Grooveshark Tries To Force Digital Music News To Unveil Commenter, Ignoring First Amendment
from the unfortunate dept
We've covered parts of the various lawsuits against Grooveshark by the recording industry. I have no idea how those lawsuits are going to turn out, but a bit of a sideshow in one is touching on issues that are extremely important around here: the right to protect anonymous commenters, and shield laws protecting journalistic sources. Last fall, in the latest effort by Universal Music against Grooveshark, the company quoted an anonymous comment from a blog post on the popular music industry blog, Digital Music News. The comment claimed to be from an employee at Grooveshark, and reads (in part):I work for Grooveshark. Here is some information from the trenches:To be honest, when I saw the original filing mentioning this comment, I was pretty surprised that Universal would use it in the lawsuit. After all, it's an anonymous comment on a blog. It's pure hearsay, without any actual evidence that the commenter actually works at Grooveshark. It's completely useless as evidence.
We are assigned a predetermined ammount of weekly uploads to the system and get a small extra bonus if we manage to go above that (not easy).The assignments are assumed as direct orders from the top to the bottom, we don't just volunteer to "enhance" the Grooveshark database.
All search results are monitored and when something is tagged as "not available", it get's queued up to our lists for upload. You have to visualize the database in two general sections: "known" stuff and "undiscovered/indie/underground". The "known" stuff is taken care internally by uploads. Only for the "undiscovered" stuff are the users involved as explained in some posts above. Practically speaking, there is not much need for users to upload a major label album since we already take care of this on a daily basis.
Of course, you might think that Universal Music would then issue a subpoena to discover who the commenter was. But... instead Grooveshark issued a subpoena (pdf and embedded below) seeking to identify the commenter. This is also strange. If UMG was able to identify the individual, then Grooveshark would find out that info. But if (as appears to be the case so far) UMG does nothing, the claims by this individual are useless in the lawsuit anyway.
Either way, Paul Resnikoff from Digital Music News worried about the subpoena, as DMN has a policy of not revealing its anonymous commenters (and often using them as sources). So, he decided to push back, noting a few key points. Public Citizen's Paul Levy recently agreed to represent Resnikoff in this matter and sent a letter to Grooveshark's parent company (embedded below) detailing why Grooveshark should stop barking up this particular tree. Beyond the First Amendment issues, the right of a journalist to protect sources, and the uselessness of the original comment in the first place, there's also the simple fact that DMN doesn't retain comment logs for very long, and has no useful information in response to the subpoena anyway.
That letter also highlights that Grooveshark is also interested in a much more recent comment on a blog post about Grooveshark's subpoena, in which a commenter (in a rather difficult to read manner) spins another conspiracy theory, suggesting that the original comment was a setup against Grooveshark by supporters of the lawsuit. To be honest, this comment seems about as credible as the original comment that kicked this off.
Whatever you might think of the Grooveshark lawsuit, this action by Grooveshark's lawyers seems like a mistake and overkill. Not only is it unlikely to turn up anything useful, going on a fishing expedition against anonymous commenters on a blog opens up a huge host of problems around First Amendment issues, which it appears Grooveshark either failed to consider, or doesn't much care about. That seems like a mistake.
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Filed Under: anonymous comments, digital music news, subpoena
Companies: grooveshark, universal music
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Re: Oh really?
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Burma!
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https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity
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Please consider accepting everything we say in the future. Otherwise, we won't be able to afford gold leaf toilet paper next year. :(
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Skinning cats
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While one does need to tread lightly around the first amendment, being able to abuse the protections to create fanciful lawsuits to gain better terms with Grooveshark (give us what we want or we bankrupt you in court) is wrong.
It is a fine line to be sure, but with UMG using it to support their position it seems like an attempt to sink the case before it gains any more traction.
As we can see from the MegaUpload case, you have tons of people claiming they had to have been involved in the Limburgh baby kidnapping before the adversarial process begins. UMG has an endless well of cash to just try and crush companies they don't like, that might only be guilty of UMG not liking them.
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I will wait, while you figure out how to spin this to your side, oh in case you dont know it
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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"Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society." -- US Supreme Court
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Insane speech is protected.
Insincere speech is protected.
Ridiculous speech is protected.
Dishonest speech is protected.
Hurtful speech is protected.
Slurred speech is protected.
Explanitory speech is protected.
Anonymous speech is protected.
See the common thread running though all of those? I can write a million more of them if you still don't get it (which I doubt you will because you morally bankrupt and willfully obtuse).
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This brings us into the realms of Defamation and the actual Anonymous comment is AFAIK on its face defamatory per se since it is written in such a way to remove hyperbole and opinion and is stated as known fact by an alleged insider.
For Grooveshark not to go after who this is would be worrying, they have done exactly the right thing to protect their interests and business reputation.
Shield laws would not come into this since DMN have not used it as part of any reporting until now. And Shield laws only protect the reporter, they don't protect commentators anonymous or otherwise from responsibility.
There are First Amendment problems (and others) I would suspect with the second comment which should be a separate issue only after the retrieval of identifiers from first comment has been given.
DMN are not liable here at all, though the original writer of the comment specifically is.
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This brings us into the realms of Defamation and the actual Anonymous comment is AFAIK on its face defamatory per se since it is written in such a way to remove hyperbole and opinion and is stated as known fact by an alleged insider.
Then they should file a defamation lawsuit first. They haven't.
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Well unless it is true, and they are trying to find someone to punish. Personally I think UMG is being highly unethical here and should be sanctioned for it, The lawyers that is.
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Grooveshark.com
(Notice, I am not one of those Britons that pathetically copies 'American-speak' from TV/Social Networks/etc, so did not greet my American cousins with 'Hi,guys!')
Ok.
Grooveshark.com: Currently have profile pages and streamable music (sic) by convicted paedophiles Gary Glitter, Jonathan King and Rolf Harris.
Why is this?
Have Grooveshark.com no scruples/humanity/regard for innocent children, worldwide/or what??!
Thank you.
Yours sincerely -
Rik.
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