Judge Deals Blow to RIAA

jcgam69 writes "A federal judge in New Mexico has put the brakes on the RIAA's lawsuit train, at least in the US District Court for New Mexico. The case in question is part of the RIAA's campaign against file-sharing on college campuses and names "Does 1-16," who allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using the University of New Mexico's network. In a ruling issued last month but disclosed today by file-sharing attorney Ray Beckerman, Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia denied the RIAA's motion to engage in discovery. This means that the RIAA will not be able to easily get subpoenas to obtain identifying information from the University."

Comments

Costs Us more than ISPs when their users get bit.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

So did the Judge get busted for selling cocaine to the RIAA, or did the RIAA get busted for buying it?

Unlike ISPs, which have either knuckled under or put up a very weak defense of their users, the university-as-ISP decided to put some effort into defending its students' interests against the RIAA.

For-profit ISPs have little to lose (beyond their own inconvenience) in handing over logs, and each customer represents a very small revenue stream. Bean counters might decide that failing to defend them costs the ISP little, while defending them costs more than they can ever recoup from that customer's fees.

Universities have a lot invested in each student and receive a lot from each in the form of tutition and various grant monies, along with other rewards from their success. And they have a lot to lose in other intangibles (such as security of their papers, reputation when recruiting students, staff, and faculty, etc.) So letting students swing in the wind is not just a bad idea academic-freedom wise, it's bad financially as well. (Doubly so if the RIAA's target is a faculty member, staffer, or administrator. Letting one of those get hit, or even distracted, by an RIAA suit comes right out of the University's "intellectual capital".)

Re:Or, everyone could stop breaking the law too. .

[russotto]

However, despite this you blast RIAA anytime it tries a new way of getting at the information it needs to proceed with its mission of preventing file sharing.

Perhaps we object to its mission. Or perhaps just its tactics. Either way, the objection needs to be evaluated on its own regardless of the tactics of file sharers.

I don't agree with all their tactics, but if a file sharer has the right to get creative and try things, why shouldn't they?

Oh, if they want to play in the technical arena, they have every right to be creative. They'll lose, of course -- which is why they don't want to play in that court exclusively anymore. When they start playing in the LEGAL arena, their "creativity" is something else entirely -- it's promotion and institutionalization of injustice.

Trying to constantly one-up 'the man' by cracking all encryption, circumventing logs, etc., in the pursuit of acquiring that which you didn't pay for is wrong and to persist in this will one day result in some very draconion or strange move on the industry's part that will really make it hard for everyone.

Like most RIAA apologists, you've got the order backwards. The Draconian and strange moves on the industry's part which really make it hard for everyone -- Serial Copy Management System (which killed DAT) and the DMCA -- came BEFORE Napster. Ante hoc ergo non propter hoc.

The argument that DRM treats the consumer like a criminal is true and I agree. But if you keep behaving in a criminal way. . .

As long as the RIAA (and MPAA) have the power to make things crimes -- and they do, no question about it -- their complaining about criminal behavior is simply a demand for obedience.