Commentary

Judge Allows One Copyright Suit Against 4,500 Alleged BitTorrent Users -- For Now

A federal judge has put the brakes on a copyright enforcement outfit's effort to subpoena identifying information from Time Warner about more than 4,500 subscribers who allegedly used BitTorrent to download Uwe Boll's "Far Cry."

After holding a hearing this week, the U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer appeared to accept the cable company's argument that producing information about so many people at once would strain the company's resources. Instead, Collyer ordered Time Warner to turn over identifying information for only 28 IP addresses a month.

That order appears likely to slow down the US Copyright Group's plan to raise fast cash. The outfit, which began filing cases several months ago, typically subpoenas alleged infringers names from their ISPs and then sends letters offering those people a chance to settle for $1,500-$2,500, or else face a lawsuit that could result in damages of up to $150,000. But if the group can only communicate that offer to 28 Time Warner subscribers a month, extracting settlements from people obviously will take longer.

Collyer did side with the US Copyright Group on at least one key issue: The judge ruled that the massive lawsuit needn't be separated into 4,700 different cases -- not yet, anyway.

She rejected an argument put forward by the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- along with Public Citizen (which represents MediaPost in an unrelated matter) and the ACLU -- that the US Copyright Group shouldn't have sued nearly 5,000 defendants in one action. But, even though Collyer didn't accept that theory this week, she also said that individual defendants can come into court and make the argument themselves.

And, in at least a partial win for the digital rights organizations, the judge also ordered the US Copyright Group to work with the EFF and others to write a letter that can be sent to the defendants to inform them about their options in the case. EFF attorney Corynne McSherry said that the organization had hoped the judge would "go a good deal further," but added that the digital rights groups "applaud the court's effort to protect the defendants' interests."

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