San Francisco - Continuing a crusade against its own customers, the recording industry today announced lawsuits against more than five hundred individuals accused of illegal filesharing.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced it would seek the identity of "John Does" known by the addresses of the computers they use to access the Internet. The RIAA will have to seek permission from judges before they can issue subpoenas to ISPs seeking the identities of the John Does. The process offers more due process and privacy protections than the automatic subpoenas the D.C. Circuit court rejected in the RIAA v. Verizon case.
"While it's an improvement that the record industry now has to play by the same rules as everyone else who goes into court, they are still heading in the wrong direction," noted EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "The recording industry should be giving America's millions of filesharers the same deal that radio stations have had for decades: pay a fair fee, play whatever you want on whatever software works best for you."
The record labels will have to prove that they have evidence in support of their claims and do a "reasonable investigation" before filing suit, rather than obtaining a subpoena rubber-stamped by a court clerk, which is what the D.C. Circuit court outlawed in late December.
Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org
Fred von Lohmann
Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
fred@eff.org
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
