RIAA loses Verizon. Again.
p2pnet.net News:- The entertainment industry is having a bad time of it.
The Supreme Court has just told the RIAA and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to try congress if they want the Grokster / Morpheus decision changed, and it’s now denied a demand from the RIAA which tried to use the DMCA to force ISPs to reveal the identities of customers it (the RIAA) doesn’t like the look of.
The decision makes it clear the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), "doesn’t give the RIAA a blank fishing license to issue subpoenas and invade Internet users’ privacy," says EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) staff attorney Wendy Seltzer.
The EFF and ISPs filed friend-of-the court briefs in the now famous Verizon case, a major defeat for the RIAA in its sue ‘em all campaign.
Owned by the Big Four record label cartel, the RIAA tried to use the dodgy DMCA subpoena provision to compel Verizon Internet Services to reveal the identity of a subscriber who’d allegedly shared copyrighted music online.
Verizon told the RIAA to poke it, saying the provision didn’t cover alleged copyright-infringing material residing an individual’s computer, only material that resides on an ISP’s server.
The original ruling removed the threat of a, "radical, new subpoena process that empowers copyright holders or anyone merely claiming to be a copyright holder to obtain personal information about Internet users by simply filing a one-page form with a court clerk," said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vp and associate general counsel, at the time.
Now, "The Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case leaves the D.C. Circuit’s well-reasoned opinion as law," says the EFF.
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See:-
decision changed – Supreme court to Hollywood, p2pnet, October 12, 2004
court clerk – RIAA loses Verizon case, p2pnet, December 19, 2004
