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Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/film-studios-demand-ip-addresses-of-people-who-discussed-piracy-on-reddit/

Reddit says First Amendment rights protect it from having to disclose users' info.

Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say::Reddit says First Amendment rights protect it from having to disclose users' info.

24 comments

delightfuldude

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🖕😂🖕

Buffalox

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Here in Denmark, that would be actively illegal. I think the same is true for most of EU. It may be allowed in Cooperate America, but I doubt it's required. But that would be for Americans to decide.

weeeeum

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Bold to assume us Americans can actually choose our laws.

Buffalox

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As a collective yes, as an individual no.

laurelraven

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If by "collective" you mean "minority lead by the rich and corporations", then sure

Technically, the collective could change it, if a super massive majority agreed and actually did something about it, but that's not gonna happen, sadly

Adalast

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I invite you to read the truth of US politics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

wikibot

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Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations. The case began after Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization, sought to air and advertise a film critical of then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shortly before the 2008 Democratic primary elections. Broadcasting the film would have been a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited any corporation, non-profit organization, or labor union from making an "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election, or making any expenditure advocating the election or defeat of a candidate at any time. Citizens United challenged the constitutionality of this law, and its case reached the Supreme Court. In a majority opinion joined by four other justices, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy held that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Because laws that restrict Free Speech must be justified by a compelling state interest, an earlier decision had allowed the speech restriction based on an "antidistortion interest". The majority in Citizens United found this interest "unconvincing and insufficient", overruling that case as well as a portion of McConnell v. FEC (2003) that relied upon the same interest to uphold restricted corporate spending on "electioneering communications". The ruling effectively freed corporations (including incorporated non-profit organizations) to spend money on electioneering communications and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates. In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the court's ruling represented "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government".The decision remains highly controversial, generating much public discussion and receiving strong support and opposition from various groups. Senator Mitch McConnell commended the decision, arguing that it represented "an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights". By contrast, former President Barack Obama stated that the decision "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington". The ruling represented a turning point on campaign finance, allowing unlimited election spending by corporations and labor unions, and setting the stage for Speechnow.org v. FEC, which authorized the creation of "Independent Expenditure Committees", more commonly known as Super PACs, and for later rulings by the Roberts Court, including McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), striking down other campaign finance restrictions. While the long-term legacy of this case remains to be seen, early studies by political scientists have concluded that Citizens United worked in favor of the electoral success of Republican candidates.

^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

tacosanonymous

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False. At most, they should bring specific evidence of an actual crime to have authorities obtain a warrant. They can fuck all the way off til then.

JCreazy

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If you read the article it states at the film studio wants the IP address is to prove that Frontier is not doing anything about people pirating on their ISP. They claim that they aren't going after the individuals themselves. The headline is deceptively vague.

doricub

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And reddit still shouldn't release the IP address of specific users without a warrant.

ShepherdPie

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But they are indirectly going after these individuals. They just want Frontier to handle the punishments rather than doing it themselves.

taanegl

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Oh sure, trust that they won't abuse that data. That's unheard of. It's not like there's a ton of ways to abuse that info, I swear!

EncryptKeeper

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Well you probably couldn’t go after someone individually with that kind of information, realistically. Most consumer grade connections have dynamic IPs. So the IP of user posting to reddit isn’t actually uniquely identifying. Your ISP could match which customer had which IP at a specific point in time, but if point in time you’re tying the IP to is when a given user posted a discussion about pirating, that doesn’t actually correlate to actual pirate activity happening at that time.

crandlecan

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🖕🖕🖕

BeAware

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@L4s aww hell nah! I'm so glad I got out of that place!🖕

fatalicus

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This has little to do with reddit though, other than they being the target.

These companies might just as well go after owners of fediverse instances, and would likely have more luck, as Lemmy owners won't have the same resources as reddit to fight it in a court.

BeAware

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@fatalicus not if it's hosted in china🤷‍♂️

gravitas_deficiency

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The Netherlands would be a better place to host from. I wouldn’t host anything in China unless I was completely fine with the CCP having access to the data. Their data privacy laws suck, and are designed to more or less allow the CCP total access to everything if they really want it.

neutron

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Not even the big instances like LemmyWorld or Beehaw would be safe. Even more for self hosted instances.

Haha

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Beat it fuckers

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

For the third time in less than a year, film studios with copyright infringement complaints against a cable Internet provider are trying to force Reddit to share information about users who have discussed piracy on the site.

In the first instance, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ruled in the US District Court for the Northern District of California that the First Amendment right to anonymous speech meant Reddit didn’t have to disclose the names, email addresses, and other account registration information for nine Reddit users.

Film companies, including Bodyguard Productions and Millennium Media, had subpoenaed Reddit in relation to a copyright infringement lawsuit against Astound Broadband-owned RCN about subscribers allegedly pirating 34 movie titles, including Hellboy (2019), Rambo V: Last Blood, and Tesla.

In her ruling, Beeler noted that while the First Amendment right to anonymous speech is not absolute, the film producers had already received the names of 118 Grande subscribers.

She also said the film producers had failed to prove that “the identifying information is directly or materially relevant or unavailable from another source.”

This week, as reported by TorrentFreak, film companies Voltage Holdings, which are part of the previous two subpoenas, and Screen Media Ventures, another film studio with litigation against RCN, filed a motion to compel [PDF] Reddit to respond to the subpoena in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The original article contains 588 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!