Highlighted decisions may affect whether or not a RSO has to provide Internet IDs when registering. The only difference I see is, that here they are providing the information based upon a subpeona and under registration it is a forced by law, which seems to violate the 4th amendment.
9-15-2010 Washington DC:Friday saw the release of two opinions from Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. These concerned whether subpoenas seeking the real names of ISP subscribers who allegedly downloaded the movie Far Cry (in one case) or The Steam Experiment (in the other) should be quashed. The suits are controversial in that there are 4,577 Does in the first case and 1,653 Does in the second, and that these Does are scattered across the United States. As to whether these individuals enjoy a level of privacy that overcomes the subpoenas, the judge answered with a resounding "no."
Several wrote the Judge on the record with their names and addresses, essentially mooting the privacy issue. As she said, their notes present defenses, which interesting, are not appropriate at this stage of the proceedings. For the one individual who filed his motion under seal and actually responded to subpoena, well...why not let the Judge say it:
With regard to the claim that identifying information is private, courts have found to the contrary. Courts have held that Internet subscribers do not have an expectation of privacy in their subscriber information as they already have conveyed such information to their Internet Service Providers. See, e.g., Guest v. Leis, 255 F.3d 325, 335–36 (6th Cir. 2001) (“Individuals generally lose a reasonable expectation of privacy in their information once they reveal it to third parties.”); U.S. v. Hambrick, Civ. No. 99-4793, 2000 WL 1062039, at *4 (4th Cir. Aug. 3, 2000) (a person does not have a privacy interest in the account information given to the ISP in order to establish an email account); U.S. v. Kennedy, 81 F. Supp. 2d 1103, 1110 (D. Kan. 2000) (defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when an ISP turned over his subscriber information, as there is no expectation of privacy in information provided to third parties).[FN3]
Accordingly, the motions to quash will be denied. [FN4]
[FN3] Mr. Doe #1 also erroneously argues that his Internet Service Provider, Verizon, is not required to divulge its customers’ identifying information, relying on cases that dealt with subpoenas governed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512. See Recording Indus. Ass’n of Am. v. Verizon Internet Servs., Inc., 351 F.3d 1229 (D.C. Cir. 2003); In re Charter Commc’n, Inc., 393 F.3d 771 (8th Cir. 2005). The subpoenas issued in the case are Rule 45 subpoenas, governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
[FN4] While some courts have held that the anonymous downloading and distribution of music over the Internet constitutes protected First Amendment speech, the protection afforded such speech is limited and gives way in the face of a prima facie showing of copyright infringement. “Defendants’ First Amendment right to remain anonymous must give way to the plaintiffs’ right to use the judicial process to pursue what appear to be meritorious copyright infringement claims.” Sony Music Entm’t, Inc. v. Does 1-40, 326 F. Supp. 2d 556, 567 (S.D.N.Y. 2004); Arista Records LLC v. Does 1-19, 551 F. Supp. 2d 1, 8–9 (D.D.C. 2008) (“Not surprisingly, courts have routinely held that a defendant’s First Amendment privacy interests are exceedingly small where the ‘speech’ is the alleged infringement of copyrights.”) (collecting cases). Plaintiff has made a prima facie case of copyright infringement in this case, and Plaintiff’s need for disclosure outweighs the First Amendment privacy interests here.
The text of the nearly identical opinions are
here and
here.
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