MIT Releases Subpoenaed Student's Info

An anonymous reader submits: "MIT has released the name of the alleged infringer whose information was subpoenaed by the RIAA. The student's position? He was (1) not in the country at the time of the infringement, (2) he does not own a computer, and (3) he is not, and has never been, associated with the username in question (crazyface@KaZaA). MIT initially opposed the subpeona, but the RIAA refiled with the proper court."

Comments

Bound to happen

[redelm]

With the RIAAs gill-net fishing technique, they're bound to catch some innocents.

The real question is how long this sort of trawling will be allowed. The student could get the case dismissed on summary judgement, and the RIAA seriously admonished about bringing frivolous lawsuits.

Re:Twisted

[amcguinn]

And that doesn't change the fact that the RIAA isn't suing him for violating MIT's AUP.

If he's got an alibi, then he didn't infringe the plaintiff's copyright. If they say "but you must have broken the AUP!", he can say "I guess I must have, but I didn't download those files."

If MIT then want to have a go at him for breaking the AUP, that's fine, but I imagine they're not in the habit of suing their students.

scheduling files

[Gryftir]

Technically it is possible to schedule files to download while you aren't at your computer.

The MIT student could have scheduled the files to download at a certain time, though I'm not aware of a specific program that does this.

Of course it would be damn hard to prove that he did so, especially if they haven't gotten a chance to look at the computer.

You're all missing a very big point

[scosol]

The RIAA is suing people who are *sharing* files, not *downloading* files.

Get that through your head.

It's entirely conceivable that this guy left Kazaa running while going away to Romania, with all his stuff shared.
I dunno- that's kinda how the shit works when you've got a permanent connection.
To give back, you leave the stuff running even while you're not there.