Early last year, a group of filmmakers obtained a subpoena that required Reddit to reveal the identities of users who commented on piracy-related topics.

The movie companies said they were not planning to go after these people in court but wanted to use their comments as evidence in an ongoing piracy lawsuit against Internet provider RCN .

Reddit wasn’t willing to go along with the request, at least not in full. The company objected, arguing that handing over the requested information would violate its users’ right to anonymous speech. Reddit later responded similarly to a second and third subpoena request.

The movie companies took these cases to a federal court, asking it to compel Reddit to comply. The court refused to do so, thrice .

It’s Not Over Yet

The filmmakers are unhappy with these decisions and don’t intend to give up easily. After U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson denied their most recent attempt last month, they moved for a ‘de novo’ review at the California federal court.

In their request, the rightsholders cite jurisprudence suggesting that an IP-address is not necessarily ‘unmasking’ personally identifying information. They believe that the Magistrate Judge ignored key arguments and ended up drawing the wrong conclusion.

“The Order’s conclusion that an IP address is unmasking information was contrary to law and erroneous,” the movie companies argue.

The companies insist that the commenters could prove crucial in their battle against ISP Frontier . A suggestion that there might be other ways to obtain similar evidence is premature, they argue.

The movie companies believe that Magistrate Judge Hixson failed to properly weigh the nature of the speech involved. Since the comments allegedly involve ‘illegal’ activity, anonymous speech should not necessarily enjoy protection, they note.

“Movants previously pointed out that the comments at issue are boasts of criminal conduct. Accordingly, the speech concerns unlawful activity subject to no First Amendment protection,” the movie companies write.

Reddit’s Objections

In a replay of moves, Reddit objects to the request for a ‘de novo’ review. They argue that, as the court repeatedly found, the filmmakers have other non-intrusive options to gather evidence against Frontier. This includes seeking evidence from the ISP directly.

Reddit further notes that the filmmakers’ argument that IP-addresses do not “identify” users is misguided at best.

“Reddit does not require its users to give their real name or addresses, and so the only identifying information Reddit may maintain on its users is their IP address, which is precisely why the Movants here seek the users’ IP addresses. If IP addresses were not identifying, Movants would not be seeking them.”

At worst, the argument is disingenuous, Reddit notes. The movie companies previously used a Redditor’s IP-address to obtain the name and address of a subscriber, requesting their torrenting history and more .

“[A]fter Reddit provided Movants with IP address data for a single Reddit user last year, the Movants immediately identified that IP address by subpoenaing T-Mobile, and they have been harassing that user with motions practice ever since,” Reddit counters.

Illegal Speech?

Finally, Reddit addresses the suggestion that the nature of the speech may be unlawful and that it therefore deserves “the lowest” First Amendment protection, or no protection at all.

While the nature of speech indeed plays a role, Reddit stresses that its users are merely third-party witnesses in this case, and that no court used lower protection standards in similar circumstances.

The second suggestion, that the comments themselves are unlawful and therefore undeserving of First Amendment protection, wasn’t brought up earlier and should therefore be ignored, Reddit says. If the court decides to review it, however, it should be rejected.

“[T]he Court can easily reject it anyway as wholly inconsistent with fundamental First Amendment jurisprudence. Free speech in America is not so flimsy that it evaporates at the faintest whisper of illegality,” Reddit writes.

It is now up to the court to decide whether the movie companies get the chance to argue their case anew, or if the current decision stands. Whatever the outcome and given the recent history, further appeals or new cases can’t be ruled out.

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A copy of the movie companies’ request for a ‘de novo’ determination is available here (pdf) and Reddit’s objections to it can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Les plateformes sociales stars des années 2000 se sont trouvées une nouvelle manne financière à l'éthique discutable.

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The platform’s listing, expected in March, would be the largest IPO by a social media company since Pinterest went public in 2019

Reddit made an initial public offering filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday ahead of its highly-anticipated stock market debut.

The social network plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” Its listing – expected in March – would be the largest IPO by a social media company since Pinterest went public in 2019.

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Every day, millions of people from all over the world submit posts, comments, and other content to Reddit.

In many cases, discussion comments are read and soon forgotten but several old threads were brought back to life recently as part of piracy liability lawsuits.

The comments in question were picked up by Kerry Culpepper, a copyright attorney who leads several piracy lawsuits against Internet providers on behalf of independent film companies. While they say they’re not interested in pursuing legal action against these people, their comments could serve as important evidence.

Filmmakers Try to Unmask Redditors

Early last year, the film companies subpoenaed Reddit for the first time , requesting the personal details of several users. Reddit refused to cooperate, defending their users’ right to anonymous speech, and found a California federal court in agreement .

In a second attempt a few weeks later, several film companies sent a similar subpoena to Reddit. This time, the request was more targeted, as all comments specifically referred to the ISP being sued; Grande Communications.

Reddit still refused to comply, however, stressing that its users’ First Amendment rights would still be at stake. After hearing both parties, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with Reddit once again.

Reddit III: Targeting IP-addresses

While the denial was another setback for the film companies and their attorney, they had no plans to abandon this route to evidence quite so easily. Last month, they were back in court with a similar but tweaked request, this time related to a lawsuit targeting Internet provider Frontier Communications.

Broadly speaking, the third case was comparable to the others. The film companies, including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, wanted to use comments made by six Redditors to show that the ISP didn’t take proper action against repeat infringers, or that ‘lax’ enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates.

Contrary to the earlier requests, the film companies were no longer looking for any names or email addresses, only the applicable IP address logs. This would allow the commenters to remain anonymous because an ‘ IP-address is not a person ‘, their attorney argued.

Reddit, again, refused to hand over information, arguing it would violate users’ right to anonymous speech . The fact that it would only have to reveal IP-addresses wouldn’t change that, Reddit argued.

Court Sides with Reddit, Thrice

After both sides had the chance to present their arguments, the matter landed on the desk of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson of the California federal court. After reviewing the paperwork, Judge Hixson denied the motion to compel.

Similar to the decisions in Reddit I and Reddit II , the court concluded that the First Amendment rights of individuals to speak anonymously weigh stronger than the interests of rightsholders. This is particularly true because the Redditors are third parties and not defendants in this case.

Of importance in this decision is the so-called ‘2TheMart.com’ standard, which was also applied in the earlier two cases. From that perspective, the court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion.

This case deals with comments from six Redditors that could serve as evidence in the film companies ‘legal battle with Frontier. However, the court believes that the rightsholders can obtain similar evidence from a more direct source.

In the legal proceeding against the ISP, the court previously ruled that the film companies can unmask several alleged pirate subscribers. This could be used to obtain comments directly from Frontier subscribers.

“[T]here is information available from another source, as Movants themselves note the underlying bankruptcy court adjudicating the copyright litigation has already ruled they can obtain identifying information from Frontier for IP addresses known to have pirated using Frontier’s network,” Judge Hixson writes.

“If Movants sought further information, they need only subpoena the ISP for the subscriber information associated with that IP address, as the ISP does not share Reddit’s interest in protecting the anonymity of that user.”

Anonymous IP-addresses?

Judge Hixson didn’t elaborate in response to the filmmakers’ novel argument that sharing IP-addresses wouldn’t violate the First Amendment right to anonymous speech (‘not a person’).

According to the ruling, current precedents suggest that it’s not common to disregard the First Amendment argument when it comes to IP-address unmasking.

“While the Court is unaware of any cases in the Ninth Circuit in which a court has declined to apply a First Amendment unmasking standard for IP addresses, other courts have recognized that IP addresses are essential to unmasking because an ‘IP address cannot be made up in the same way that a poster may provide a false name and address’.”

“For this reason, the Court finds no reason to believe provision of an IP address is not unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny,” Judge Hixson writes.

The court further added that the film companies can still use the Redditor’s comments as evidence, as is. Printouts of webpages have been used at previous trials as well, so that could apply here.

Based on these and other arguments, Judge Hixson ultimately reached the same conclusion as the court did in the earlier two cases.

“In sum, the Court finds Movants cannot meet the 2TheMart standard because the evidence they seek can be obtained from other sources, including from Frontier in the normal course of discovery.”

If the rightsholders are unable to obtain the desired evidence from Frontier, they could always try again, of course. If anything, the film companies have shown that aren’t prepared to give up easily.

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A copy of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson’s order is available here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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