An alleged file sharer targeted by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) who made the silly decision to destroy evidence by erasing his hard drive has lost his peer-to-peer lawsuit case. Jeffery Howell, who represented and defended himself with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was accused of using Kazaa to commit copyright infringement.
Judge Neil Wake said Howell willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence after he uninstalled Kazaa and then reformatted his hard drive. The RIAA said his intentional removal of evidence showed signs of intentional copyright infringement, and Judge Wake agreed. According to the RIAA, Howell successfully destroyed evidence four times once he received a prelitigation settlement letter from the music trade group.
Howell uninstalled Kazaa and removed all the content that was in his shared folder, reformatted the hard drive, removed all Kazaa logs from his computer, and used a file-wiping program to further ensure there wouldn't be evidence left behind.
Even though he won in April after the court determined the RIAA didn't show enough evidence that he infringed on the copyrights of 42 songs, even though he admitted that he installed the software on his computer.
It is still unknown how much money Howell will have to pay to the RIAA, or if he'll even be able to pay any money to the RIAA.
