In a major blow to privacy and ISPs everywhere, Verizon has lost to the RIAA in a major court battle according to a C|Net News report by Declan McCullagh (RIAA wins battle to ID Kazaa user). The EFF has a case file (RIAA v Verizon). Read the 37-page order to comply (In Re: Verizon Internet Services Inc.: Memorandum Order [PDF]). Favorite quote:
With copyright legislation such as the DMCA, "[t]he wisdom of Congress' action ... is not within [the Court's] province to second guess." Eldred v. Ashcroft, slip op. at 32.
What this means is that as easily as sending a cease and desist order, copyright holders may now request the names and addresses of ISP customers they suspect are copyright pirates. Given the embarrassing lack of oversight copyright holders have demonstrated with C&Ds (such as claiming that people were infringing George Harrison's work by sharing "Portrait of mrs. harrison Williams 1943.jpg" and "Nude Preteens and Young Teens Naked ... Brian is 14 and Harrison is 8.") we can imagine that there will be no privacy whatsoever for ISP customers following this ruling. Furthermore, expect ISP costs to increase as they deal with a non-trivial number of these requests.
Thank you, Congress, for the eminently abusable 17 USC 512, which reads in pertinent part:
(h) Subpoena To Identify Infringer. -(1) Request. - A copyright owner or a person authorized to act on the owner's behalf may request the clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to a service provider for identification of an alleged infringer in accordance with this subsection.
Maybe abuse of this provision (which is certain to happen) will wake up a mighty big industry to the need for DMCA reform.