pace306,slacker6, Jolard, Quakester2000, StrongBad, used our news submit to tell us a federal appeals court ruled Friday the recording industry can't force Internet providers to identify subscribers swapping music online, dramatically setting back the industry's anti-piracy campaign. While none of the news submitters condone piracy of goods, they all feel that individual privacy rights were being trampled by the recording industry.
The ruling will not help those previously identified but will be an enormous setback for future lawsuits. It also does not make it legal to share copyrighted materials over the Internet.
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"It's an incredible ruling, a blow for the little guy," said Bob Barnes, a grandfather in Fresno, Calif., who was targeted by one of the earliest subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America but isn't among the hundreds who have been sued so far. The appeals court said the 1998 copyright law doesn't cover the popular file-sharing networks currently used by tens of millions of Americans to download songs. The law "betrays no awareness whatsoever that Internet users might be able directly to exchange files containing copyrighted works," the court wrote. The appeals judges said they sympathized with the recording industry, noting "stakes are large." But the judges said it was not the role of courts to rewrite the 1998 law, "no matter how damaging that development has been to the music industry or threatens being to the motion picture and software industries." Legal experts said the appeals ruling probably would not affect the 382 civil lawsuits the recording industry already has filed since it announced its campaign nearly six months ago. But it will make identifying defendants for future lawsuits much more difficult and expensive. |
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Source: AP News My Way
