Thursday, October 14, 2004

In File-Sharing Witchhunts, RIAA Is Foiled Again

Today, the Supreme Court denied a request by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to hear its appeal of a lower court decision that Internet service providers (ISPs) do not have to hand over the names of people suspected of copyright infringement. The case grows out of an incident in which the RIAA used a controversial subpoena provision under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to demand that Verizon Internet Services reveal the identity of a Verizon subscriber who allegedly used KaZaA peer-to-peer software to share copyrighted music online. Verizon refused to divulge the subscriber's identity, claiming that the provision didn't cover alleged copyright-infringing material that resides on an individual's computer, only material that resides on an ISP's server... [from EFF.org]

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