The Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Back Abusing Copyright Law To Unmask Their Critics. Again.
from the dmca-surveillance dept
EFF announced last week that it has stepped in to defend yet another anonymous Jehovah’s Witness critic from having their identity exposed through bogus copyright claims. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society — the organizational arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses — has sent DMCA subpoenas to both Google and Cloudflare seeking information to unmask the anonymous operator of a website called JWS Library. If you’re getting a sense of déjà vu here, that’s because we’ve written about Watch Tower doing this exact thing more than once before, and they keep coming back to the same playbook.
EFF’s client, identified as J. Doe, is a current member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who got curious about the history of the organization’s public statements and how they’ve changed over time. So Doe did something pretty straightforwardly useful. As EFF explains:
They created research tools to analyze those documents and ultimately created a website, JWS Library, allowing others to use those tools and verify their findings through an archive that included documents suppressed by the church. Doe and others discovered prophecies that failed to come true, erasure of a leader’s disgrace, increased calls for obedience and donations, and other insights about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practices. Doe also used machine translation on a foreign-language document to help the community understand what the church was saying to different audiences and also to help understand potential changes in the organization’s attitudes towards dissent.
That’s about as clearly transformative and non-commercial as fair use gets — it’s for research and commentary, after all. But Watch Tower doesn’t care about whether the copyright claim is actually viable. It cares about finding out who Doe is. And everyone involved knows exactly why. Again EFF’s Kit Walsh explains:
Within the church, dissent or even asking questions has often been punished by labeling members as apostates and ostracizing—or “disfellowshipping”— them. As a result, Doe and others choose to speak anonymously to avoid retaliation that could cost them family, friend, and professional relationships.
Watch Tower knows all of this, of course. That’s precisely the point. They’re not sending DMCA subpoenas to Google and Cloudflare because they have a genuine interest in protecting their copyrights — they’re using the subpoena process as a surveillance tool with a built-in punishment mechanism waiting at the other end.
We know this because we’ve watched the pattern play out in extraordinary detail multiple times. When Paul Levy of Public Citizen’s Litigation Group dug into Watch Tower’s history back in 2022, he found that the organization had filed an astounding 72 copyright subpoenas since 2017. And how many of those subpoenas resulted in an actual copyright infringement lawsuit? Essentially zero. As Levy documented:
As can be seen from this list of Watch Tower copyright infringement lawsuits, Watch Tower has never used the information obtained from these subpoenas to file an infringement action. The only infringement lawsuit that Watch Tower has filed against the target of one of its DMCA subpoenas is a current case (discussed below) in which enforcement of the subpoena was denied!
So they file subpoena after subpoena claiming they need to identify alleged infringers to bring a lawsuit, and then they never bring the lawsuit. What they do with the information, as Levy uncovered, is identify critics and then initiate disfellowship proceedings against them. The copyright claim is just the crowbar they use to pry open the door.
The one time Watch Tower actually did file a lawsuit — against a critic using the pseudonym Kevin McFree — things went badly for them. Once a judge started paying close attention to what was actually going on, Watch Tower fled the case, dismissing with prejudice. Among the more remarkable moments in that case: Watch Tower’s counsel tried to claim the organization lacked “significant funds” to pursue litigation — despite Watch Tower’s publicly available tax filings showing it has more than a billion dollars in assets. The organization also tried to use the infringement lawsuit as a vehicle to investigate how McFree had obtained leaked unpublished videos — something that had nothing to do with copyright and everything to do with plugging leaks and identifying internal dissidents.
Which makes the history here so galling. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have one of the most impressive First Amendment track records of any organization in American legal history. Starting with Lovell v. City of Griffin in 1938, they brought a string of landmark cases establishing core free speech protections that benefit all of us today. They fought for the right to go door-to-door without identifying themselves, and against compelled speech. Watch Tower’s own in-house counsel, Paul Polidoro — the same lawyer who has been issuing many of these DMCA subpoenas — successfully argued before the Supreme Court for the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to speak anonymously.
And now that same organization is systematically using copyright law’s cheapest, lowest-bar procedural tool to strip anonymity from its own members who dare to ask questions. As EFF puts it:
The First Amendment does not permit the unmasking of anonymous speakers based on such weak claims. Indeed, the First Amendment protects anonymous speakers precisely because some would be deterred from speaking if they faced retribution for doing so.
Watch Tower got caught doing this in 2019. They got caught again in 2022 and ran away from court once a judge saw through the scheme. And here they are in 2026, right back at it. There’s no honest way to treat these as isolated incidents — this is a deliberate, ongoing policy of abusing copyright as a weapon against internal dissent. The DMCA subpoena process — designed to be quick and cheap — is working exactly as Watch Tower wants: a low-cost intelligence-gathering operation that most targets can’t afford to fight.
EFF is pushing back, at least. But it shouldn’t require EFF — or, as in the last case, Paul Levy and Public Citizen Litigation Group — to show up every single time before a court will acknowledge that an organization with a billion dollars in assets and a decade-long pattern of filing subpoenas it never converts into actual lawsuits is abusing the process. At some point, courts should be able to connect these dots on their own.
Filed Under: copyfraud, copyright, dmca, fair use, jehovah's witnesses
Companies: eff, watch tower bible and tract society
Comments on “The Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Back Abusing Copyright Law To Unmask Their Critics. Again.”
Nothing says you’re confident your religion is right by having to vigilantly lash out at anyone who questions your dogma. If Jehovah existed and witnessed this shit, she’d probably be upset.
You’d really think they’d be more on board with the idea of people witnessing the revealed truth about what they get up to.
We’ll keep seeing this issue crop up with this particular sect until someone countersues and teaches said sect the meaning of FAFO. We could also push our political leaders to fix the DMCA so this kind of shit can’t happen without a 230-esque “hey, prove you actually need this info for a proper legal claim” hearing. Either way, this shit needs to be stopped before we get to a court willing to entertain the Watch Tower’s bullshit and give the bastards what they want.
Re:
More than this… we’re going to see the exact same playbook picked up by others for the same effect — doesn’t matter whether it’s related to religion, politics, scientific research, snake oil, or something else.
By not stopping it with THIS group, all the other con artists will receive the signal that this is the accepted way to go about silencing critics, and transformative use of information to inform and contextualize will be further degraded.
I thought their deity of choice took issue with liars.
WWJD?
What would Jesus do if he caught us violating the 11th commandment? Thou Shalt Not Violate Copyright!
The Subpoena version of Christopher L. Brady
Both Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and Brady tried to use legal intimidation tactics against users, and knowingly try to use copyright to harass them. The latter tried to abuse how the counter-notification system to obtain sensitive PII to swat the youtuber, the former tried to use scare tactics, given how coward they are when an actual lawsuit is filed. Both WTBaTS and Brady knew if they sue, they’re going to get caught by the judge for such abuse.
Re:
“The youtuber”.
Antecedent needed.
Ah yes, los testículos de Satanás.
Crap article
This article is little more than an EFF press release with Masnick’s editorial spin on top.
He calls the fair use case “clear” and the copyright claim “bogus” — but the case is currently pending. No judge has ruled. He’s presenting one side’s legal argument as settled fact.
He claims Watch Tower “never” converts subpoenas into lawsuits, then spends two paragraphs describing the McFree lawsuit. He can’t even keep his own argument consistent.
The “billion dollars in assets” line is pure rhetoric. For a global religious organization that’s overwhelmingly real estate and facilities worldwide — not cash sitting around for litigation.
Watch Tower is never once contacted for comment. Every single source is EFF or someone affiliated with EFF — an organization actively litigating against Watch Tower. That’s not journalism, that’s laundering advocacy as reporting.
And his logic is completely circular. Watch Tower files subpoenas? Bad faith. Watch Tower drops a case? Also bad faith. When every possible action confirms your predetermined conclusion, you’re not doing analysis — you’re just looking for validation.
The irony argument — that Watch Tower once defended anonymous speech so therefore this is hypocritical — sounds clever but proves nothing legally or factually. Organizations change positions. That’s not evidence of wrongdoing.
This is an opinion piece dressed up as investigative reporting. Treat it accordingly.
Re:
Hi Gladis, welcome to Techdirt. An opinion news site. Every article is an opinion. And, we stand by them.
Anyway, can you reveal your own interest in this, because it sure sounds personal?
Re:
You’re free to present the other side of the argument. The regular commenters here will pick it apart, but if the Watch Tower side of the argument can stand up to even a cursory level of scrutiny, surely it’s worth presenting truthfully and in good faith.
Yes, and how did that lawsuit turn out?
Trying to claim poverty while controlling several billion dollars’ worth of property—both buildings and very likely the land beneath those buildings—seems like a load of crap to me. The courts seem to have agreed with that assessment.
So what? Techdirt is an opinion blog, not a journalistic outlet. If’n you don’t like the opinions in the articles, you’re free to offer your own in the comments.
Ibid.
Here’s why both prove bad faith: Watch Tower only files lawsuits against anonymous critics so it can demand the subpoenas it needs to unmask those critics. As soon as the courts push back on that, Watch Tower ducks out of those lawsuits and tries to make sure it can’t be held financially liable for its cowardice. These lawsuits and the “unmask the critic plz” subpoenas they seek are all bad faith attempts to use the legal system as a means to perform an end run around the First Amendment rights of its critics.
But it does say a lot that an organization once willing to put its name and reputation on the line to defend its own anonymous speech is now willing to put its name and reputation on the line to attack anonymous speech that criticizes said organization. None of what that says is good.
I have literally said on this site that Nazis, bigots, and other such bastards deserve every right to speak their minds regardless of how I feel about their speech. (For the record: I sure as shit don’t like it.) I’ve even said that people who insult me to my face have, and should have, every right to do that even if they hurt my feelings. As a queer person, saying such things isn’t necessarily in my best interests—and yet, my belief in the right of assholes to speak without government interference persists. That’s what makes Watch Tower’s flip-flop on the issue notable: It only defended anonymous speech when such a defense served its best interests. Feel free to explain why hypocrisy that isn’t worth noting, though.
I’ll wait.
Re:
You sound like you’re a member of the criminal organization the article is about, butthurt about the sunlight being shined on you.
Re: Cognitive Dissonance
Dear Cognitive Dissonance Gladis.
You are factually incorrect dear.
So let’s break it down simply for you darling.
It’s a well known figure within the cult that I was in that the AVERAGE member donates circa $139 US dollars per annum.
Leaving out real estate in pure revenue terms
130 x 9’000’000 cult members = what?
Secondly there was a court case of a child r*pe victim where in discovery that highlighted that the liquidity of Watchotwer New York (just one corporation) had just over a billion dollars in the bank.
So please crawl back under that rock from where you came from and do some research.
Re: Thanks for the laugh person-who-is-most-certainly-NOT-a-JW-member
You don’t need to ask for commentary from a group when their actions have already said more than words could.
They fought in court for anonymity for their own members and then as soon as someone says or posts something that they don’t like they issue bogus DMCA claims to find out who that person is under the guise of ‘copyright enforcement’ that never materializes(funny that), showing that when it comes to anonymous speech they’re world-class hypocrites.
Always remember the JWS don’t believe bad things happen to good people. they state if something bad happens, God wanted it to as you deserved it.
For this reason they “don’t believe” in child rape, and want the age of consent entirely removed as “god would stop someone raping a baby IF the baby didn’t deserve it”.
They are quite literally monsters.
Do what I say, not what I do
Which makes the history here so galling. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have one of the most impressive First Amendment track records of any organization in American legal history. Starting with Lovell v. City of Griffin in 1938, they brought a string of landmark cases establishing core free speech protections that benefit all of us today. They fought for the right to go door-to-door without identifying themselves, and against compelled speech. Watch Tower’s own in-house counsel, Paul Polidoro — the same lawyer who has been issuing many of these DMCA subpoenas — successfully argued before the Supreme Court for the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to speak anonymously.
By their actions they make clear that they don’t actually support free speech and the associated anonymous speech that can be so vital to it no matter what they might argue in court, they merely believe that they should be able to speak anonymously when it comes to pushing the organization’s goals.
They WT has been contacted regarding controversial actions in the past.
Specifically in regards to the CSA epidemic which is a clearly systemic problem which has yet to be meaningfully addressed by the leadership.
Reporters have contacted the organization regarding its harmful policies. Repeatedly.
Nobody ever responded. Not the lawyers, not the PR folks, not the leadership.
Once a champion of free speech (for its members), it has now become exactly the opposite – censorship (for both current members and ex-members).