Under the now functional “six-strikes” regime, the largest Internet service providers in the United States have to hold databases with allegations of copyright violations. That information is supposed to be private, but now one of the US copyright trolls is trying to obtain information from Comcast in a bid to launch a lawsuit against an alleged porn pirate.


The controversial Copyright Alert System will be enforced for 15 months in the nearest future. The system will see the major labels and movie studios sending notices of infringement to Internet service providers who forward them to their subscribers. The issue is that records of such notices are collected in a database that copyright holders may then use in legal action if required.

As a result, any information contained in the database is at risk of being accessed by a 3rd party if they manage to convince a judge they really need it. This is what one of the largest copyright trolls in the country is now trying to do: Malibu Media is a filer of tons of lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers.

In a case lasting since February 2013, Malibu Media accused Kelley Tashiro, a middle-aged female nurse from Indianapolis, of copyright infringement. Now the company has turned to Tashiro’s broadband provider, Comcast, to see what information the ISP holds on her.

Malibu Media is trying to find out whether or not the Tashiro’s IP address has ever been subject to infringement allegations by other rights owners. Aside from the details of any DMCA notices forwarded, the company has also asked a judge to order the release of information being held as part of the Copyright Alerts System.

Moreover, the copyright troll also requires details of Tashiro’s bandwidth consumption, as if that could prove that she is an infringer. Malibu Media explains that bandwidth usage is relevant because heavy BitTorrent users normally use significantly more bandwidth than legitimate Internet users.

Finally, the company points out to the court that without this data from the Internet service provider, Malibu Media has no chance of winning the case – this can be regarded as just another indication of how flimsy IP address-only evidence has become. It is unclear whether Comcast will comply or not. The industry observers point out that a similar case a year ago which requested data from another ISP, Verizon, was subsequently dropped.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.