Judge Excludes 3 "John Does" From RIAA Subpoena

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of the RIAA's 'John Doe' cases targeting Boston University students, after the University wrote to the Court saying that it could not identify three of the John Does 'to a reasonable degree of technical certainty,' Judge Nancy Gertner deemed the University's letter a 'motion to quash,' and granted it, quashing the subpoena as to those defendants. In the very brief docket entry (PDF) containing her decision, she noted that 'compliance with the subpoena as to the IP addresses represented by these Defendants would expose innocent parties to intrusive discovery.' There is an important lesson to be learned from this ruling: if the IT departments of the colleges and universities targeted by the RIAA would be honest, and explain to the Courts the problems with the identification and other technical issues, there is a good chance the subpoenas will be vacated. Certainly, there is now a judicial precedent for that principle. One commentator asks whether this holding 'represents the death knell to some, if not all, of the RIAA's efforts to use American university staff as copyright cops.'"

Comments

Re:Universities still need to police their network

[Skye16]

Isn't that what I'm did by paying the obscene "technology fee"? What ELSE is that 1224$ going toward?

Is it hookers? Hookers and blow? You can tell me the truth. I won't be half as mad if you tell me it's hookers and blow.

Re:Universities still need to police their network

[wild_quinine]

If you want to bootleg content, then pay for your own connection.

I have to disagree with your final point; in almost any University environment the students ARE paying for their connections one way or another. The terms under which they can use it, however, are usually a bit more restrictive that your standard ISP.

Re:Universities still need to police their network

[h4x354x0r]

I work at a U, and they charge the students, faculty, staff, departments, and everything else that has any money, an obscene amount of money for a network connection. Students ARE paying, and barely getting their money's worth, even when file sharing.

Re:Death Knell?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Isn't every one of these stories tagged as being the death knell for the RIAA? Don't get me wrong, I'm always glad to see the RIAA losing in these types of cases, but 'death knell for the RIAA' is getting to be 'Year for Linux on the Desktop'.

Well look at it this way. If this case stands for the principle that no John Doe information can be divulged unless the ISP can identify the "alleged infringer" to a "reasonable degree of technical certainty", and that principle is followed by other courts.... very few, if any, "alleged infringers", will ever be identified.

Re:Slashdot Article #921431008 supporting piracy

[mcgrew]

I'm still waiting for slashdot article #1 where somebody presents a decent and fair plan that both acknowledges new technologies and the possibilities that they bring AND the rights of the rightsholders to be fairly compensated and to reasonably punish/recover from wrongdoers.

Sorry bud, but it ain't gonna happen. The "rightsholders" are the labels - this is only one of many reforms that need to be made. The recording artists should own copyright; they should NOT be "works for hire".

Copyright lengths need to be brought back down to sane levels. I should NOT have to pay for a Jimi Hendrix download.

Copyrights need to be registered again. Automatic granting of copyright is madness.

Out of print works should not be covered by copyright.

it would be so very socially awkward to point out that virtually all policies slashdot have supported so far amount to in effect a regressive wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy

I don't know where you got the idea that Sony-BMI executives (who actually own the copyrights) are poor and the downloaders are wealthy.

I suggest you read Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture. The following quote is abridged:

File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different kinds into four types.

A. There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content.

B. There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it.

C. There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the transaction costs off the Net are too high. For content not sold, this is still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is zero--the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s 45-rpm records to a local collector.

D. Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.

Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful type A sharing is.

While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a good example.

The fact is, the labels are on the wrong side of history. Independant (non-RIAA) artists have learned to use the internet to their advantage. The RIAA wants to use copyright law to kill the independant competetion, who use Lessig's "D" as a means of promotion.

It isn't about music lovers "stealing" music -- study after study shows that "pirates" spend more money on music than non-pirates. It's about squashing competetion. The RIAA has radio, the indies have P2P, so the RIAA wants to kill P2P.

Nobody outside the industry who understands the situation is on the RIAA's side.

Re:Odd

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Why don't you get your facts straight?

Re:Death Knell?

[TheRaven64]

BSD (cousin to Linux?)

It's pretty hard to class OS X as related to Linux. OS X is UNIX, with code from AT&T UNIX via 4BSD and later via FreeBSD and code from CMU Mach. It is UNIX(tm), as it has passed certification by The Open Group.

Linux is a clone of UNIX, shares no code with UNIX (except a few small bits taken from BSD, mostly headers), and is not certified as UNIX(tm).

Re:NewYorkCountryLawyer - precedent???

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I defer to the expertise of an attorney, but unless this was a ruling by a court of appeals or above, there is no precedent set. Trial courts render judgments which can be referenced in litigation, but not cited as "precedent" on other legal cases... is this not correct? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It's a precedent. It's not 'controlling' or 'binding' but it's a precedent.

Re:Chronicle of Higher Education

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Actually the correct permalink to the story is here. Sorry about that.