In what appears to be an escalating incursion into a user’s digital privacy, a collective of film companies continue to implore the court to compel Reddit to surrender its users’ personal details. This move is part of an ongoing piracy liability case against Internet Service Providers. Reddit, however, steadfastly resists, staunchly defending its users’ rights to anonymous speech.
Its a surprise to me that a reddit post or any kind of random text blurb can be used as an admission of anything. What if the guy simply says I made all that up for fun? There is no requirement for text written on the internet to be under oath. Edit: fixed spelling oauth -> oath ;)
The film companies have singled out a Reddit user, “xBROKEx,” citing a 12-year-old comment admitting to pirating the movie The Expendables.
Reddit counters that this attempted breach of privacy is unwarranted, given that the statute of limitations for copyright infringement is just three years.
How ridiculous. Someone admitted / bragged / bullshitted on the Internet 12 years ago. The statute of limitations expired 9 years ago. But, the film companies are still trying to get the information on a poor xBROKEx.
Reddit understands it's value is in content to sell. If reddit starts ratting out it's free content creators, they lose value. Their actions are a profit calculation, not some noble stand to protect privacy.
Maybe I'm missing context, but the article doesn't mention what this admission looked like. Was it just a use saying "yeah I downloaded the new ghostbusters movie, it sucked glad I didn't pay for it", or was it someone admitting to camming/distributing/facilitating piracy at a base level? Surely they are not going after someone for just casually mentioning they pirated a movie?
what proof do they actually have it occurred though? 12 years is a long time - I dont think I have any electronics that are 12 years old, let alone digital media