News
U.S. Court Orders BitTorrent Users' Identities Sealed
posted on by Ko Ransom
Earlier this week, a New York judge presiding over a "John Doe" case, in which Malibu Media is suing multiple Internet subscribers for allegedly downloading copyrighted material through the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, ordered the identity of the defendants sealed. The decision was made after Verizon had already turned over the subscribers' identities, five days before the response containing the users' identities was due. The court had previously ordered a stay on the subpoena, pending its decision on a motion to quash it. In addition to sealing the users' identities, the judge also ordered the plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies of the information.
Last year, Toei Animation filed a similar "John Doe" copyright complaint against 869 users for allegedly downloading the 515th episode of the One Piece television anime via Bittorrent.
[Via Slashdot]
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history