[Infowarrior] - Judge Stops BitTorrent Trolls From Harassing ISP Account Holders

[Richard Forno]

Judge Stops BitTorrent Trolls From Harassing ISP Account Holders

	• enigmax
	• November 13, 2012

A judge in the United States has denied attempts by plaintiffs in three BitTorrent mass lawsuits to obtain the identities of individuals behind IP addresses. Chief United States Magistrate Judge Leo T. Sorokin said the plaintiffs had shown no interest in presenting a plan that would identify actual infringers and were instead relying on an action that “..smacks of a bad faith effort to harass the third-party subscriber.”

The three lawsuits in question, all presented by the same attorney, follow a familiar pattern. Some time ago the copyright holders in the cases – Discount Video Center and Patrick Collins – gathered IP addresses in BitTorrent swarms that they claim are connected to copyright infringement of their adult content.

Of course, none of the plaintiffs know the identity of the alleged infringers, only the IP addresses in the swarms. This is problematic. While the IP addresses can usually be traced back to a certain ISP account linked to a bill payer, that person is not necessarily the infringer and only infringers can be held liable.

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs embarked on a discovery process in order to replace the original ‘John Does’ on the complaint with the names of the ISP account holders, not the actual infringers.

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http://torrentfreak.com/judge-stops-bittorrent-trolls-from-harassing-isp-account-holders-121113/

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