The Reliability of RIAA Filesharing Subpoenas

Written by Michael Croft
Published September 24, 2003

The Register, the fun British tech news and curmudgeon site, has written about a quietly dropped RIAA lawsuit against a user accused of sharing 2000 songs.

The RIAA said Sarah Ward was sharing 2,000 songs through the KaZaA P2P network exposing her, at $150,000 per offense, to $300,000,000 in penalties. But not only had she never downloaded a song, but as a Macintosh user, she couldn't even run the KaZaA software, which only runs on Windows.

While there are peer-to-peer options for Mac users, this certainly lowers the credibility of the entire RIAA approach. I'm imagining a lawyer whose case goes like this. "So, my client was selected by the same team of elite information gatherers who decided that a 66 year old woman was sharing 2000 songs via a Macintosh, which could not possibly have run the software you accused her of running. What makes you think you got this one right?"

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The Reliability of RIAA Filesharing Subpoenas
Published: September 24, 2003
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Section: Sci/Tech
Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet, Sci/Tech: Software
Writer: Michael Croft
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#1 — September 25, 2003 @ 15:35PM — Eric Olsen

Excellent point Michael, this really undermines the credibility of the entire operation.

#2 — September 25, 2003 @ 15:50PM — Taloran

Imagine ... undermining the credibility of the RIAA. How ironic is that?

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