While this concern pirate movie downloading, it relates equally to pirate downloads of music, or I suppose pirate broadcasting. But ironically in this case the pirates are protected by the First Amendment!
There’s No Copyright Exception to First Amendment Protections for Anonymous Speech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/12/theres-no-copyright-exception-first-amendment-protections-anonymous-speech
KEY EXCERPTS:
"... Today’s perfect example is a group of independent movie distributors that have repeatedly tried, and failed, to force Reddit to give up the IP addresses of several users who posted about downloading movies... are protected speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently affirmed that even “advocacy of illegal acts” is “within the First Amendment’s core.”
...There is no reason to imagine that this bedrock principle doesn’t apply just because the speech concerns copyright infringement ...Does in copyright cases carries particular risks given the long history of copyright claims being used as an excuse to take down lawful as well as infringing content online.
We’re glad to see Reddit fighting back"
Wow.
