smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Harris, Will" <wharris1@bcharrispub.com> |
| Subject | RIAA Suffers a Setback in Piracy Battle |
| Date | Tue, 12 Aug 2003 10:14:03 -0400 |
[Part 1 text/plain iso-8859-1 (3.7 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
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
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.