The music industry is on the warpath, but not everyone is taking the
legal assault on online song sharing lying down.
One federal judge on Friday squelched the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA)
bid to target students who swap music online through their schools, and now a
trade group representing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is voicing its concerns.
A federal judge said the music industry is going too far in its attempts to
garner student names at Boston College and MIT, as part of its ongoing legal crusade to stamp out online music piracy.
U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro issued his opinion on Friday, declaring that
federal rules don’t allow subpoenas issued in Washington to be served in
Massachusetts.
The move came after lawyers for the two universities filed motions back
in July to block the subpoenas, issued by the legal staff of the RIAA.
While Judge Tauro’s ruling was a victory for the privacy of the individuals
and universities, the RIAA issued a press release saying the decision was a
“minor procedural issue.”
Students and universities aren’t the only targets of the music industry’s
wrath. The RIAA is vigorously pursuing ISPs.
The RIAA, commenting on the judge’s ruling, said it “does not change an
undeniable fact — when individuals distribute music illegally online, they
are not anonymous and service providers must reveal who they are.”
It is not entirely clear what the RIAA’s next legal step will be, but it is
possible that instead of filing the subpoenas in Washington, D.C., it may
refile them in Boston federal court.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that music companies can force
ISPs to release the names of individuals, who are suspected of pirating
music copyrights online, with a subpoena from any federal court clerk’s
office. That ruling is under appeal, but a decision on it has yet to be
rendered.
But on the heels of Friday’s federal ruling, NetCoalition, a trade group
representing more than 100 ISPs, sent a pointed letter
to the RIAA. NetCoalition Executive Director Kevin McGuiness told internetnews.com
that his group’s members are “very concerned about it.”
“When you’re a smaller ISP, you don’t have the legal department to comply
with numerous subpoenas, to conduct searches, and to provide extensive
personal details of members in compliance with a variety of different
privacy rules,” said McGuiness.
McGuiness said beyond the administrative and legal headaches, there are
questions about the information that the RIAA is providing to federal law
enforcement in its complaints, which he fears will be numerous.
“How did they get the IP addresses, that they want our ISP members to look
into, and how did they determine that there was a violation of the law?”
McGuiness asked.
McGuiness said ISP’s frequently are asked by federal law enforcement,
including officials from the FBI, to look into the Internet activities of
their subscribers from time to time, but the RIAA’s legal strategy has wider
implications.
“Most of our members are already complying with law enforcement, but the
number of subpoenas imagined by the RIAA would dwarf anything that might
occur under the terms of the USA Patriot Act,” McGuiness said.
McGuiness, in his letter to Cary Sherman of the RIAA, said “valid concerns
about downloading of copyrighted material should not be allowed to devolve
into an attack on the legitimate uses of P2P technology. File sharing is not
per se illegal, and there are countless incidents where the sharing of
information is not only permissible; it is far more economical and feasible
if done online.”
“We are concerned that the RIAA’s legal strategy — using a subpoena process
in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to obtain personal information about
subscribers of basic Internet service — may have legal and technical
consequences that exceed the stated purpose of this effort,” McGuiness wrote.
And it’s not just the smaller ISPs that McGuiness represents. The biggest
ISPs in the country are also up in arms with the RIAA’s planned subpoena
flood.
Verizon and SBC Communications
are two
huge ISPs, which have already filed court papers saying that the RIAA’s
subpoena tactics are unconstitutional, because they essentially violate the
due process rights of each of its subscribers.
Earlier this summer, the RIAA filed more than 1,000 subpoenas in U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia demanding that ISPs provide the
identities of subscribers illegally swapping copyrighted music files.
SBC’s subsidiary, Pacific Bell Internet Services, is reported to have fielded
more than 200 RIAA subpoenas, and just last month filed a lawsuit against
the RIAA. SBC argues the subpoenas have to be filed in the jurisdiction
where the person resides who has the information being sought. SBC says it
will not be complying with the RIAA subpoenas while its lawsuit is ongoing.
