Porn, Privacy, and BitTorrent: the case of a legally blind man accused of illegally downloading adult flicks

The Seattle Weekly explores the case of one of many "John Does" who have been sued on the behalf of porn producers because their I.P. addresses appear to out them as having downloaded and shared copyrighted smut on BitTorrent.

This line really says it all: "Armed with a list of IP addresses and draconian copyright laws, lawyers for the scorned studios are treating a broad swath of the Internet-browsing public like their own personal ATM." Or, maybe this one does: "As long as it remains difficult for people to access the most popular types of content from their home computer, illegal downloading will continue unabated."

The entire piece is a great read, and an important piece of journalism on a subject that's hard to get people to really care about. This one plaintiff's story is just so outrageous.

Snip:

The bad news arrived in John Doe 2,057's mailbox in May. His wife unsealed a thick envelope from Comcast and read a carefully worded message explaining that a company called Imperial Enterprises, Inc. had filed a lawsuit against him in Washington, D.C., federal court. He stood accused of having illegally downloaded a copyrighted film five months earlier, at precisely 6:03 a.m. on the morning of January 27. The name of the Imperial Enterprises movie he purportedly purloined wasn't mentioned until four pages later. Though printed in tiny italic font in a court filing, it practically leapt off the page: Tokyo Cougar Creampies.

Yet when Mrs. Doe set eyes on that ignominious title, she couldn't help but crack a smile at the absurdity of the situation. Her husband is legally blind, with vision roughly 1/100th of that of a person with normal sight. He is physically incapable of watching any film, this particular porno included.

"To be honest, it's a little ridiculous," Doe 2,057 says with a rueful chuckle. "My movie-watching ability is nonexistent. My kids watch movies, but they are 4 and 6, so they don't watch porn either. Well, hopefully they don't."

Read the whole story here.

(illustration for Seattle Weekly by Chris Whetzel)