal. “This context is vital to understanding how absurd it’s for plaintiffs to recommend mentioning an unnamed ISP in discussions about Comcast. This is akin to suggesting that each time a person discusses Ford on Reddit, they’re ‘seemingly’ in Talk about Alfa Romeo.”
Reddit additionally maintains that the knowledge plaintiffs are searching for could be obtained extra simply and precisely from defendant RCN in the course of the discovery course of.Lawyers for the platform declare that courts shouldn’t drive their shoppers to disclose their shoppers’ identities primarily based on plaintiffs’ “wild guesses about which Reddit customers” attainable turn out to be an RCN buyer or attainable Involved in copyright infringement someday throughout the previous decade. “
Throughout Reddit’s rebuttal, the authorized staff cites a number of situations of case priority that set authorized requirements that the studio failed to satisfy of their arguments. Courts have confirmed that the First Amendment covers on-line anonymity. They additionally cite the examples of Rich v. Butowsky and Doe v. 2TheMart.com, demonstrating {that a} litigant can’t reveal a person unrelated to the lawsuit except “pressing necessity” exceeds the person’s First Amendment rights.
Attorneys for each events will argue the movement on March 23 in Northern California District Court in San Francisco.
Image credit score: Nick Youngson
