US Judge Rules In favor Of Downloaders In Copyright Case

A California judge has ruled in favor of downloaders and blocked an attempt to prosecute alleged downloaders of copyrighted material.

Porn company Hard Drive Productions asked a district court in California to force ISP's to hand over the names and details of computer users they suspected of illegally downloading a porn film that they monitored for two months. The company asked for the names of 90 people they believed to have viewed the clip but the judge rejected their motion.

Judge Lloyd went on to say he believed that Hard Drive Productions had intentions of actually litigating the case with the computer users and they were solely out to scare them into spending thousands of dollars to make the claims disappear.

Judge Lloyd stated "The court realizes that this decision may frustrate plaintiff and other copyright holders who, quite understandably, wish to curtail online infringement of their works. Unfortunately, it would appear that the technology that enables copyright infringement has outpaced technology that prevents it.

"The court recognizes that plaintiff is aggrieved by the apparent infringement and is sympathetic toward its argument that lawsuits like this one are the only way for it to find and stop infringers,” he adds, “However, the court will not assist a plaintiff who seems to have no desire to actually litigate but instead seems to be using the courts to pursue an extrajudicial business plan against possible infringers (and innocent others caught up in the ISP net).

"Plaintiff seeks to enlist the aid of the court to obtain information through the litigation discovery process so that it can pursue a non-judicial remedy that focuses on extracting “settlement” payments from persons who may or may not be infringers. This the court is not willing to do."

The tactics of the porn company are the same tactics that the RIAA has used in the passed against alleged downloaders.


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Tags:  RIAA, court, trial  

Jason Fisher    April 09, 2012