Verizon is acting in “bad faith” by not turning over identities...
Verizon is acting in “bad faith” by not turning over identities of Internet subscribers alleged to have shared porn films via BitTorrent, said porn studios Malibu Media, Patrick Collins Inc. and Third Degree Films in a motion to “enforce subpoenas…
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and for contempt” in U.S. District Court in Dallas. The motion, filed Nov. 19 but unearthed by P2P news site TorrentFreak this week, said Verizon objected to identifying subscribers “based on numerous inappropriate and baseless grounds,” which should put it in contempt of court (http://xrl.us/bn3w5y). Echoing some district court judges considering porn infringement cases in venues such as in Long Island, N.Y., Verizon told Malibu Media Nov. 19 in a related case in Philadelphia (http://xrl.us/bn3w6a) the defendants in the suits weren’t “properly joined” because they are alleged to have shared files in the same BitTorrent “swarm” at different times and may have different defenses. Verizon also declined to identify subscribers because it said Malibu Media hadn’t shown prima facie evidence of personal jurisdiction or demonstrated it would use subscriber information for a “proper purpose” -- an allusion to porn studios extracting settlements from defendants early in litigation rather than proceeding to trial. The three studios told the Dallas court such arguments can’t be made by Verizon because it’s not a party to the litigation and “misjoinder” isn’t a reason to quash a subpoena. The defendants’ alleged sharing is “part of the same series of transactions and occurrences,” the threshold for joinder, the studios’ motion said: “Time constraints should not impact that the infringements occurred through a series of transactions.” They said Verizon’s claimed “undue burden” from turning over identities “is disingenuous given that Verizon enjoys limited liability despite its facilitation of infringing activities under the current state of the law.” The ISP must be asserting objections in bad faith, “with the expectation to continue to profit from BitTorrent infringement at the expense of other, lower-tier ISPs and the consuming public at large,” they said. Verizon didn’t show any evidence that the subpoenas would be used “to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation,” as prohibited in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the motion said.