Watchtower (Jehovah's Witnesses) DMCA Subpoena to Unmask a Reddit Critic Is Quashed

In early 2019 the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the corporate publishing arm of the Jehovah's Witnesses, obtained a subpoena under Section 512(h) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act directing Reddit to disclose information identifying an anonymous user, who used the pseudonym 'Darkspilver.' The user was an active participant in r/exjw, a community for ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, and had posted material including an image of a Watch Tower donation advertisement and a reformatted chart concerning the organization's data collection. Watch Tower said the posts infringed its copyrights; Darkspilver, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued the posts were lawful fair use and that the subpoena was effectively a pretext to unmask a critic.

The matter was litigated as 'In re DMCA Subpoena to Reddit, Inc.,' No. 19-mc-80005-SK, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and is reported at 441 F.Supp.3d 875 (N.D. Cal. 2020). The procedural path was not a straight line: a magistrate judge initially declined to fully quash the subpoena, instead ordering the identifying information produced on an attorneys'-eyes-only basis. On review, the District Court reversed course and granted the motion to quash on March 2, 2020.

The court's core holding was that Darkspilver's postings were non-infringing fair use of the copyrighted works. Because there was no viable claim of infringement, there was no valid DMCA basis on which to compel disclosure of the user's identity. The court also weighed Darkspilver's First Amendment interest in anonymous speech, an interest sharpened by his stated fear that identification could lead to shunning or being disfellowshipped by the Jehovah's Witness community.

Reddit joined the user's motion rather than complying with the subpoena, and EFF litigated the quash on Darkspilver's behalf. The outcome was widely reported as a win for anonymous online speakers facing identity-disclosure demands framed as copyright enforcement.

The ruling is frequently cited for the proposition that copyright process cannot be used as a shortcut around the protections for fair use and anonymous expression. It stands as an early, favorable precedent for Reddit users who find a religious organization, employer, or other adversary attempting to convert a 512(h) subpoena into a tool for unmasking criticism.