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RIAA vs subpoena fighter "Jane Doe" continues

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 29 Aug 2003 12:34 User comments (7)

RIAA vs subpoena fighter "Jane Doe" continues

The only case so far where an alleged file swapper has decided to fight against a subpoena requested by the RIAA is heating up. The Californian woman, known by the court only as "Jane Doe" and by the RIAA by her Kazaa username Nycfashiongirl, has stated through her attorneys that she is innocent to the alleged copyright infringements.
Now, the fact remains that whether she is guilty or not, doesn't have any relevance whatsoever to the subpoena clause in DMCA law that allows copyright owners to find out alleged copyright violator's personal details. Earlier this year Verizon, American ISP, lost its case where it tried to protect the personal information of one of its subscribers and was forced to hand out the subscriber details to RIAA.

So, according to the DMCA, if copyright holder has any proof whatsoever that the user might be responsible of copyright infringements, the ISP of that user has to hand out the personal details to the copyright holder. Copyright holder is not required to sue the user after they've got the personal details.



Now it seems that Ms. "Jane Doe" and RIAA are already preparing for the actual court fight instead of fighting the subpoena. "Jane Doe" claims that she bought her computer second-hand and that the HDD was full of music and she used Kazaa for listening those tracks and tried to prevent the program from sharing several times without succeeding in that. RIAA is obviously claiming that her P2P usage pattern shows signs of "frequent and significant participant in illegal downloadig and distribution of music".

Anyway, the current issue -- the subpoena case -- relates to the fact that "Jane Doe" claims that handing out her personal details to RIAA violates her privacy and various constitutional rights.

Source: Silicon.com

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7 user comments

130.8.2003 05:28

Good for her. Way to go lady!

230.8.2003 11:19

As anti-RIAA as I am, I have to say that Janey's excuse sounds a bit far fetched. Afterall, a second hand computer should have a Media Player or something else for playing on. I think that Jane Doe should actually talk the RIAA into relaxing on the anti-filesharing **** or something else that will make me less anti-RIAA. P.S. Don't tell the RIAA about the Media PLayer thing ;)

330.8.2003 19:57

Wow, I must have really slept a long time last night, apparentley when I woke up this morning I was in communist Russia! I always thought in the U.S. you where innocent until proven guilty. Now the RIAA is making it "you are assumed guilty unless you can prove otherwise"! As my father used to say, "They oughta give this country back to the Indians"!

431.8.2003 09:53

Crap for you Rocky, since Russia isnīt a communist state. Anyway, I really think Ms. Doe should stick to fighting for her privacy and not start to defend herself against allegations of illegal file sharing. "and tried to prevent the program from sharing several times without succeeding in that" is a pretty dumb defense, since anyone who tries to unshare has to be pretty stupid to not succeed at that.

53.9.2003 08:34

"and tried to prevent the program from sharing several times without succeeding in that" is a pretty dumb defense, since anyone who tries to unshare has to be pretty stupid to not succeed at that. It's possible however and from my experience with non-computer literate people, highly feasible actually (IMHO) I do agree with rocky999 that the RIAA has taken a 'guilty unless proven innocent' approach when dealing with people.

63.9.2003 21:13

Yeah I guess youīre right. Itīs possible she just didnīt know how to unshare the files. But if she says that she tried to unshare them, really tried, then that seems unlikely to me.

74.9.2003 10:47

I know it seems highly unlikely that she did not manage to unshare her files (since its gotta be somewhere in the help files) and hence I personally dont buy that story one bit but it is possible.

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