{"id":75246,"date":"2024-01-25T09:01:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T09:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=75246"},"modified":"2024-01-25T09:01:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T09:01:41","slug":"reddit-ip-address-disclosure-puts-user-anonymity-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=75246","title":{"rendered":"Reddit: IP Address Disclosure Puts User Anonymity At Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"redditEarly last year, a group of filmmakers obtained a subpoena, requesting Reddit to reveal the identities<\/a> of users who commented on piracy-related topics. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Reddit wasn\u2019t willing to go along with the request. Instead, the company objected<\/a>, arguing that handing over the requested information would violate their users\u2019 right to anonymous speech. <\/p>\n

Reddit I, II and III<\/h2>\n

A California federal court eventually agreed with this defense<\/a>, concluding that Redditors\u2019 First Amendment rights outweigh the interests of rightsholders. According to Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, the filmmakers have other options to obtain this type of information, including through RCN itself.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after this setback, the rightsholders filed another request<\/a>, seeking similar information for use in their lawsuit against ISP Grande. This second attempt wasn\u2019t successful either, and Redditors\u2019 right to anonymous speech prevailed once again.<\/p>\n

Attorney Kerry Culpepper, who represented different line-ups of filmmakers in these cases, wasn\u2019t prepared to give up on this route to evidence quite so easily. Earlier this month he was back in court<\/a> with a similar, but tweaked, request. This time it relates to a lawsuit targeting<\/a> Internet provider Frontier Communications.<\/p>\n

IP addresses & Anonymity<\/h2>\n

In general terms, this case is comparable to the others. The film companies, Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, want to use comments made by six Redditors to show that the ISP didn\u2019t take proper action against repeat infringers, or that \u2018lax\u2019 enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates.<\/p>\n

Reddit, again, refused to hand over information, arguing it would violate their users\u2019 right to anonymous speech. This prompted the filmmakers to return to court for a third time. <\/p>\n

In their latest motion to compel, the rightsholders introduce a new angle. They are no longer looking for any names or email addresses, only the applicable IP address logs. This would allow the commenters to remain anonymous, they argue. <\/p>\n

\u201cReddit asserts that the information Movants request is not permissible under the First Amendment. However, Movants\u2019 subpoena does not request anonymous users\u2019 identities. Rather, the subpoena is limited to requesting the Reddit users\u2019 IP address logs,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

Reddit Opposes in Court<\/h2>\n

In a response to the motion this week, Reddit counters that disclosing IP addresses would still violate users\u2019 rights to anonymous speech, adding that no court has ever ruled otherwise. <\/p>\n

According to Reddit, users\u2019 IP addresses would be useless as evidence if they didn\u2019t identify the targets in any shape of form. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, and most obviously, Movants\u2019 subpoena exclusively seeks the IP addresses of the targeted Reddit users. Were IP addresses not identifying information, they would hold no evidentiary value to Movants whatsoever and the subpoena would be pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"reddit<\/center><\/p>\n

Secondly, since Reddit doesn\u2019t require users to verify their identities, IP addresses are sensitive information. They can be used to obtain the targets\u2019 personal information, for example, by serving a subpoena on their Internet provider. <\/p>\n

\u201cMovants know, the process of unmasking a Reddit user turns on Reddit\u2019s disclosure of an IP address because Reddit does not require its users to provide their real names or addresses. For that reason, provision of an IP address is unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter learning an IP address, the Movants need only subpoena the ISP for the subscriber information associated with that IP address, and the ISP does not share Reddit\u2019s interest in protecting the anonymity of that user,\u201d Reddit adds.<\/p>\n

Other Options Preferred<\/h2>\n

In their motion, the filmmakers haven\u2019t explained what value the IP addresses offer in addition to the anonymous comments that are already publicly available. According to Reddit, there are other and \u2018less invasive\u2019 options for the filmmakers to get what they want. <\/p>\n

The film companies already have IP addresses of pirating Frontier subscribers, Reddit argues. These can be used to obtain the identities of account holders, so they can be questioned for evidence.<\/p>\n

The rightsholders previously noted that Frontier is not willing to share the identities of users, but Reddit points out that this is an outdated stance from the ISP which has since changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Movants again admit that they already have \u2018pirating [IP] addresses\u2019. And, as described above, Frontier has already indicated that it will provide Movants with identifying information for those IP addresses upon receipt of a subpoena,\u201d Reddit\u2019s opposition reads.<\/p>\n

If allegedly pirating subscribers can be targeted directly, Reddit believes that putting the anonymity of its users at risk by exposing their IP addresses is unnecessary.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers further argued that, unlike the ISPs\u2019 \u2018pirating IP addresses\u2019, the Reddit comments specifically serve as evidence that lack of enforcement against repeat infringers served as a draw to potential Frontier customers.<\/p>\n

Once again, Reddit doesn\u2019t believe that disclosing the IP addresses of its users adds anything to the publicly available comments.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]o the extent Movants are suggesting that the Reddit posts themselves are \u2018documented evidence,\u2019 Movants need not unmask the Reddit users to admit that documented evidence; Movants could lay the evidentiary foundation for, and authenticate, those posts themselves,\u201d Reddit writes. <\/p>\n

The response from Reddit shows that once again, it will be for the court to decide whether the company has to hand over any information. That will happen after the matter is discussed at a hearing in a few weeks. <\/p>\n

In addition to the main question, there\u2019s also a request pending from film companies Killing Link Distribution, Family of the Year Productions, and Laundry Films, who want to join the rightsholder\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

A copy of Reddit\u2019s opposition to the motion to compel, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early last year, a group of filmmakers obtained a subpoena, requesting 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}