Pac Bell Internet Arm Sues Music Industry
Pac Bell's Internet Service Provider Sues Music Industry Over File-Sharer IDs
SAN FRANCISCO July 31 —
A California-based Internet service provider jumped into the contentious music-downloading fray late Wednesday, filing a lawsuit against the recording industry and questioning the constitutionality of the industry's effort to track down online music sharers.
Pacific Bell Internet Services, based in San Francisco, is seeking a declaration that the subpoenas served against it by the Recording Industry Association of America are overly broad in scope and should have been issued from a California district court, not the District of Columbia. The complaint also seeks a jury trial to have the constitutional issues addressed.
In the complaint, PBIS maintains it only acts as a "passive conduit" for the activity of its subscribers and "does not initiate or direct the transmission of those files and has no control over their content or destination."
A RIAA spokesman called the lawsuit an attempt at "procedural gamesmanship" and insisted that Internet service providers must reveal the identities of online copyright infringers.
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