A U.S. federal appeals court has dealt the RIAA a long awaited kick to the groin in its pursuit of file swappers, saying the music label lobby group can no longer force Internet providers to turn over their customers names.
The Friday ruling from a three-judge panel hearing the case for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia is likely to slow down the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) hunt for file swappers. The judges have blocked the pigopolist mob from being able to subpoena users' names from ISPs. This decision overturns a district court ruling earlier this year that ordered Verizon to give up the goods on its customers.
The Friday ruling from a three-judge panel hearing the case for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia is likely to slow down the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) hunt for file swappers. The judges have blocked the pigopolist mob from being able to subpoena users' names from ISPs. This decision overturns a district court ruling earlier this year that ordered Verizon to give up the goods on its customers.
What does all this mean if you upload and download songs from a peer-to-peer service such as Kazaa or Gnutella (LimeWire, BearShare)? It means that uploading or downloading a song is still probably illegal, but it will be much harder for the RIAA to sue you. Should you go ahead and resume uploading and downloading without a care in the world? Probably not. For one thing, the ruling may be overturned by another court, and furthermore, the RIAA may still choose to sue you using whatever the new procedure is following this ruling. Please understand, the RIAA can determine the IP address of people who allow uploads. That means, the address of your computer. What they choose to do with this information following this ruling is not known.
Read the decision by the U. S. Court of Appeals here.
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