Following a recent decision from the Sixth Circuit, anonymous bloggers and other Internet users who post third-party copyrighted material without authorization have cause for concern. They may be unable to preserve their anonymity.
In Signature Management Team, LLC v. John Doe, the majority of a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit established a new “presumption in favor of unmasking anonymous defendants when judgment has been entered for a plaintiff” in a copyright infringement case. This unmasking presumption is intended to protect the openness of judicial proceedings. Whether to unmask the defendant in such circumstances requires an examination of factors such as the plaintiff’s and public’s interest in knowing the defendant’s identity.
Continue Reading Anonymous Internet Users Beware: New Presumption in Favor of Unmasking the Losing Anonymous Defendant