Psivage

Dec 19, 11:13 AM (ET)

By TED BRIDIS

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday rejected efforts by the recording industry to compel the nation's Internet providers to turn over names of subscribers suspected of illegally swapping music online.

The ruling from a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a dramatic setback for the industry's controversial anti-piracy campaign. It overturned the trial judge's decision to enforce a type of copyright subpoena from a law that predates the music downloading trend.

The appeals court said the 1998 law doesn't cover the popular file-sharing networks currently used by tens of millions of Americans to download songs.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act "betrays no awareness whatsoever that Internet users might be able directly to exchange files containing copyrighted works," the court wrote.

The appeals judges said they sympathized with the recording industry, noting that "stakes are large." But the judges said it was not the role of courts to rewrite the 1998 copyright law, "no matter how damaging that development has been to the music industry or threatens being to the motion picture and software industries."

The appeals ruling throws into question at least 382 civil lawsuits the recording industry filed since it announced its legal campaign nearly six months ago.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates had approved use of the subpoenas, forcing Verizon Communications Inc. to turn over names and addresses for at least four Internet subscribers. Since then, Verizon has identified dozens of its other subscribers to music industry lawyers.

The appeals court said one of the arguments by the Recording Industry Association of America "borders upon the silly," rejecting the trade group's claims that Verizon was responsible for downloaded music because such data files traverse its network.

The law, passed years before downloading music over peer-to-peer Internet services became popular, compels Internet providers to turn over the names of suspected pirates upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk's office. A judge's signature is not required. Critics contend judges ought to be more directly involved.

Verizon had argued at its trial that Internet providers should only be compelled to respond to such subpoenas when pirated music is stored on computers that providers directly control, such as a Web site, rather than on a subscriber's personal computer.

In his ruling, the trial judge wrote that Verizon's interpretation "makes little sense from a policy standpoint," and warned that it "would create a huge loophole in Congress' effort to prevent copyright infringement on the Internet."


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031219/D7VHI7400.html


I couldn't see this anywhere, please forgive if I missed it.

m0ntyblack

Woohoo, score one for the public!


MB

Sparhawk

How does this affect the 12 year old girl who's mom had to shell out 2500 bucks?

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phaedrus

It doesn't.

Giltwist

I think the RIAA really hurt itself by suing that little girl. Now it will be impossible for them to create a negative stereotype of the peopel who usually dl mp3s. Who is going to fight a war against the american youth?

Psivage

can't those who got sued argue that since RIAA retain there names through illegal means that the cases should be null and void? And are the cases pending can they be thrown out?

tdoc

Is the supreme court the next step up? any lawyers here?

Flesh

yes I believe the supreme court is next, which can obviously rule differently than this court.

By the way, the 12 year old girls mom paid jack shit, she got people to pay for her.

MSD

Sympathetic people donated several thousand dollars more than what was needed. If I remember correctly, that money is now siting in her college fund.

wry1

I'm not a lawyer (I've got ethics), but one of my good friends is a lawyer and from what he's told me this can go one of a few ways.....

First, the RIAA can appeal the 3-Judge ruling to the full court of appeals - a 12-Judge panel. Much like the Supreme Court, they can choose to hear or not hear the arguments. If the RIAA appeals it to the full court, and they opt to hear the case, then they may choose to uphold the 3-Judge panel's ruling, overturn the ruling, or modify the ruling. Oh yeah, those same 3 Judges are going to be part of the 12-Judge panel.

If the RIAA doesn't get the results they want from the full Court of Appeals (meaning they either don't get a hearing or they lose there as well), or if the RIAA wins there and Verizon chooses to appeal, then it would be put before the Supreme Court. Whether or not the Supreme Court would hear arguments on this one is a crap-shoot at best; strictly speaking, there are Constitutional issues at stake here (primarily, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure), but the Court may feel that this is something that needs to be addressed through the Legislative or Executive branches and not touch the case.

So as you can see, there's an awful lot of things that can happen from this point. What exactly will happen, well that just remains to be seen, doesn't it?

punx1325

The public has basically won through luck again, I wonder what the RIAA will try now?

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Kush

I guess the right word is 'pwnd'

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