Ray Beckerman of Recording Industry vs. The People put together an article that explains how the RIAA’s militant enforcement arm legal team find, obtain records on and sue ISP account holders who may or may not have ever been users of P2P applications. It’s a great reference, but (no offense intended to Ray) it’s dry like a bread-sandwitch.
I decided to take a stab at rewriting it in something closer to English than lawyer. In hopes that it would be more accessible.
So, with thanks to Ray Beckerman, let’s take a look at The RIAA vs. John Doe, in what I hope serves as a layperson’s guide to filesharing lawsuits.
The RIAA lawsuits pit a very few, very large record labels (sometimes referred to as “The Big Four”) against average people who are customers of an Internet Service Provider. These average people are also mothers, grandmothers, dialysis patients and university students. In some cases they’re even deceased. In one very highly publicized case, the person was actually not-very average at all; they didn’t even own a computer.
Yes so did I. may sticky in forum as well for people to be aware of so that can better protect themselves ro perhaps even also finally being convinced to switch from KAZAA!
That’s a really good article. I bookmarked it for future linking.