In re Subpoena to Reddit, Inc. (Grande piracy commenters)
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco Division)
- Court
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco Division)
- Docket
- No. 3:23-mc-80173-LB
- Parties
- Movants: roughly twenty motion-picture producers (styled After II Movie, LLC, et al.), plaintiffs in the underlying suit against Grande. Non-party respondent: Reddit, Inc.
- Claim type
- ip-scraping
- Filed
- 2023
- Outcome
- Motion to compel denied and subpoena quashed; Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler held the First Amendment barred the discovery, finding the producers failed to demonstrate a compelling need outweighing the Reddit users' right to anonymous speech (2023 WL 4849434).
Summary
Movie producers who allege ISP Grande Communications is liable for its subscribers' copyright infringement served Reddit on April 24, 2023 with a subpoena for identifying information on six Reddit accounts whose comments they said were relevant evidence, and moved to compel after Reddit objected. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler again applied the First Amendment standard for unmasking anonymous speakers and, on July 29, 2023, denied the motion and quashed the subpoena. As in the earlier RCN matter, the court concluded the producers had not shown a compelling need that outweighed the users' right to speak anonymously online. The ruling is reported at 2023 WL 4849434.