Riaa Lawsuit Stratergy Illegal

[sparkyjones23]

check out the news http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5129687.html?tag=nefd_top

[sparkyjones23]

For those too lazy:-

A federal appeals court Friday handed a serious setback to the record industry's legal strategy of tracking down and suing alleged file swappers.

Overturning a series of decisions in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America, the Washington, D.C., court said copyright law did not allow the organization to issue subpoenas for the identity of file swappers on Internet service providers' networks.

"We are not unsympathetic either to the RIAA’s concern regarding the widespread infringement of its members' copyrights, or to the need for legal tools to protect those rights," the court wrote. "It is not the province of the courts, however, to rewrite (copyright law) in order to make it fit a new and unforeseen Internet architecture, no matter how damaging that development has been to the music industry."

The decision did not address the legality of the lawsuits that have already been filed against hundreds of individual computer users.

The appeals courts decision comes in response to a string of ISP challenges to the recording industry's attempts to identify file swappers in order to sue them.

Beginning early last year, the RIAA had cited provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which it said allowed the industry group to issue subpoenas for the identities of ISP subscribers allegedly infringing copyrights over peer-to-peer networks.

Verizon Communications, the first ISP to receive several such subpoenas, challenged them immediately, saying they were unconstitutional. A lower court ruled in favor of the RIAA earlier this year, setting the stage for the hundreds of lawsuits subsequently filed. SBC Communications later filed a similar lawsuit against the process, also pending in Washington, D.C.

The appeals court did not address any issues of constitutionality or privacy in its decision Friday, saying only that Congress had not drafted the DMCA to apply to peer-to-peer networks.

Verizon welcomed the court's decision.

"Today's ruling is an important victory for Internet users and all consumers," Verizon Associate General Counsel Sarah Deutsch said in a statement. "The court has knocked down a dangerous procedure that threatens Americans' traditional legal guarantees and violates their constitutional rights."

Under the decision, the RIAA still would be able to seek the identity of file swappers, but would have to file individual "John Doe" lawsuits against the anonymous individuals in order to obtain the identities.

The RIAA was not yet available for comment.

[Phoenix_1]

Saw that earlier, very happy indeed :D Good times ahead, down with the RIAA!

[morpheus 1.0]

i wish riaa would shut dow kl chat 2.6, and kill the programmer,... and then leave us alone!

[internet.news]

Originally posted by sparkyjones23@19 December 2003 - 19:41
check out the news http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5129687.html?tag=nefd_top
Yeah, who did you tell that? ;(

[Sparkle1984]

Originally posted by morpheus 1.0@19 December 2003 - 22:57
i wish riaa would shut dow kl chat 2.6, and kill the programmer,... and then leave us alone!
NOOOOO !!!

No wonder you are in Group: BANNED !! :lol: