The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down a lower court’s ruling requiring Internet providers to comply with copyright subpoenas served on behalf of the recording industry. As a result, the Recording Industry Association of America’s anti-piracy campaign waged against individuals downloading music now faces a major setback. Privacy advocates hail the decision as a blow against the RIAA’s controversial solution to stem piracy. Although the court’s decision does not legalize the downloading of copyrighted music, it is now much more difficult and expensive for industry sleuths to track down “egregious” file-swappers, which the RIAA subsequently targets with lawsuits.
The heart of the matter is a 1998 law passed well before the explosive growth of peer to peer networks. According to the justices, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) cannot directly police the activities of such networks. In its ruling, the court wrote that the DCMA, “betrays no awareness whatsoever that Internet users might be able directly to exchange files containing copyrighted works.” The RIAA made headlines this past autumn, filing lawsuits against 261 individuals for copyright infringement, including a 12-year-old girl from New York.
The association has threatened thousands more with possible legal action. In response to widespread criticism over its tactics, the RIAA instituted a “clean state” program intended to offer amnesty to file-sharers who come clean and sign a declaration saying that they will never do it again. The idea of softening its behavior by establishing an amnesty initiative has not silenced the RIAA’s ideological adversaries. Wendy Seltzer, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told BetaNews that the Appeals Court ruling, “stops the most abusive tactic, blanketing ISPs with subpoenas demanding “expeditious” disclosure of user identities. It does not prevent copyright holders from enforcing their rights through John Doe lawsuits.” A John Doe lawsuit requires judicial oversight prior to obtaining a defendant’s identity.
http://www.betanews.com/article.php3?sid=1072045395
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