Petteri Pyyny
5 Jun 2003 15:19
Verizon lost its case (or at least the major part of it)against RIAA couple of days ago when appeals court decided that it wont intervene to district court's ruling that Verizon has to hand out the names and personal details of its subscribers, that RIAA accuses of piracy, immediately to RIAA.
Despite the fact that now Verizon must give the names immediately, the case is still heading to appeals court's hearing in September. Obviously this wont do any good to the subscribers in question when their details have to be in RIAA's hands well before that deadline and RIAA can launch a legal action against these individuals meanwhile. Obviously Verizon's intention is to take the case as high as possible in the court system to prevent this happening again.
The whole case began when RIAA demanded, based on the controversial DMCA law, Verizon to hand out names and other personal details of four of its Internet customers to RIAA. RIAA claims that these people have distributed illegal music files over the P2P networks. Verizon agrees that it might have been the case, but Verizon's point is that RIAA should get the court order for each case before Verizon has to act, since otherwise -- Verizon and many other ISPs say -- RIAA gets a personal detail automaton that requires RIAA only to accuse someone of doing something illegal and wont have to prove it in any way.
Source: News.com