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Judge Distinguishes Subpoenas over BitTorrent Sharing

BY Zoe Tillman
May 27, 2011

Not all file-sharing websites are created equal, according to U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S District Court for the District of Washington.

Howell, writing in a series of opinions in May denying protective orders for potential defendants in separate but similar copyright infringement cases, noted that while similar orders had been granted in other file-sharing suits, the nature of the site in question, BitTorrent, raised new issues. “The plaintiff has provided detailed allegations about how the BitTorrent technology differs from other peer-to-peer file-sharing programs and necessarily engages many users simultaneously or sequentially to operate,” Howell wrote in Voltage Pictures LLC v. Does 1-5,000, 10-0873. The opinions were all similarly worded.

In the underlying cases, four movie production and distribution companies sued hundreds of unnamed defendants for illegally downloading copyrighted movies through BitTorrent. In order to uncover their identities and properly file suit, the plaintiffs subpoenaed Internet service providers to turn over the identities of users tracked through IP addresses. Time Warner contested the request to turn over its customers' information, but in March 2011 Howell denied the company's motion to quash the subpoenas.

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