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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Jocelyn Geboy <smussyolay@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: RIAA Suffers a Setback in Piracy Battle |
| Date | Thu, 14 Aug 2003 07:20:49 -0700 (PDT) |
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~~too bad loyola ( and depaul? ) here in chicago
totally caved. moral convictions?
jocelyn
--- "Harris, Will" <wharris1@bcharrispub.com> wrote:
> RIAA Suffers a Setback in Piracy Battle
> Mon Aug 11, 9:00 AM ET
>
> Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service
>
> The U.S. recording industry received a setback in
> its nationwide campaign to
> quash music piracy on the Internet Friday when a
> federal judge ruled that
> two universities did not have to comply with
> subpoenas requesting that they
> hand over the identities of students who could be
> illegally sharing music
> online.
>
> Both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news
> - web sites) and Boston
> College won their requests to reject subpoenas
> issued by the Recording
> Industry Association of America (news - web sites)
> over jurisdictional
> issues, according the Electronic Frontier
> Foundation.
>
> The universities argued that the subpoenas, which
> were filed in Washington
> D.C., did not apply to them in Massachusetts.
>
> Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Joseph
> Tauro's ruling in the
> universities' favor could prove an obstacle for the
> RIAA's piracy offensive,
> given that the group has reportedly filed some 2,000
> subpoenas through the
> Washington D.C. court, according to the EFF.
>
> The ruling could mean that the group will have to
> file subpoenas in courts
> across the country where it believes infringement is
> occurring, a much
> longer and more complicated process, the EFF said.
>
> EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer cheered the
> decision Friday, saying in a
> release that the ruling "confirms that due process
> applies to Internet user
> privacy nationwide." The EFF has been battling the
> RIAA campaign, saying
> that the group's efforts compromise the privacy of
> individual users.
>
> The San Francisco-based privacy group isn't alone in
> its rejection of the
> RIAA's latest campaign. Pacific Bell Internet
> Services, a subsidiary of SBC
> Communications, has filed a suit in California
> alleging that the RIAA's
> subpoenas are a threat to subscribers' privacy and a
> burden on ISPs.
>
> What's more, Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) has
> also publicly spoken out
> against the group, calling the subpoenas a "shotgun"
> approach to piracy.
>
> The RIAA's spraying of administrative subpoenas is
> just the latest strategy
> in a battle against Internet piracy that stems from
> the early days of
> Napster (news - web sites). And while the group's
> efforts to go after
> individual users have sparked some controversy and
> backlash, its campaign
> against piracy on the legal front has been mostly
> successful.
>
> The group managed to knock Napster offline last year
> and has since won
> rulings in cases against Madster--formerly called
> Aimster--and other
> peer-to-peer file trading networks.
>
> Having had success in cases against p-to-p networks,
> the industry has now
> focused on going after individual users with the aid
> of ISPs. Although
> Friday's ruling could slow down the subpoena
> process, that does not mean
> that ISPs won't eventually be ordered to comply.
>
> Verizon Internet Services, for instance, lost its
> bid in June to protect the
> names of customers accused of illegal file trading.
>
> The recording industry is using as its defense part
> of the 1998 U.S. Digital
> Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), which
> allows copyright holders
> to subpoena ISPs for the names of people they
> believe are using their
> copyrighted material without permission.
>
> The EFF is campaigning for ISPs to notify users when
> their information is
> being sought. The group has also created an online
> database where users can
> check to see if their identifies have been
> subpoenaed by the RIAA. The
> database is at EFF.org.
>
> The RIAA was not immediately available Monday
> morning to comment on the
> ruling.
>
> Regards,
> WiLL
> WiLLiAm E. HaRRiS
> Call Scripting Analyst
> > * Bernard C. Harris Publishing Company
> 4000 Crossways Blvd.
> Chesapeake, VA 23322
> Ph. 1-757-965-8055
> <mailto:wharris1@bcharrispub.com>
>
> "Hello, I must be going." --- Groucho Marx
>
>
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