Copyright Troll Demands Comcast’s Six Strikes Data for Lawsuit

[silicon_toad2000]

http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-troll-demands-comcasts-six-strikes-data-for-lawsuit-140425/

Thanks to the "six strikes" program, leading ISPs in the U.S. now hold databases containing allegations of infringement against their customers. That data was supposed to be private, but now the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the U.S. is trying to obtain information from Comcast in order to build a case against an alleged porn pirate.

In just a few days time the controversial Copyright Alert System (CAS) will have been operational for 15 months.

A cornerstone of the system sees the major labels and movie studios sending notices of infringement to ISPs which they in turn forward to their subscribers. Records of these notices are then held in a database, which copyright holders in the six-strike scheme may subsequently use in legal action, if they feel that is appropriate.

“The Content Owner Representatives [MPAA / RIAA] or any other member of the Participating Content Owners Group may use such reports or data as the basis for seeking a Subscriber’s identity through a subpoena or order or other lawful process,” the agreement reads.

Trouble is, any data on file is at risk of being accessed by a third party if they can convince a judge they have good reason to obtain it. And that’s exactly what the largest filer of copyright complaints in the United States is now attempting to do.

Malibu Media is well-known as a filer of many lawsuits against alleged file-sharers. Indeed, earlier this week the company was featured in an article which confirmed its status as the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the entire United States.

In a case which has been documented by FightCopyrightTrolls since its initial February 2013 filing, Malibu has been struggling to pin an infringement on Kelley Tashiro, a middle-aged female nurse from Indianapolis. Faced with an uphill battle, Malibu has now turned to Tashiro’s ISP, Comcast, to find out what information it holds on her.

Perhaps inevitably, Malibu is attempting to find out whether or not the IP address allocated to Tashiro has ever been subject to infringement allegations by other copyright holders. In addition to details of any DMCA notices forwarded, Malibu has asked a judge to order the release of data being held as part of the Copyright Alerts System.

[GhostShip]

I cant see a judge delivering up a whole database of information when to satisfy the claims of the suit filers only a very limited subset of data is required, in the EU the data would be safe since it wasn't collected or any consents given for it to be collected for purposes other than sending out notifications and such notifications may or may not be valid in any case.

I believe the judge will order the data to be provided but in a limited form only as handing over a database of confidential data of  third parties constitutes a "fishing expedition" likely to see the database holder facing legal actions for breach of privacy.