VW Subpoenas YouTube for User Identity
From the Citizen Media Law Project...
In late August, Volkswagen obtained a subpoena from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No.3:07-MC-80213) requiring YouTube to disclose the identity of an anonymous YouTube user who posted a Nazi-themed parody of a Volkswagen commercial. The video has apparently been removed from YouTube and is no longer available.
It is not clear whether YouTube has already complied with the subpoena, but YouTube's policy, as taken from parent company Google's privacy policy, is to "comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders or subpoenas seeking personal information" and it has historically turned over this type of information without much of a fight. However, as Wired News reports, YouTube generally notifies users when it receives civil subpoenas seeking their identity, so perhaps we will see the anonymous user intervene as a "John Doe" to quash the subpoena.
What is alarming about this case is that Volkswagen appears to have used the controversial "administative subpoena" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force YouTube to reveal the identity of its user. Under this provision of the DMCA, a copyright owner can request from the clerk of any U.S. district court that a subpoena be issued to a "service provider" for identification of an alleged infringer. See 17 U.S.C. 512(h)(1). If the copyright owner supplies the necessary paperwork and signed avowals, the clerk must "expeditiously issue" the subpoena.
Before Congress enacted the DMCA, copyright owners who wished to discover the name of a putative infringer had to first file a lawsuit against a "John Doe" and then request permission from the court to issue an ex parte subpoena to the service provider seeking John Doe's true identity. Now, copyright owners can simply dash off a DMCA administrative subpoena that the clerk has no discretion to deny -- and which requires no showing that the copyright holder's claim has merit.
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For more on the regulation of citizen journalism, visit the Citizen Media Law Project blog.
In late August, Volkswagen obtained a subpoena from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No.3:07-MC-80213) requiring YouTube to disclose the identity of an anonymous YouTube user who posted a Nazi-themed parody of a Volkswagen commercial. The video has apparently been removed from YouTube and is no longer available.
It is not clear whether YouTube has already complied with the subpoena, but YouTube's policy, as taken from parent company Google's privacy policy, is to "comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders or subpoenas seeking personal information" and it has historically turned over this type of information without much of a fight. However, as Wired News reports, YouTube generally notifies users when it receives civil subpoenas seeking their identity, so perhaps we will see the anonymous user intervene as a "John Doe" to quash the subpoena.
What is alarming about this case is that Volkswagen appears to have used the controversial "administative subpoena" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force YouTube to reveal the identity of its user. Under this provision of the DMCA, a copyright owner can request from the clerk of any U.S. district court that a subpoena be issued to a "service provider" for identification of an alleged infringer. See 17 U.S.C. 512(h)(1). If the copyright owner supplies the necessary paperwork and signed avowals, the clerk must "expeditiously issue" the subpoena.
Before Congress enacted the DMCA, copyright owners who wished to discover the name of a putative infringer had to first file a lawsuit against a "John Doe" and then request permission from the court to issue an ex parte subpoena to the service provider seeking John Doe's true identity. Now, copyright owners can simply dash off a DMCA administrative subpoena that the clerk has no discretion to deny -- and which requires no showing that the copyright holder's claim has merit.
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For more on the regulation of citizen journalism, visit the Citizen Media Law Project blog.