My goodness. The RIAA and its minions are having a very bad streak all of a sudden, aren't they?
Court: RIAA lawsuit strategy illegal | CNET News.com: A federal appeals court on Friday handed a major setback to the record industry's legal tactics for tracking down and suing alleged file swappers, in a high-profile case pitting copyright law against the privacy rights of Internet users. Reversing a series of decisions in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Washington, D.C., court said copyright law did not allow the group to send out subpoenas asking Internet service providers for the identity of file swappers on their networks without a judge's consent.
Court: Kazaa Not Responsible for Swapping (FindLaw News, Friday, Dec 19, 2003): The Dutch Supreme Court rejected a case against Kazaa, the maker of the world's most popular computer file-sharing program, ruling Friday that the company cannot be held liable for the swapping of copyrighted music, movies and programs by users. The court upheld an earlier appeals court verdict rejecting a suit filed by Buma Stemra, which protects the interests of the Dutch music industry. Buma Stemra had demanded that Kazaa stop offering free downloads from its Web site, or face a daily fine of $124,000. [...] In the United States, Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks Ltd., faces a copyright lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, which also has sued individual song-swappers.
Acquittal of Norway DVD Hacker Upheld (FindLaw News, Mon Dec 22 2003): An appeals court Monday upheld the acquittal of a 20-year-old Norwegian man who posted a program on the Internet for cracking DVD security codes, a setback for anti-piracy proponents in the entertainment industry. Prosecutors appealed after Jon Lech Johansen was acquitted in January of violating Norway's data break-in laws with his DeCSS program for DVDs last year. Johansen's lawyer, Halvor Manshaus, tried unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed. The prosecution had sought a 90-day suspended jail sentence, confiscation of computer equipment and a $2,940 fine. But Judge Wenche Skjeggestad ruled that Johansen could freely copy DVDs he bought, adding he didn't violate the Nordic country's laws protecting intellectual property. "The balance between the rights of intellectual property holders and consumers has been clearly defined," Manshaus told The Associated Press. The case was widely seen as a test of Norway's computer protection laws. Prosecutors said they were considering appealing to the country's supreme court.
To be sure, the latter two cases are foreign, and have no particular bearing on what may happen in cases here. That said, it may well be that courts are seeing, now that it's been a while, how the RIAA and MPAA are abusing the powers of the administrative subpeona, and maybe thinking that there should be some limits. Not that it will slow them down too much, of course; the associations do have their staff lawyers, and if going after people using full court cases with judges will take more time, they're certainly willing to invest that time and effort.
Posted by iain at December 23, 2003 02:11 AM
