RIAA Plans New Lawsuits Soon

Undaunted by a court decision making it more difficult to file lawsuits against Internet users suspected of illegally downloading songs, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is vowing to file more lawsuits “in the near future.” Although the RIAA will have to go to greater and more expensive lengths to target suspected violators, an association spokesman said Monday that the RIAA will go ahead with new lawsuits. What it can’t do in the wake of a decision by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is force internet service providers — like Verizon — to reveal the identity of any of its subscribers the RIAA is suspicious of. While the Court was sympathetic to the RIAA’s attempts to protect its members — recording artists and companies primarily — it ruled that attempts by the RIAA to subpoena records from Verizon was an unlawful invasion of privacy. In its ruling, the Court seemed to invite RIAA to go back to Congress and seek a revision of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which the RIAA used to hit more than 300 consumers with subpoenas to investigate alleged file swapping. The DMCA was approved by Congress before online file-swapping of music was contemplated.

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