Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 99 posts

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#21

Post by declaredapple »

Sunspark wrote: post #11
pleasantpeasant wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll still do this once Reddit IPOs

Once they're public, everything is going to change. At that point it becomes "building value for the shareholder" and "minimizing risk for the shareholder". Except in this case, users are the product, and if you ruin the experience for the user then you've ruined your own product, thus defeating the shareholder. The only thing Reddit offers is a user community on a mega-forum.

> At that point it becomes "building value for the shareholder" and "minimizing risk for the shareholder".

Generally people refer to this as Enshittification

> if you ruin the experience for the user then you've ruined your own product, thus defeating the shareholder.

Enshittification is literally the opposite of this.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#22

Post by Drakim »

imoverclocked wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible. I would think it falls under free speech. Eg: someone makes a parody of an old Monty Python song and states, “I’m a pirate and that’s ok.” Should this count in an age where the vast majority of legal notices in this genre are robo-lawyers? Should my internet connection be severed because a guest was bored and posted…

At some point in my life I committed a crime.

Here's to hoping that's not enough to have me subpoenaed.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#23

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

imoverclocked wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible. I would think it falls under free speech. Eg: someone makes a parody of an old Monty Python song and states, “I’m a pirate and that’s ok.” Should this count in an age where the vast majority of legal notices in this genre are robo-lawyers? Should my internet connection be severed because a guest was bored and posted…

I think I get your point but being free speech and being an admission of a crime are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#25

Post by rpmisms »

declaredapple wrote: post #16
favourable wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IP addr is not a person And most IPV4 addresses are vague and only give a coarse location of where you are, and they're typically shared among many others so an IP is not a guaranteed signal that it was 'you' who pirated stuff.

> And most IPV4 addresses are vague and only give a coarse location of where you are That's not true, you can request/compel Frontier to tell you what specific customer that IP was assigned to at a given time. > and they're typically shared among many others so an IP is not a guaranteed signal that it was 'you' who pirated stuff. Most residential ISPs in the states have 1 ipv4 (and possibly ipv6) assigned per custome…

The FBI contacted me over a shitpost on Reddit using this exact process. Hilarious, but also very concerning.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#26

Post by al_borland »

imoverclocked wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible. I would think it falls under free speech. Eg: someone makes a parody of an old Monty Python song and states, “I’m a pirate and that’s ok.” Should this count in an age where the vast majority of legal notices in this genre are robo-lawyers? Should my internet connection be severed because a guest was bored and posted…

IANAL, but I think free speech is about being jailed for what you say. This is more about admitting to an action that allegedly performed. The speech isn't the problem, it's the action the speech is talking about.

I think they'd have a hard time moving forward on that alone. They need some kind of proof, which is what I think they were trying to get. All they can prove is that the person said they got 44 emails, the person could be lying. There is no law against lying on an internet message board.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#27

Post by duskwuff »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #17
pleasantpeasant wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll still do this once Reddit IPOs

Is this the first major public forum to go public?

Maybe if you define "forum" in a way which excludes social media sites like Facebook, but that feels like an artificial distinction.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#28

Post by thfuran »

imoverclocked wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible. I would think it falls under free speech. Eg: someone makes a parody of an old Monty Python song and states, “I’m a pirate and that’s ok.” Should this count in an age where the vast majority of legal notices in this genre are robo-lawyers? Should my internet connection be severed because a guest was bored and posted…

>I would think it falls under free speech.

Yes, admitting to committing a crime is not in and of itself illegal. It does, however, make it a lot more likely you'll be tried and convicted for the crime you admitted to committing.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#29

Post by naasking »

imoverclocked wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible. I would think it falls under free speech. Eg: someone makes a parody of an old Monty Python song and states, “I’m a pirate and that’s ok.” Should this count in an age where the vast majority of legal notices in this genre are robo-lawyers? Should my internet connection be severed because a guest was bored and posted…

> It would be interesting to know if an admission to pirating content on Reddit is actually admissible.

The problem here is tying the account to a real person. Technically anyone could be using that account, his daughter, brother, wife, etc., just like anyone could be behind the wheel of your car if it's used to commit a crime.

Re: Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses

#30

Post by mox1 »

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #5
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #4

> Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures cited Reddit posts in which users say that Frontier didn't terminate their Internet service despite sending many copyright infringement notices about torrent downloads. One of the users wrote, "I got a total of 44 emails from frontier about downloading torrents and that it could terminate service. They haven't yet. And I kinda feel like if they didn't do it after 44 emails…

My understanding is that the users in question were talking about piracy or committing piracy on reddit and the movie companies want to get the IPs of those users from reddit in order to prove that Frontier isnt terminating people committing piracy. Alternatively, depending on how large the list of users they requested IPs for from reddit is, it could be a fishing expedition to see if any of them happen to belong to…

This is correct, the Reddit poster(s) in question were discussing how lax Frontier was about Copyright strikes. The movie company presumably wanted to have that person testify about said lax policy in court.
Post reply on HN