District Court Ruling Reinforces Recent Trend in Caselaw Suggesting Internet Users Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Concerning Their ISP

Another district court has delivered a ruling that follows a pattern of similar rulings holding that an internet user does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning subscriber information conveyed to a third party (the Internet Service Provider (ISP)).

This most recent case is Worldwide Film Entertainment, LLC v. Does 1-749, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47238 (D.D.C., May 13, 2010). A PDF of the full ruling is can be found here courtesy of Docs.Justia.com.

In this case Plaintiff Worldwide Film Entertainment, LLC., served a subpoena upon an internet user’s ISP in another multi-defendant copyright infringement allegation alleging the internet user is liable for copyright infringement. Allegedly, the user (and the other Defendants in the suit) downloaded Plaintiff’s copyrighted movies without authorization.

Defendants’ asked the court to deny the subpoena/overrule on grounds that they denied the merits of the copyright infringement claim or, otherwise, to deny/overrule the subpoena on the ground that it was seeking sensitive personal information. Both of these claims by Defendants’ were denied by the court, which reiterated that the internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information conveyed to a third party.

For more information on IP address privacy and subpoenas served on ISPs;

Federal Court Rulings Hold That There is No Reasonable Expectation of IP Address Privacy

US Supreme Court Attempts to Tackle Employees Right to Privacy in Electronic Communications via Company-Issued Devices, Gets its Feet Wet

Internet subscriber lacks privacy interest in isp account information sought by plaintiff in copyright infringement action

Internet User Has No Reasonable Expectation of IP Address Privacy