After a few past cases where the RIAA have sued the wrong people, such as this past example of suing the dead, the industry has once again had to drop a case after misidentifying a person they suspected of file sharing. This time, it was Lee Thao in the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleged of sharing copyright music over Kazaa.
However, when the RIAA filed a lawsuit based on information they obtained for the cable modem determined to have been used for file sharing, they ran into a problem in that Lee Thao was not a subscriber to the ISP when the alleged file-sharing took place, which meant that the modem belonged to someone else at the alleged time. So with the help of a lawyer representing Mr. Thao, he got the case dismissed by pointing out this blunder.
While several of RIAA’s mistakes have been spread as news as in this case, it makes me wonder just how many innocent people the RIAA have sued who were forced into pay settlements who never shared or downloaded any music.
Thanks to GristyMcFisty and our system admin Liggy for letting us know about this news.
