Film studios lose bid to unmask Reddit users who wrote comments on piracy

Reddit doesn't have to identify eight anonymous users who wrote comments in piracy-related threads, a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on Friday. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler quashed a subpoena issued by film studios in an order that agrees with Reddit that the First Amendment protects the users' right to speak anonymously online.

The First Amendment right to anonymous speech is not absolute, but the precedent followed by US district courts only forces disclosure of anonymous users' identities "in the exceptional case where the compelling need for the discovery sought outweighs the First Amendment rights of the anonymous speaker," Beeler noted. After reviewing the facts and arguments, she found that the Reddit users' comments were irrelevant to the film studios' underlying case and that the studios could obtain relevant information from other sources.

Reddit has no involvement in the underlying case, which is a copyright lawsuit in a different federal court against cable Internet service provider RCN. Bodyguard Productions, Millennium Media, and other film companies sued RCN in the US District Court in New Jersey over RCN customers' alleged downloads of 34 movies such as Hellboy, Rambo: Last Blood, Tesla, and The Hitman's Bodyguard.

In an attempt to prove that RCN (now known as Astound Broadband) turned a blind eye to customers illegally downloading copyrighted movies, the studios subpoenaed Reddit seeking identifying information for specific users who commented in piracy-related threads. While some of the comments were posted in 2022, other comments were made in 2009 and 2014.

Reddit sought to protect user privacy

The studios filed a motion to compel Reddit to respond to the subpoena after Reddit refused to identify eight of the nine users. As Reddit pointed out in a filing that accused the studios of spewing "nonsense," some of the commenters didn't even mention RCN, and others merely "discuss[ed] issues (such as their customer service experience) unrelated to copyright infringement or Plaintiffs' allegations."

The plaintiffs, attempting to prove that RCN "ignores piracy on its network" and is thus liable for its users' copyright infringement, "subpoenaed non-party Reddit for identifying information for eight Reddit users' accounts and then moved to compel Reddit's compliance after Reddit objected," Beeler wrote.

"The users at issue posted comments over the years that, according to the plaintiffs, support the plaintiffs' claims," the ruling continued. "Reddit contends that there is no need for the discovery that outweighs the users' First Amendment right to speak anonymously online. The court denies the motion to compel and quashes the subpoena because on this record, the First Amendment bars the discovery."

As Reddit previously argued, "Courts have long recognized that the First Amendment protects online anonymity and have established a stringent standard to use in precisely this scenario, where a litigant seeks to unmask users for the purpose of providing evidence in litigation that does not involve those users... Plaintiffs are far from meeting that strict standard here."

The film studios claimed that "Reddit has not identified any potential harm to these users by disclosing the information" and said they had no intention of "seeking to retaliate economically or officially against these subscribers. Rather, Plaintiffs just wish to discuss the comments the subscribers made and use their comments as evidence that RCN monitors and controls the conduct of its subscribers, RCN has no meaningful policy for terminating repeat infringers, and this lax or no policy was a draw for using RCN's service."

Several users didn’t even mention RCN

The ruling, which was previously reported by TorrentFreak, said the plaintiffs haven't shown that users' identities are directly and materially relevant to their claims against RCN or that information sufficient to prove or disprove the claims is unavailable from any other source. There is a "high likelihood" that information needed by plaintiffs is available from RCN, a fact that "defeats the plaintiffs' subpoena," Beeler wrote.

As her ruling noted, some of the Reddit users didn't even discuss RCN:

As to four of the users—"SquattingCroat," "aromaticbotanist," "ilikepie96mng," and "Griffdog21," who all responded to a thread about Comcast—the plaintiffs admit that they don't know whether the users were RCN customers. SquattingCroat said, "I have received like 20 [copyright-infringement notices] in the past couple of years from my [Internet-service] provider, [but] literally nothing ever happened." The user aromaticbotanist did not mention RCN and merely said they "work for a national ISP." Ilikepie96mng did not mention RCN and referred to "our ISP." Griffdog21 likewise didn't mention RCN, and the context suggests that the comment was about Comcast. Comments like these are not "directly and materially relevant to [a core] claim or defense" in this case—if they are relevant at all.

The comments from users who do appear to be RCN customers aren't relevant enough to overcome First Amendment rights, Beeler wrote:

The plaintiffs' arguments about other users' comments do not change the result. The user "compypaq" said that RCN would sometimes remotely reset his modem. The plaintiffs contend that this comment helps show that RCN can monitor and control its customers' conduct, because the ability to reset a modem implies the ability to turn off a modem. This argument only reinforces that the plaintiffs can obtain the information they seek from RCN. It isn't necessary to subpoena the identities of RCN customers from a third party to determine whether RCN can disable its customers' Internet access.

Regarding a 2009 Reddit post that said RCN replaced a web browser error page with branded search results, plaintiffs claimed "that this comment shows RCN's ability to monitor and control its customers," Beeler wrote. "But the plaintiffs can determine from RCN the extent to which it can control its customers' browsers."

The “closest call”

Beeler cited a 2014 Reddit comment as the "closest call" in her First Amendment analysis. "In a thread by a user considering whether to switch to RCN and asking whether RCN sends 'copyright infringement emails from torrent monitors,' the user 'ChikaraFan' said: 'Seems extremely rare if ever. RCN seems fairly lax… no data caps. I looked up before I switched and had little trouble.'"

"The plaintiffs contend that this shows that RCN did not implement a counter-infringement policy and that customers are drawn to the ability to freely pirate on RCN's network," Beeler wrote.

Beeler conceded that "it is logical for the plaintiffs to obtain evidence from RCN's customers in a case about whether those customers are drawn to RCN's allegedly 'lax' counter-infringement policies." But she cited several reasons to dismiss the plaintiffs' argument on the ChikaraFan comment:

ChikaraFan was apparently drawn to RCN's lack of "data caps," which is another technical issue that can be illuminated by discovery from RCN itself. Even as to the issue of customers being drawn to RCN, the question here is whether the information is available from "any" other source. It is implausible that this one (First Amendment protected) user is an irreplaceable source. Finally, as Reddit points out, ChikaraFan's comment predates RCN's conduct at issue in this case, thus raising doubt that ChikaraFan's comment is "directly and materially" relevant.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder in Reddit.