Porn Company Hunts for Illegal Downloaders of 'My Little Panties #2'

​As the tech and media industries slug it out over laws governing copyrighted material online, one original content producer has won a small victory in its effort to staunch intellectual-property theft. The California-based porn-video producer Digital Sin [NSFW] has won the right to obtain personal information about close to 200 people it says are illegally downloading one of its titles, My Little Panties #2 [NSFW].

While U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan expressed "serious reservations" about the risk of falsely implicating innocent people, Courthouse News reported, she ordered that the names and addresses attached to 176 IP addresses associated with illegal downloads of the porn film to be turned over to the court under seal. After a 60-day period for the implicated parties to fight the release of their information, it can be made available to Digital Sin.

In her ruling, Nathan, who is based in New York City -- where the IP addresses identified for Digital Sin by Copyright Enforcement Group are located -- said the risk of false positives is "not purely speculative."

She wrote, "plaintiff's counsel estimated that 30 percent of the names turned over by ISPs are not those of individuals who actually downloaded or shared copyrighted material. Counsel stated that the true offender is often the 'teen-aged son ... or the boyfriend if it's a lady.' Alternatively, the perpetrator might turn out to be a neighbor in an apartment building that uses shared IP addresses or a dormitory that uses shared wireless networks."

Boyfriends illegally downloading porn on their "lady friends'" computers? Now we'd like to hear what those guys have to say on the stand.

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