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Music industry piracy subpoenas illegal
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| Fir3start3r |
Not sure if anyone came across this or not...
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court in Washington told the record industry Friday it could no longer issue subpoenas to track down and sue alleged file swappers.
Overturning a series of decisions in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America, the court said copyright law did not allow the organization to use subpoenas for the identity of file swappers on Internet service providers' networks, CNET News.com reported.
"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.
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| Muff2K |
too much legal jargon. what does it all mean in engrish??
they can't sue fliswappers? |
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| DJ_Science |
| For now, at least until the re-write the copyright laws to prevent it. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Muff2K
too much legal jargon. what does it all mean in engrish??
they can't sue fliswappers? |
No, that's not technically correct.
What they made illegal was the subpoena - i.e. the legal process which the RIAA has been using to force internet providers to reveal the names of their users. There's been pretty intense lobbying from a massive coalition of providers to stop this, because it is very disruptive to their normal operation. And the courts decided that it was not their responsibility to deal with the file swapping - obtaining subscriber info from ISPs for suspected music piracy was NOT written into the Digital Millenium Copyright Act - that Act was designed to combat isolated incidences of serious online criminal activity.
The RIAA could still sue you, if they had your personal info - they just can no longer obtain that personal info from your service provider when you're on KaZaA. The courts say that it is not the responsibility of your ISP, because the files are not on their servers.
I'm very happy with this result - aside from my usual sentiments that the RIAA are greedy pigs using the suing as a last-ditch effort, the subpoenas in particular were a total abuse of the legal system and a detriment to the ISPs, not to mention a complete invasion of privacy.
Realistically though, it's more of a shot in the foot for the RIAA than a stake through the heart. |
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