Porn kingpins sue Verizon for not coughing up personal info on alleged pirates

[Corey]

There’s just no satisfying some pornographic film companies. TorrentFreak reports that three porn producers are suing Verizon (VZ) for allegedly coddling alleged porn pirates by refusing to disclose identifying information on some of its customers. In refusing to hand over such information, Verizon is defying court-ordered subpoenas granted to the copyright holders, but the carrier says that handing over such information would violate its customers’ privacy protections and its constitutional rights.

“[The subpoena] seeks information that is protected from disclosure by third parties’ rights of privacy and protections guaranteed by the first amendment,” Verizon’s attorneys state in their objection.

In response, the film companies have accused Verizon of acting in bad faith and have asked the courts to overturn each one of their objections. In essence, the companies assert that Verizon and other big ISPs “profit from BitTorrent infringement at the expense of other, lower-tier ISPs and the consuming public at large,” which is why they allegedly won’t “aggressively identify infringers on their network.”

As TorrentFreak notes, Verizon and other ISPs will soon start implementing a new “six strikes” anti-piracy policy that will severely disrupt users’ Internet service if they are caught illegally downloading or sharing copyrighted material six times or more, but it seems that copyright holders are really intent on pursuing legal action against alleged pirates no matter what.

 

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[TulsaGeoff]

Six strikes