Music industry watch

Now what RIAA?? (part II)

In part I I asked what the next step for the RIAA was if it couldn't force ISP's to identify its customers. C-NET has a nice FAQ: How the decision will affect file swappers:

I've heard of the possibility of "John Doe" lawsuits. What are those?
Until now, the RIAA has used an expedited subpoena process provided for under copyright law, which it says allows it to force ISPs to hand over customer names without a judge's approval or even a lawsuit. If Friday's decision stands, the record industry will likely be compelled to take the more time-consuming and costly step of filing "John Doe" lawsuits against people whose identities are not yet known. The person would eventually be unmasked during court proceedings.

This option has a possible downside for the RIAA, however. Currently, the trade association knows the identity of the people it names as defendants. By switching to a process in which anonymous people are sued, the RIAA runs the risk of making an embarrassing misstep--by suing a son or daughter of a record label executive or of a U.S. senator, for example.

So, it's not quite a dead-end for the RIAA yet. They've just made it much harder and expensive on themselves, since now them need to worry about quality vs quantity. Suing a 12 year old girl and dropping the suit is one thing -- opening a formal court case to have the court force the ISP to identify the defendant is a whole new game. I would suspect that the people who get nailed in this process are going to get reamed hard. I doubt there will be cheap $2000 settlements once this process gets started.

With the rise of Darknets, which are invitation-only underground networks that disguise their activities with crypto, the RIAA will have a much harder time filing any lawsuits at all. IANAL, but I'd think that with John Doe lawsuits you need to convice the judge that your copyrights were infringed upon. Well, if everything is encrypted, how is the RIAA supposed to establish probable cause and convince the judge to move forward?

Posted by Mayhem at December 27, 2003 12:28 PM