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Analysis: RIAA Strategy Shift Mired in Murky Legal Waters

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"pa onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=255,height=342,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false" href="http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/22/commiepics_2.jpg"img width="275" height="368" border="0" src="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/images/2008/12/22/commiepics_2.jpg" title="Commiepics_2" alt="Commiepics_2" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;" //a The Recording Industry Association of America's new enforcement strategy is based on a questionable interpretation of what constitutes copyright infringement. And its copyright-detection services remain under a cloud at the center of a class action legal challenge./p pThe RIAA, the record labels' legal and lobbying arm, a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/no-isp-filterin.html"announced Friday/a it would begin phasing out its five-year campaign of suing individuals ? a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/proving-file-sh.html"30,000 in all/a ? on allegations of copyright infringement. Instead, the group said it would notify internet service providers that RIAA snoops have detected copyright infringement and, in turn, the ISP would inform account holders of the allegations. Three infractions could result in the termination of an account holder's internet access./p pUnder the new strategy, the RIAA is adopting a definition of copyright infringement that the U.S. court system could never agree upon during the RIAA's five-year litigation campaign against individual file sharers.nbsp; What's more, the RIAA uncovers what it claims is unlawful infringement by employing a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/do-riaa-snoops.html"unlicensed private investigators/a, the subject of a a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/riaa-says-ander.html"federal lawsuit/a in Oregon seeking class action status to represent the 30,000 individuals who have been targeted by an RIAA lawsuit./p pquot;Quitting their lawsuits is one thing. They're actually not renouncing any of the legal arguments they were making,quot; said Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney. quot;Apparently, they are also not stopping the investigation techniques that have been so controversial in a number of states.quot;/p pMichigan and a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/investigator.pdf"Massachusetts/a (.pdf) have recently ordered a href="http://www.mediasentry.com/"MediaSentry/a, the RIAA's investigative wing, to stop performing unlicensed investigations. South Carolina, Texas, Florida and New York were mulling similar action./p pquot;Their investigation remains illegal and, at most, can only identify an internet protocol address which has a peer-to-peer file sharing program running without disabling the file sharing function,quot; said Lory Lybeck, an attorney suing in Oregon federal court on behalf of the 30,000 individuals he says have been targeted illegally by the RIAA's unlicensed investigators./p pThe infringement a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/commercial_notice_template_1217_2.pdf"letters/a (.pdf) the RIAA and the nation's leading ISPs have agreed to send to alleged copyright scofflaws includes language saying, quot;We believe a user on your network is offering an infringing sound recording for download through a peer-to-peer application. We have a good-faith belief that this activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.quot;/p pIn short, the RIAA is glomming on to the so-called quot;a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/riaa-making-ava.html"making available/aquot; theory. The theory stands for the proposition that merely having an open share folder of copyrighted music on a peer-to-peer network constitutes unauthorized distribution and is therefore copyright infringement ? regardless of whether a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/professors-sidi.html"actual distribution/a of the musical works has been shown./p pThe point is not to be taken lightly and was at the center of the legal issues surrounding the RIAA's file sharing litigation./p pThe federal judge who presided over the nation's only file sharing case to go to trial a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/not-for-publica.html"declared a mistrial/a after concluding that quot;making availablequot; was not a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/riaas-cary-sher.html"copyright infringement/a. /p pThat decision involved the Jammie Thomas case, in which U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Minnesota set aside a $222,000 jury verdict against Thomas and said the RIAA must prove quot;actual distribution.quot; /p pa href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/judge-rejects-m.html"Plenty of judges have ruled contrary/a to Judge Davis and some have ruled with him. But neither the federal appellate courts nor the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly decided the quot;making availablequot; issue./p pDuring the Thomas trial in 2007, Judge Davis instructed jurors that no actual distribution of the music industry's copyrighted works must be shown for Thomas to be found liable. The RIAA supported that position because it's basically impossible for RIAA investigators to detect whether somebody is downloading songs from an open share folder on a peer-to-peer network./p pThe RIAA a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/riaa-appealing.html"has asked Judge Davis/a to allow it to appeal his mistrial decision. A retrial is tentatively set for March. /p pCara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman, did not immediately return messages on Monday. On Friday, she said the RIAA would continue pursuing the Thomas case and the countless others still pending./p pemIllustration: a href="http://www.modernhumorist.com/"Modernhumorist/a/em /p pstrongSee Also:/strong/p ul lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/riaa-seeks-7400.html#previouspost"Former Teen Cheerleader Defies RIAA Over $7400 File Sharing Tab .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/riaa-mpaa-conve.html#previouspost"RIAA, MPAA Converging on Political Conventions/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/riaa-rips-defen.html#previouspost"RIAA Rips Defendant in Nation's First File Sharing Jury Trial .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/riaa-appealing.html#previouspost"RIAA Appeals Jammie Thomas Mistrial/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/no-isp-filterin.html#previouspost"No ISP Filtering Under New RIAA Copyright Strategy/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/think-tank-riaa.html#previouspost"Conservative Think Tank: RIAA v. Thomas Mistrial was 'Unreasoned .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/imagine-riaa-mp.html#previouspost"Imagine RIAA, MPAA in Control of Handbag Industry/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/not-for-publica.html#previouspost"Judge Declares Mistrial in RIAA-Jammie Thomas Trial/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/riaa-decries-at.html#previouspost"RIAA Decries Attorney-Blogger as 'Vexatious' Litigator/a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/riaa-decries-te.html#previouspost"RIAA Decries Texas Woman as 'Vexatious' for Demanding File Sharing .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/proving-file-sh.html#previouspost"File Sharing Lawsuits at a Crossroads, After 5 Years of RIAA .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/riaa-sends-spik.html#previouspost"Universities Baffled by Massive Surge in RIAA Copyright Notices .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/new-riaa-lawsui.html#previouspost"New RIAA Lawsuit Defense Tactic: Admit Liability, Challenge the .../a/li lia href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/mpaa-waffling-o.html#previouspost"MPAA Waffling on Piracy Costs; RIAA Says Illicit CDs Worth $13.74 .../a/li /ul/divbr clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8a3022aad4b59559f5683c2c7c0cf66ep=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8a3022aad4b59559f5683c2c7c0cf66ep=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8a3022aad4b59559f5683c2c7c0cf66e" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired27b?a=Y6oevZ"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired27b?i=Y6oevZ" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?a=zoO8O"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?i=zoO8O" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?a=DjhFo"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?i=DjhFo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?a=E0Koo"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?i=E0Koo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?a=y68dO"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired27b?i=y68dO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired27b/~4/492614793" height="1" width="1"/

Full post as published by Threat Level on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).