Reddit continues to struggle against attempts to identify anonymous users who discussed issues of piracy on the platform. This is the second such attempt. Last time, Reddit successfully defended the right of eight users to anonymity, settling on the first correction of the US Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of expression.
Now, Reddit is trying to achieve a similar outcome in a new legal battle. The Bodyguard Production and Millennium film studios have filed a lawsuit against Grande provider, accusing them of ignoring piracy on their network. Previously, these same companies filed a similar lawsuit against the RCN Internet provider, both of which belong to Astound BroadBand. Although Reddit is not directly involved in both copyright violations, they have received a summons requesting information about users.
In a new court filing, the film studios demand that Reddit provide basic information about six users who discussed piracy issues on the platform in 2011 and 2018. However, Reddit refused to comply with the request, leading the film studios to turn to the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California to force Reddit to fulfill the summons.
The defendants are demanding the following information and other data from Reddit:
- IP address
- Registration logs from 1/11/2016 to date
- Name
- Email address
Reddit argues that the film studios have already obtained information about 118 users from Grande and have failed to prove that obtaining information about the six users from Reddit is the only way to gather evidence for their complaints. Additionally, Reddit highlights that the information obtained from Grande is more valuable than what they could provide and suggests that the plaintiffs can issue a summons to the 118 known copyright violators.
The Reddit users, whose identities the film studios are attempting to determine, had discussions about using Grande for torrent traffic. Most of these discussions took place over 12 years ago. Reddit asserts that identifying these individuals, who are not directly related to the case, requires a higher standard of justification than for potential defendants because legal proceedings can often continue without compromising the right to anonymity granted