“Jane Doe” Settles With RIAA

I am very unhappy about this, but I certainly can understand it from her point of view:

An anonymous Boston College student yesterday ended a legal fight to keep her identity secret from the music recording industry, which wanted to sue her for allegedly distributing copyrighted songs over the school’s computer network.

The student reached an out-of-court settlement with a recording industry trade group and dropped her motion to quash a subpoena that had sought her name and address. She identified herself to the recording industry, but court papers still refer to her as Jane Doe.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a private lawyer represented the woman without charge, arguing that the subpoena violated her right to free speech and due process, after Boston College said it planned to reveal her identity.

But the student grew weary of the lawsuit and ended it by agreeing to pay a few thousand dollars without admitting or denying wrongdoing, said her lawyer, David Plotkin, an associate with the Boston firm of Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye. He would not reveal the precise amount of the settlement, but said it was generally in line with previous file-sharing settlements of $5,000 or less.

“Her sense was that even if she prevailed, the recording industry would find another way to come after her,” Plotkin said. “It’s a David and Goliath situation, and the Goliath just wasn’t going to go away.” [Boston Globe]

So even the brave and defiant Jane Doe was worn down by the process and decided to go back to being a person rather than a brave symbol and test case. The vast discrepancy in resources and the time required to pursue such a case – what else does the RIAA have to do? – are why this campaign borders on legal extortion.