The EFF Letter: Sony’s subpoenas “impact the free speech interests of myriad third parties”

“Wired’s David Kravetz has published the EFF letter [PDF] it
sent to the judge in SCEA v. Hotz, and I have it for you as
text.

“George Hotz’s lawyers agreed to the subpoenas issuing, so long
as the information gleaned is kept attorneys’ eyes only, according
to the letter [PDF] Sony sent the Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero,
and the judge merely signed off on it. I don’t see Hotz’s lawyer
signing the letter too, which I’d normally expect. Why he’d agree
to such a broad reach is disturbing. EFF noticed, telling the judge
that the subpoenas implicate free speech interests of third parties
not involved in the litigation, but nobody else seems to care. EFF
is most concerned about the subpoena to YouTube, but the one I find
overbroad is the subpoena to the company that hosts his web site,
as I’ll show you. No one else is looking out for the third parties
in this picture, so if I were one of the third parties and I knew
it, I’d be on the phone to my lawyer or EFF super pronto, asking
him if I could block.

“Let me show you what I mean about overbroad, looking at just
one piece of what Sony demands that Hotz’s web host supply:

“3. Documents reproducing all records of IP addresses that have
accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and
associated with the www.geohot.com website, including but not
limited to the “geohot.com/jailbreak.zip” file, from January 1,
2009 to the present,”

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