The right to remain anonymous
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- The US First Amendment doesn’t “provide a license for copyright infringement”, the federal appeals court in Manhattan has decided.
According to Judge Glenn Suddaby (right), a Bush appointee, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian) have every right to be told who’s “illegally downloading their music”.
The use of the phrase “illegally” is interesting because until a court had decided otherwise, nothing illegal has taken place, and a court would have only the industry’s word for it.
Suddaby ruled “a computer user’s right to remain anonymous does not trump the labels’ right to enforce their copyrights”, says the Courthouse News Service, going on:
“The alleged infringer, identified only as ‘Doe 3,’ asked a federal magistrate judge to quash a subpoena served on his Internet service provider, the State University of New York at Albany. The record labels wanted to learn the names of 16 people who allegedly downloaded or distributed copyrighted songs through an online file-sharing network.”
Doe 3 maintained he had a First Amendment right to remain anonymous but Suddaby rejected his claims on appeal.
Now “The federal appeals court in Manhattan affirmed”, says the Courthouse News Service, quoting judge Amalya Kearse as saying for the three-judge panel, “The First Amendment does not … provide a license for copyright infringement.
“Thus, to the extent that anonymity is used to mask copyright infringement or to facilitate such infringement by other persons, it is unprotected by the First Amendment.”
Click here for the ruling.
(Cheers, Marc)
..
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Courthouse News Service – Record Labels Can Seek Download Info From ISP’s, April 30, 2010
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May 1st, 2010 at 11:42 am
nah I think I will pirate anyways, its legal in my country of vpn. They should have thought about it be4 they started this war with Napster, etc and provided what people want, when and they wouldn’t be in this mess. I have no sympathy for them. Pirate away folks. The mafiaa.org sucks.