Anonymity and Copyright Law - Research Paper Example

Lecturer Internet and IT issues were less dangerous and their usages were limited. As time goes by, we realize that some people or organizations have resorted to malicious use of the IT. Advancements have been made in this field, so much so that they are uses as avenues for crimes. Cybercrime has become a household term. A lot violence and harassment take place via the computer technology. In this light, governments of the world have come up with legal provisions that guide conduct on the internet and other IT developments. These have been meant to reduce the extent to which cybercrimes go. These legal provisions ensure that the rights of the offender and the offended are protected, privacy rights especially. All computers in the world have unique identities known as the Internet Protocol (IP) by which their locations and content may be traced. It is today very easy to identify the computer that you receive some internet content from. However, the sender’s identity (IP) may not be disclosed anyhow because of the privacy rights that they have. The receiver on the other hand may demand for disclosure of the IP that that has sent them the foul content on the internet. There are two rights in this case, both of which must be taken care of. Whereas the sender may be deemed to have wronged the receiver by the internet content they sent via their IP, the disclosure of the IP may not be easy to give upon the latter’s request. Government agencies might request for disclosures of IPs and revelation of identities for investigation purposes, but still that might be a tricky thing to venture into. The FBI is such an agency that could request for disclosure of sender computer identities as a way to start an investigation in an alleged offence, or internet violence claims by the receiver. There are technical issues to consider in this case. There is the right to anonymity that the sending IP has. There is the case of the Does, Jane Doe I and Jane Doe II who have sued a subpoena to internet service provider for what they claim that a user who uses the pseudonym ‘AK47’, who has thirty nine different pseudonymous names to post and comment on the university’s admission website had posted some derogatory, harassing and threatening statements between 2005 and 2007 targeting them. The website is called AutoAdmit.com which can be accessed by any internet user and in it; comments and information about graduate colleges, undergraduate schools and law schools can be posted and discussed. It attracts up to one million users in a month. People may create accounts with AutoAdmit.com using real names or assumed names, and then they are enabled to post messages on it. Hence, there is a lot of anonymity in the manner that users conduct on the website. There is no restriction or strictness guarding conduct on it. In January 2007, a post is made by an anonymous user about Jane Doe II. The post is insulting undeniably, as it asks users to ‘rate this huge breasted cheerful big tit girl from the Yale School of Law. A lot of comments follow and the poster expresses his/her desire to engage in sexual relations with her. The postings about Doe II continue into the summer and winter of 2007, and they are a lot more demeaning and disparaging, to say the least. Statements like ‘she loves making love while family members watched’, ‘she loved being punched in the stomach when she was seven months pregnant’, ‘she has a sexually transmitted disease’, ‘she abused heroine’, and ‘fantasized about being raped by her father’ were made. These are not really kind things to say about a person. The poster even hopes that Doe II ‘gets raped and dies’. It is not immediately very easy to tell who has made to post that is insulting to Doe II. So they (Doe I and Doe II) approach the internet provider to help them with the identities of the poster as the starting point of seeking justice for internet violence that was meted against them. The alleged user is John Doe 21 who uses a pseudonymous male name but it is not easy to establish if indeed they are male. The crimes committed in the case of Doe I and Doe II include, invasion of privacy, libel, negligence copyright violations and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Even the news regarding the filed complaint by the plaintiffs became a subject of discussion on the website. The accused did not stop making postings that demeaned Doe I and Doe II. The plaintiffs issued a subpoena ‘duces tecum’ to the internet service provider, AT & T for the information regarding the post that had been made about Doe II. The court ordered for an expedited discovery of the identity of the person who had been making abusive and disturbing statements about doe II. AT & T sent a letter to the person whose internet account corresponded with the IP issued, John Doe 21, notifying him it had received a subpoena ordering for disclosure of his identity relating to the information he had been posting about Doe I and Doe II. The same letter gave him the option that he could file a motion to quash or for a protective order before the date that the court ordered for the disclosure of identity to be done. He went ahead to file a quash motion, which allowed him to proceed with the case anonymously. There are threshold issues to consider, the court knows this all to well. Doe II argues against the motion to quash, terming it as moot because the information sought had been turned over to the service provider. The court rejects this argument because Doe II can be ordered to return the information and proceed with the case without it. John Doe’s reason for filing the quash is that any disclosure of his identity will amount to a violation of his right in the First Amendment, which allows him to use anonymous speech for the case. The First Amendment right for anonymous speech is allowed to be protected, even extending to the internet speech like in Doe II v John Doe 21 case. He reserves the right not to appear physically. Being anonymous, with no counsel, he has the right to be represented in the case by a pro bono counsel. Now the same law that is supposed to help the Does against internet malice also protects the offender, giving him the right to anonymous speech and also grants him the right to a pro bono lawyer. This is the case where it would be proper to argue that the law is indeed an ass, protecting both the wrongdoer and the wronged. However, there should be no room for the first amendment provision to allow for absolute right to anonymous internet speech in the case of Doe II and John Doe 21. Doe II should be allowed to know the identity of the person whose internet account relates to the IP that has been posting offensive statements about her from. It is indeed improper to hide behind a right in the constitution to interfere with the rights of others or to commit crime. It is easy to think that the plaintiffs having notified her offender that he is a subject of a subpoena, a factor that has been satisfied by the plaintiffs in this case, having posted a notice on a date in 2008 regarding the subpoenas on AutoAdmit.com, and which indeed allowed the poster an ample time to respond. In addition, Doe II provided the exact statements that the poster had made about her on AutoAdmit.com, and alleged they constitute an actionable speech. (King, Alison 2010). Further, it should be considered if the poster had some privacy expectations at the time of posting. In the case of John Doe 21, it is clear that his expectations of privacy were minimal, given AT & T’s service provider policy which allows for disclosure of privacy by the law without the consent of the user, in cases where very serious crimes or claims of misuse have been proven. This may be required where there is need to pursue the case and for conducting investigations, in which case the identity is paramount. The same law that allows for privacy or anonymity of an internet user should be applied to prosecute cases where crimes have been committed by the same users. The crimes may include, but not limited to, using the internet privacy rights to hurt the rights of others. Doe II has made what can be deemed as an adequate showing as to the claims against the anonymous defendant. Though standards as what may be considered as an adequate showing differs from one court to another, in my opinion and in the opinion of the law, what the plaintiff has provided surpasses the threshold for what constitutes an adequate showing. Therefore, Doe II’s case meets, in view of the evidence she has, including the exact statements in which her name was mentioned, allows the court to shelve Doe 21’s right in First Amendment, in the interest of justice to be served to the plaintiff. Hence, the subpoena issued by the court should be sufficient enough in this case, to trigger AT & T to provide the identity of the defendant, and leaves no room for filing for a quash. This will go a long way in ensuring that in future, crimes that find their way into the internet are averted. Copyright law in the digital age Copyright issues have evolved over time but the copyright laws haven’t quite changed much to accommodate the constantly evolving issues. Laws that were designed in the 1960s are still in place today and are getting applied to totally different situations. The cases might be the same, but times have changed, and so have the situations where those laws applied. In the past and even now, one could land in trouble for having a collection of music in their computer hard drives, and for downloading pictures from the internet or even forwarding internet news articles to friends. The laws as they were made in the 60s allow the copyright owners for these things to seek legal redress for their violation. This is certainly because they reserve the right for reproduction of their works and may seek damages even where their markets have not been harmed by any such actions. The penalties for infringement are grave and not lenient. As things are today, however, with the digital revolution, it looks unjust to use the same laws to prosecute infringement claims. We have the internet and applications that enable people to download a lot of works that might be copyrighted, but that’s development. It’s something that’s not easy to resist in this ever-changing world. We are in the digital age and somehow appreciate the changes it comes with. One could be having content that he/she has been able to get from the internet, a lot of them. Yet, the same laws still exist which of course allow the copyright owners to be compensated for any ‘unlawful’ use of their works. Laws are not static; they are often amended to meet the needs of the constantly changing times. Copyright laws however haven’t changed quite enough to accommodate the advances in computing and communications technology. It is really okay to compensate copyright owners for infringement on their rights, but that should be done in a completely different fashion. The fact that the economics of creating, disseminating and publishing of works-could be music, books etc-have dramatically changed should be duly considered while we seek to apply the old laws. The best thing to do is to rethink the laws in order to accommodate changes that have taken place over the years. We are in the era of peer-to-peer file sharing that involves commercially viable works of art such as novels, movies and music. Such practices are fast spreading in spite of the fact that a few cases have been prosecuted where the courts have been convinced that file sharing is indeed an illegal practice. It is generally agreed that the copyright laws need an upgrade, and that that should have taken place like yesterday. The laws and their application should wake up to the reality that they are obsolete, and that the tricks of the digital age make it hard to catch those who infringe. This can only call for a great deal of flexibility to take care of the new uses and technologies. There is need for simplicity to allow everyone who creates and/or consumes copyrighted materials are enabled to understand the law and use it effectively without having to contact a lawyer each time they need to download some digital content. Such recognitions of the need to adjust the laws led the House Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet to hold a hearing to examine the role that the copyright law plays in spurring American innovation. In recognition of the fact that the digital age has made it too easy for people to maliciously profit from the works of others without considering the need to provide the necessary compensation are dealt with according to the law. It should be changed to grant the marketplace the powers to determine what the amount of compensation should be, not the government. There should be a away to be able to track the digital content downloading, enabling the owners of the works to be able to benefit from what is downloaded from the internet that they have a copyright over. The rise in digital technology shouldn’t go unchecked, so that there are not loopholes for continued infringement through avenues that the government may not have been able to monitor. Any work of art that is availed on the internet should be done at a fee prescribed by the owner through agencies that handle copyright issues. Laws should be made in this regard. They should not be availed for download for nominal fees or for free as is the case today with the analogue laws still in place. There is need to create a set of copyright laws that conform to the challenges that the digital age pose. This would not mean an end to the freedom in the internet. It could as well mean the reverse. They should be system of rules to which all stakeholders agree, and which protect the rights of all. It would create more space for creativity and innovativeness to take place. This is because the product of creativity and innovation is not faced with the threat of stealing without a threat of sanction. Producers, consumers and vendors and consumers of IP should all work together to reform the system, because they all have a stake in the outcome of that kind of reformation (Donner, Irah 1992). This would be an incentive for people to be even more creative and innovative because they know they have to benefit from it. Lawmakers shouldn’t leave inventive people unprotected form the tricks of the intellectual property pirates. References Donner, Irah (1992). The Copyright Clause of the U. S. Constitution: Why Did the Framers Include It with Unanimous Approval?. The American Journal of Legal History 36 (3): 361–378. Robinson, Raymond V. (1936). "Confederate copyright entries". The William and Mary Quarterly 16 (2): 248–266. Invasion of privacy : penalties and remedies : review of the law of privacy : stage 3 (2009) (Issues paper 14), New Zealand Law Commission, ISBN 978-1-877316-67-8, 2009 NZIP 14 accessed 27 August 2011 King, Alison ( 2010). Constitutionality of Cyberbullying Laws: Keeping the Online Playground Safe for Both Teens and Free Speech. Vanderbilt Law Review 63 (3): 845–884. Retrieved 11 February 2013. Ohm, Paul (2009). "Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization". UCLA Law Review 57: 1701, 2010. Retrieved 12 February 2013. Peter K, Yu (2007). Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Copyright and related rights. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 143. Scott, Craig R. (2005). Anonymous Communication in Organizations: Assessing Use and Appropriateness. 157. Tynan, Dan. (2013).Real names, real problems: Pseudonymity under siege." ITWorld.. Retrieved on September 22, 2013. U.S. Supreme Court decision "United States v. Rumely. Law.cornell.edu. 1953-03-09. Retrieved 2012-11-22 Warren and Brandeis (1890). The Right to Privacy. Harvard Law Review IV (5): 193. Read More