RIAA College Litigations Getting A Bumpy Ride

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's juggernaut against colleges, started in February of this year, seems to be having a bumpier and bumpier ride. The normal game is to call for a subpoena, to get the name and address of the students or staff who might have used a certain IP address. The normal game seems to be getting disrupted here and there. A Virginia judge threw the RIAA's motion out the window, saying that it was not entitled to such discovery, in a case against students at the College of William & Mary. A New Mexico judge denied the application on the ground that there was no reason for it to be so secretive, in a case involving University of New Mexico students. He ultimately required the RIAA to serve a full set of all of the underlying papers, for each 'John Doe' named, and to give the students 40 days in which to review the papers with counsel, and make a motion to quash if they chose to do so. In a stunning development, the Attorney General of the State of Oregon made a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena on behalf of the University of Oregon, on grounds which are fully applicable to every case the RIAA has brought to date: the lack of scientific validity to the RIAA's "identification" evidence. The motion is pending as of this writing. Students have themselves made motions to vacate the RIAA's ex parte orders and/or quash subpoenas in over half a dozen cases. Much combat remains, but the RIAA's campaign is no longer a hot knife cutting through butter on the nation's campuses."

Comments

Excellent

[deadhammer]

I, for one, welcome our new common sense-endowed judicial overlords.

Jaws meme

[Anonymous Coward]

They're gonna need a bigger lawyer.

Let me guess...

[RandoX]

dontsuemebro?

Re:Stop enabling the RIAA

[sconeu]

RIAA Lawyer says:

You, sir, are an Evil Content Pirate(tm). You are obviously a pirate, because if you weren't, you'd be buying our wonderful Britney Spears albums, even if you don't listen to them, or like her music -- and if you don't like her music, you are obviously an Unpatriotic Unamerican Terrorist(tm).

Please stay where you are, and the FBI will by shortly to pick you up.

Re:The beginning of the end

[squidfood]

They could start by not being raging cockbags.

I had a college roommate my freshman year who (I just learned in class notes) is a "lawyer for the entertainment industry." Based on my knowledge of him, I'd say that they are incapable of not being raging cockbags.

Re:Quash

[MLease]

Well, the submitter of the article is a lawyer, not your typical ./ techie. :)

-Mike