Judge Says No More DMCA Subpoenas For RIAA

from the hot-dam dept

Okay, okay, I'll post the story of the morning. Everyone has been submitting the fact that the three judge panel in the Court of Appeals has decided that the RIAA doesn't have the right to subpoena internet providers for names of file sharers. They actually read through the DMCA and realized that it was only supposed to apply to people hosting content on the service providers computers - and not accessing the internet via the service providers. The ruling basically says, "well, the DMCA didn't realize that there was the possibility of file sharing and doesn't cover it." One judge even states that the RIAA's claim "borders upon the silly." Of course, what this probably means is that the RIAA's lapdogs in Congress will quickly pass an amended DMCA which includes a provision for file sharing. Of course, opening up the DMCA for discussion might be dangerous, as it's possible that some others might push for things to go in the opposite direction. Still, it's good to see that a few judges seem to actually get what's going on. This overturns the earlier District Court opinion concerning Verizon that started the whole subpoena craze, and now makes it a good sign that the similar SBC case was moved to the same District Court who now has some more "guidance" from above. Update: Here's the full decision (pdf format).