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SOUTH BEND, Ind.— from www.mercurynews.com – A 19-year-old Purdue University student is asking a judge to block a request that the school release his name to a California film company seeking to learn the identities of more than 2,000 people it claims illegally downloaded copyrighted adult videos.
A motion to quash a subpoena filed Tuesday in federal court in Lafayette contends the film company is on an unjustified fishing expedition that would risk “reputational injury to a promising young college student,” identified as Doe No. 26. The lawsuit alleges the student’s IP address was used last fall to download a film featuring porn star Sasha Grey.
The motion is in response to a subpoena served June 1 on Purdue. The subpoena, filed by attorney Ira M. Siegel on behalf of Third Degree Films, which makes adult entertainment films, seeks the name, address, telephone number and email address of Doe No. 26 by Aug. 15.
Third Degree Films, based in Canoga Park, Calif., filed a lawsuit on Dec. 23 seeking unspecified monetary damages. It also asks the court to order all copies of the copyrighted material be destroyed.
The lawsuit names IP addresses at seven other universities, including the University of Southern California, Southern Methodist University, Rochester Institute of Technology and George Washington University.
Purdue spokesman Chris Sigurdson said the school regularly receives subpoenas seeking the Internet protocol addresses of students accused of copyright violations. The school notifies the IP address owners and gives them a deadline to decide whether they will challenge the release of their identities. He said the university has received “very few motions to quash,” but didn’t have an exact number.
So far this year, Purdue has received 321 requests seeking 211 IP addresses for possible copyright violations of photos, videos or music, Sigurdson said. Last year it received requests for the identities of the owners of 993 IP addresses. He did not know have a breakdown on the number of requests by category such as music of videos, but said he wasn’t aware of any others involving adult videos.
Sigurdson said the university is awaiting a judge’s decision on the motion to quash.
The motion to quash filed by Terre Haute attorney Raymond Modesitt contends that an IP address is “”not a fingerprint or DNA evidence.” It argues that in a similar case, U.S. District Judge Harold Banker of Illinois wrote that there may or may not be a correlation between an individual subscriber, an IP address and “the infringing activity.”
Baker cited a news story about federal agents raiding a home that was linked to child pornography, seizing the desktop computer, cellphones and tablet computers of the homeowner and his wife, but found no one at the home had downloaded the illegal material. Agents later traced the downloads to a neighbor who used multiple subscribers’ Wi-Fi connections.
The motion contends DOE No. 26 lived in a dorm surrounded by a roommate and other college students. “Every passer-by with even a modicum of technological skill had ample opportunity to use DOE No. 26’s IP address for their own purposes without detection,” the motion states.
Siegel declined comment, saying he doesn’t comment on pending litigation. A message seeking comment was left for Modesitt at his office.