Interesting bit of news posted by pyehac in our Back Page News. Looks as though the RIAA has quietly dropped several lawsuit cases rather quickly because the defense started to ‘cry IP’:
Foryears, the RIAA has claimed that having the IP address of a computerthat has shared unauthorized files is the equivalent of having theevidence of who was actually sharing files. That, of course, is false.The IP address simply can help you know who paid for the internet access, but not who was using what computer on a network.In fact, this even had some people suggesting that, if you want to wina lawsuit from the RIAA, you’re best off opening up your WiFi networkto neighbors.
It seems like this strategy might actually beworking. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did thefile sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now itlooks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. Inboth cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was usingthis defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set aprecedent showing they really don’t have the unequivocal evidence theyclaim they do.
View: Techdirt
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