• Comcast, Verizon Ordered to ID Subscribers to Porn
    42 replies, posted
Source: [URL]http://owingsmills.patch.com/articles/comcast-verizon-ordered-to-identify-customers-to-pornographers[/URL] [quote]Two California pornography companies are attempting to sue 140 Maryland residents for unlawfully downloading and distributing their adult films. Patrick Collins Inc. and Third Degree Films have one problem—the California companies don't know the names of the people they want to sue for copyright infringement. But two of Maryland’s largest Internet service providers—Comcast and Verizon—have been ordered by a federal judge in Greenbelt to turn over the personal identities of 22 subscribers known to Patrick Collins Inc. only by numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The anonymous subscribers in that case are located throughout the state: Towson, Annapolis, Sykesville, Westminster, Rockville, Columbia, Bowie, Reisterstown, Parkville, Frederick, La Plata, Germantown and Potomac. Maryland is the latest state to be the target of such litigation. The companies and others have filed copyright infringement lawsuits in several states armed only with IP addresses of people they allege have unlawfully been file-sharing their movies using BitTorrent technology. It’s a legal strategy involving copyright protection pioneered when the Recording Industry Association of America pursued the identities behind IP addresses of customers who were illegally file sharing music off of Napster, said Julie Samuels, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has helped fight against recent lawsuits from pornography companies in other states. Patrick Collins Inc. filed its case against 22 "John Does" in June. Third Degree Films filed its case against 118 "John Does" just last week and is also asking for a federal judge to order Comcast, Verizon and other Internet service providers to identify the accused customers. U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr.'s order states that Patrick Collins Inc. "allegedly owns exclusive distribution rights to a pornographic movie that is being illegally distributed over the Internet by peer-to-peer file-sharing technology, BitTorrent. Plaintiff claims to know the Internet Protocol address ('IP address') of each infringing defendant, but not their real names, addresses, or other identifying information." Williams' July order requires Comcast and Verizon to provide that information so that Patrick Collins can then take legal action against each subscriber. “The most important thing for us is that we treat our customers’ privacy with the utmost seriousness,” said Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman. “We don’t just hand stuff over without due process and reaching out to let the customer know that we’re being ordered by a judge.” He said Comcast has alerted customers identified in the lawsuit about the legal action. Critics of such legal action call the studios in these lawsuits “copyright trolls.” Critics contend the tactic is nothing more than a way to extract quick cash settlements by threatening to associate people with public exposure in a pornography lawsuit. Legal documents filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, however, indicate a possible shift in strategy by the studios, Samuels said. The studios have been taking legal action against thousands of people at once in other states. But doing so has resulted in some cases being thrown out either because some subscribers don't live in the states where the lawsuits have been filed or because the studios have not shown that such a large class of defendants have been conspiring together. The cases in Maryland are far more narrow, targeting just 22 people in one case and 118 in the second, Samuels said. So far in the Patrick Collins case, the company agreed to voluntarily dismiss its allegations against one of the two subscribers who have hired lawyers to fight the lawsuit. Patrick Collins Inc.'s lawyer, Jon A. Hoppe of Largo, could not be reached for comment. Attorney Eric J. Menhart with CyberLaw firm in Washington D.C. represented the John Doe whose case was voluntarily dismissed by the company. Menhart said Patrick Collins Inc. agreed to dismiss his client's case because allowing Judge Williams to rule on the dismissal motion could threaten the company's case against all the other subscribers named as co-defendants in the case. "They cut their losses by dismissing one case," he said. "These cases are happening all over the place. ... We're seeing anywhere from 20 to 200 [defendants]. So far in Maryland I haven't seen big, big numbers. But that can always change." [/quote] Saw this on the local news for where I live.
bahahahahhahaha CyberLaw [img]http://www.themusicvoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/internet-police.jpg[/img]
They dun goof'd The Web-Sheriff'll be on their arses!
Doesn't stuff like this happen... All the time?
Yes but not legally or officially. The internet is very surely being policed but probably not what porn people download.
[QUOTE=Falchion;32943642]Yes but not legally or officially. The internet is very surely being policed but probably not what porn people download.[/QUOTE]Yeah, the porn industry is very...."cut throat" in that manor.
Maybe if I share my porn with my ISP I get to keep it?
So what does this company produce exactly? Is it like Girls Gone Wild, or something else? Never heard of this production company. I wonder if watching RedTube counts in this too...
youporn
[QUOTE=dbk21894;32943949]youporn[/QUOTE]What about it?
[QUOTE=faze;32943657]Yeah, the porn industry is very...."cut throat" in that manor.[/QUOTE] you might even say they're "deep throat"
Considering how just about nobody pays for porn on the internet, I can't really blame them for being pissed. And going after individuals instead of trawling isn't as despicable. Porn pioneered a lot of this tech in the first place, doesn't surprise me in the least.
[QUOTE=DarkMonkey;32944350]Considering how just about nobody pays for porn on the internet, I can't really blame them for being pissed. And going after individuals instead of trawling isn't as despicable. Porn pioneered a lot of this tech in the first place, doesn't surprise me in the least.[/QUOTE]Yeah, porn is why VHS tapes came out.
[QUOTE=faze;32944365]Yeah, porn is why VHS tapes came out.[/QUOTE] This is actually true to those of you who disagree Also, one of the first and most popular movies back when movies were just getting started was 'What the butler saw' and was a softcore pornography film.
[QUOTE=ManningQB18;32944572]This is actually true to those of you who disagree Also, one of the first and most popular movies back when movies were just getting started was 'What the butler saw' and was a softcore pornography film.[/QUOTE]It's very true.
[QUOTE=faze;32944623]It's very true.[/QUOTE] I mean imagine hw terrible watching prn with 30 ther men in a theater wuld be. Unless yu're int that srt f thing.
[QUOTE=Contag;32944958]I mean imagine hw terrible watching prn with 30 ther men in a theater wuld be. Unless yu're int that srt f thing.[/QUOTE]Well, rule 34.......
[QUOTE=Contag;32944958]I mean imagine hw terrible watching prn with 30 ther men in a theater wuld be. Unless yu're int that srt f thing.[/QUOTE] why did you cut out all the o's
[QUOTE=AltFanatic;32945873]why did you cut out all the o's[/QUOTE]Shit keyboard probably.
Which porn companies were they?
I can't imagine these companies make a lot of money off porn adverts like "make your dick 3 inches bigger in 3 weeks. get them back once they go black" I could go on all day about these porn adverts.
hahahahahaha good luck I'm behind like 7 proxies Hey, since there's so many people they're trying to sue, if they get the wrong people, can the people counter sue and get a... [I]ass action suit[/I]? Okay okay I'll stop with the terrible jokes now.
[QUOTE=Last or First;32947577]hahahahahaha good luck I'm behind like 7 proxies Hey, since there's so many people they're trying to sue, if they get the wrong people, can the people counter sue and get a... [I]ass action suit[/I]? Okay okay I'll stop with the terrible jokes now.[/QUOTE] Why the fuck would you need to hide behind 7 proxies?
-snip-
[QUOTE=Hans-Gunther 3.;32943351]They dun goof'd The Web-Sheriff'll be on their arses![/QUOTE] Internet Dukes of Hazzard. Just try to imagine that for a while.
They aren't going after subscribers, they're going after people whose IPs they pulled from Bittorrent. You can jack off all you want with Xhamster and Redtube and suffer no consequences.
[QUOTE=redBadger;32947623]Why the fuck would you need to hide behind 7 proxies?[/QUOTE] I dont think you got the joke, 7 proxies is only 1 proxy, but the proxy is named, 7 proxies
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;32952391]They aren't going after subscribers, they're going after people whose IPs they pulled from Bittorrent. You can jack off all you want with Xhamster and Redtube and suffer no consequences.[/QUOTE]Yeah, RedTube and such would be guilty of distributing. But how would one watching things on there not be guilty, because they don't physically own it?
[QUOTE=faze;32955220]Yeah, RedTube and such would be guilty of distributing. But how would one watching things on there not be guilty, because they don't physically own it?[/QUOTE] It's still loaded into your browsers cache, thus it's on your harddrive.
[QUOTE=Van-man;32955253]It's still loaded into your browsers cache, thus it's on your harddrive.[/QUOTE]Well, I guess redtube watchers [I]are[/I] guilty too then, right?
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