Another failure for Big Music
p2pnet.net News:- Big Music’s attempts to lump 25 people it’s accusing of copyright infringement into one lawsuit would have meant “unreasonable prejudice and expense to the Defendants” and caused “great inconvenience” to the court.
That was the conclusion of the Federal District Court in the Middle District which was hearing a motion by 16 record companies to force Florida’s Bright House ISP to hand over the identities of the alleged copyright breakers.
The labels had improperly joined 25 people who had nothing in common other than their ISP, said the decision.
“Courts are beginning to recognize that the record companies crusade against filesharers is stepping on the privacy and due process rights of those accused,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation legal director Cindy Cohn.
“These decisions are simply requiring the record companies to follow the rules that everyone else has to follow when bringing litigation.”
Yesterday, Canadian Justice Konrad von Finckenstein rejected a similar request on several grounds, including that “merely” making available files on a filesharing network didn’t violate Canadian copyright laws and that the privacy of Net users outweighed the strength of the record companies’ case.
