Rich Fiscus
1 Dec 2007 18:49
Last month the Oregon Attorney General announced that he would help the University of Oregon fight a standard RIAA subpoena that would require them to find and release the identities of 17 students to the RIAA. Now he's going on the offensive, calling RIAA investegatory practices in question and issuing some subpeonas of his own for the trade group's investegators.
According to a motion filed by the Attorney General's office, there are many questions surrounding RIAA tactics, some of which the AG feels may be illegal in Oregon. In fact SafeNet, the company the RIAA pays to find infringers, isn't even licensed to operate in Oregon. The AG argues
The motion also states that RIAA lawyers have refused to answer questions by the AG's office regarding whether they had engaged in data mining to find "personal and confidential information." Now the Attorney General would like to know "precisely how invasive Plaintiffs' investigation was." Specifically, it says "Plaintiffs may be spying on students who use the University's computer system and may be accessing much more than IP addresses."
The motion also requests the court to require the RIAA to "Describe with particularity the economic damage, if any, that the RIAA suffered as a result of the unlawful conduct of each Doe Defendant." This is certainly something that many people would like explained. Of course since the RIAA is normally facing individuals without the deep pockets required to pay for a sustained legal battle they're normally not taken to task for their damage claims.
Depending on whether the judge allows the discovery asked for by the Attorney General, and what answers he gets from RIAA representatives, it seems likely that this will will end up being a landmark case that either signals the beginning of the end of the RIAA's legal jihad or legal justification for even more suits.
Source: Ars Technica