Courts Say No to RIAA Subpoena Request

Twice now, the courts in different states have denied the RIAA's requests for ex parte subpoena's against all students at colleges in that state. On July 12, United States district court eastern district of Virginia denied the RIAA request for a John Doe subpoena for students at College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. This ruling comes hot on the heels of a ruling from a federal judge in New Mexico denying a request from the RIAA for subpoena for information from the University of New Mexico in June.

Does this mean that the end of the reign of terror is nearing the end for the RIAA? Probably not, but it does mean that they are going to have to work that much harder to get the information they need, rather than handing out a blanket subpoena. The courts are finally waking up and realizing that they are asking for these subpoena's with little substantial evidence against people. With a blanket, ex parte subpoena, they can get the data from students who have done nothing wrong. Essentially invading their privacy with no valid reasoning other than others on the campus have done wrong.

Is the RIAA right in using these blanket subpoena's to find file sharers? Definitely not. This ends up getting people who have downloaded maybe one or two files in their lives into trouble. It is understandable that they want to use this method of discovery to find the problem sharers, but it's not fair to others to have their privacy invaded. It's well beyond time that the courts did something to stop the wrongdoing.

Will more judges follow suit and put the students ahead of the record industry? One can only hope that this is just the first of several rulings for the people. It won't stop the RIAA from getting the information, but it will definitely help the innocent parties have their privacy in tact. It will also make the RIAA work harder gathering their evidence before going to court. This will mean, however, that more and more RIAA cases will be cropping up, with names attached other than John Doe. It will bring to the forefront those who are actually causing the RIAA to crack down on file sharing.

Will file sharing end because of the RIAA? Probably not, it'll just push it further underground and harder to find, where it was before Napster came to the light.