For the third time in lower than a yr, film studios with copyright infringement complaints in opposition to a cable Internet supplier try to pressure Reddit to share details about customers who’ve mentioned piracy on the positioning.
In 2023, film corporations misplaced two makes an attempt to have Reddit unmask its customers. In the primary occasion, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler dominated within the US District Court for the Northern District of California that the First Amendment proper to nameless speech meant Reddit didn’t need to disclose the names, electronic mail addresses, and different account registration info for 9 Reddit customers. Film corporations, together with Bodyguard Productions and Millennium Media, had subpoenaed Reddit in relation to a copyright infringement lawsuit in opposition to Astound Broadband-owned RCN about subscribers allegedly pirating 34 film titles, together with Hellboy (2019), Rambo V: Last Blood, and Tesla.
In the second occasion, the identical corporations sued Astound Broadband-owned ISP Grande, once more for alleged copyright infringement occurring over the ISP’s community. The studios subpoenaed Reddit for person account info, together with “IP tackle registration and logs from 1/1/2016 to current, title, electronic mail tackle, and different account registration info” for six Reddit customers, per a July 2023 court docket submitting.
In August, a federal court docket once more quashed that subpoena, citing First Amendment rights. In her ruling, Beeler famous that whereas the First Amendment proper to nameless speech will not be absolute, the film producers had already obtained the names of 118 Grande subscribers. She additionally mentioned the film producers had did not show that “the identifying information is directly or materially relevant or unavailable from another source.”
Third piracy-related subpoena
This week, as reported by TorrentFreak, film corporations Voltage Holdings, that are half of the earlier two subpoenas, and Screen Media Ventures, one other film studio with litigation in opposition to RCN, filed a movement to compel [PDF] Reddit to answer the subpoena within the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The studios mentioned they’re looking for the data regarding claims they’ve made that the “ability to pirate content efficiently without any consequences is a draw for becoming a Frontier subscriber” and that Frontier Communications “doesn’t have an efficient coverage for terminating repeat infringers.” The film studios are claimants in opposition to Frontier in its chapter case. The studios are represented by the identical attorneys used within the two aforementioned instances.
The studios are asking that the court docket require Reddit to offer “IP address log information from 1/1/2017 to present” for six nameless Reddit customers who talked about piracy on Reddit. Although, Reddit posts shared within the court docket submitting solely date again to 2021.
Reddit responded to the studios’ subpoena with a letter [PDF] on January 2 stating that the subpoena “does not satisfy the First Amendment standard for disclosure of identifying information regarding an anonymous speaker.” Reddit additionally famous the 2 beforehand quashed subpoenas and prompt that it didn’t need to adjust to the brand new request as a result of the studios might purchase equal or higher info elsewhere.
As with the beforehand talked about litigation in opposition to ISPs, Reddit is a non-party. However, for the reason that film corporations claimed that Frontier had refused to supply buyer figuring out info and Reddit responded with a denial to the requests, the film corporations filed their movement to compel.
The studios argue that the data requests don’t implicate the First Amendment and that the rulings across the two aforementioned subpoenas will not be relevant as a result of the brand new subpoena is simply about IP tackle logs and never different user-identifying info.
“The Reddit users do not have a recognized privacy interest in their IP addresses,” the movement says.