Rich Fiscus
6 Nov 2007 14:51
Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers is getting the state's Department of Justice involved in the RIAA's campaign to identify file sharers on college campuses. The RIAA has issued a subpoena to learn the identities of 17 people allegedly sharing files illegally from the University of Oregon campus.
A motion filed by Myers claims that because the RIAA is providing nothing more than IP addresses, it's impossible to positively identify the person sitting at the computer. Myers argues that complying with the RIAA subpoena would require the University to conduct an extensive investigation to determine who was actually using each computer at the time the alleged copyright violations took place.
Stephanie Soden, a spokeswoman at the Department of Justice in Oregon, said "It really is quite burdensome. [The RIAA is] using a broader and blunter tool than necessary and the university feels it doesn't want to spend the resources needed to comply."
An RIAA spokesman said "This is not the first attempt to quash a subpoena, nor do we expect it to be the last. In the handful of instances where this has occurred, the courts have overwhelmingly ruled in favor of the record companies."
Source: Computerworld