Watchtower (Jehovah's Witnesses) DMCA Subpoena to Unmask a Reddit Critic Is Quashed
2019–2020
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society used a DMCA Section 512(h) subpoena to try to unmask an anonymous r/exjw critic; a federal court quashed it on First Amendment grounds in March 2020.
What happened
In early 2019 the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 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 had posted material the organization said infringed its copyrights. The user, an active participant in communities critical of the religion, moved to quash with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, arguing the posts were lawful fair use (and that much of the material was not copyrightable) and that the subpoena was a pretext to unmask a critic.
On March 2, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted the motion to quash. The court applied the heightened First Amendment standard for unmasking anonymous speakers and concluded the Watchtower had not met it. The case is documented as 'In re DMCA Section 512(h) Subpoena to Reddit, Inc.'
The ruling is frequently cited for the proposition that copyright process cannot be used as a shortcut around the constitutional protection for anonymous speech. It established an early, favorable precedent for Reddit users facing identity-disclosure demands dressed up as copyright enforcement.
Impact
Reinforced that anonymous Reddit users targeted by DMCA 512(h) subpoenas are entitled to the heightened First Amendment unmasking standard, and that fair-use or non-copyrightable speech cannot be unmasked on a bare infringement assertion.