Enric Teller

“ That it allows for someone to issue a subpoena to identify a critic, which is troubling because it may tend to discourage people from posting criticism, even if that criticism does not violate any applicable law -- because their identity may be uncovered and they may be subject to either litigation or other disincentives. ”

“ Is there a problem with the DMCA law then, as far as being able to subpoena without a determination of copyright?
KURT OPSAHL
We believe that the proper thing to do is, that the court should insist that the subopoena-ing party show that they have a valid claim, before allowing the subpoena to proceed. And in this case, we believe that ultimately the court would see that there isn’t a valid claim.
But that’s an important check. You have a constitutional right to speak anonymously. ”

“ So you can have situations in which people are in the right, and are putting up constitutionally protected criticism, exercising their rights to speak anonymously, but may not have the resources to defend those rights. ”

“ And there have been many instances over the last decade or so, as the Internet has risen to prominence, in which people have attempted to identify somebody who posted a message on a message board, bulletin board, elsewhere on the Internet and they sought to find their identities. ”