Jari Ketola
16 Sep 2003 16:11
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is taking the RIAA vs. Verizon case back to court to hear Verizon's appeal on the ruling, which opened to P2P subpoena floodgates earlier this year. RIAA used the turbocharged subpoena procedure of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force Verizon to hand out details of a suspected P2P user.
Regular subpoenas require a claim of a crime, whereas DMCA subpoena can be issued by a court clerk, as long as the subpoena form is filled out properly.
Many interpret the DMCA law to apply only to material physically stored on ISPs servers and not the actions of their modem, DSL or cable subscribers.
A panel of three judges is taking a look at the case, and examining the minutiae of the DMCA to figure out what the Congress' intentions where when issuing the law. They will also try to decide whether permitting subpoenas when no lawsuit has been filed, agrees with the U.S. Constitution. So far the panel has not commented on Verizon's arguments about DMCA subpoenas endangering privacy and free speech.
Source:
News.com