Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously held that the RIAA may not use the subpoena power granted by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512(h), to discover the names of individuals sharing .mp3 files through sites like KaZaA and Morpheus. (Link via The Drudge Report.) You can find the full opinion here (via Instapundit), but the gist is that, because ISPs do not store the infringing material nor control access to the infringing material, no subpoena can issue under the DMCA. This is the crucial difference between peer-to-peer software (like KaZaA), in which users search other users' .mp3 libraries, and the original Napster, in which users searched a website. According to the Court:
We conclude from both the terms of [the DMCA] and the overall structure of [the DMCA] that, as Verizon contends, a subpoena may be issued only to an ISP engaged in storing on its servers material that is infringing or the subject of infringing activity.* * * *
Infringing material obtained or distributed via P2P file sharing is located in the computer (or in an off-line storage device, such as a compact disc) of an individual user. No matter what information the copyright owner may provide, the ISP can neither ‘‘remove’’ nor ‘‘disable access to’’ the infringing material because that material is not stored on the ISP’s servers.
I find this ruling personally satisfying, in that I felt the RIAA's prosecution of these lawsuits to be at once heavy-handed and futile. I think this is also a positive impetus toward making the music industry adapt to changing technology. I don't think it will be long before record companies and stores are obsolete, and fans simply download songs from their favorite artists' websites (for a fee, of course). I suspect, however, that the RIAA would put the squeeze on radio stations not to play music that doesn't come from them, making awfully difficult for up-and-coming artists to tell the record company to stick it. Additionally, there's the problem of the up-front costs (studio time, producer time, extra musicians, etc.) that might be too expensive for a new band to pay.
In other news, a Dutch court has ruled that manufacturers of peer-to-peer software are not liable for copyright infringement committed by users. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California held similarly in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. earlier this year.
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