Debbie Foster was sued by RIAA member company Capitol Records for allegedly sharing copyrighted material on a P2P file sharing network. However, the alleged infringement was apparently committed by someone else with access to her ISP account. Foster had the case dismissed last summer, and as reported by Listening Post earlier this month, was awarded attorney's fees in excess of $50,000.
For the RIAA, which functions as the legal and lobbying arm of the labels it represents, this was very bad news indeed. If the ruling stands, the RIAA will have to be much more careful about who it sues going forward, adjusting its scatter-shot approach to filing such lawsuits in order to avoid suing the wrong people. * *But if the RIAA's appeal is granted, open Wi-Fi hotspots could become standing invitations for the organization to sue.
Predictably, the RIAA has filed
a "motion for reconsideration" of Judge West's decision to force theRIAA to pay for Foster's legal fees. In the motion, the plaintiffsemphasize a key point: They want the judge to rule that the owner of anISP account is responsible for all activity on that account, whichcould have a chilling effect on public wireless access and openhotspots. (The appeal also made the point that Foster should be held liable if she was aware of the infringement occuring via her account; in the case of someone with an open Wi-Fi network, that could constitute something as simple as experiencing traffic slowdowns.)
If the judge rules that we're each legally responsible for all of thetraffic that comes through our ISP account, open, unprotected Wi-Fihotspots would become a serious legal liability, the hundreds ofthousands (millions?) of people who depend on their neighbors for Wi-Fiwill be out of luck, while altruistic (or ignorant) folks who leave their wirelessnetworks open could find themselves embroiled in an RIAA lawsuits evenif they've never shared a single song in their lives.
This is not the first time the RIAA has tried to establish a precedentfor making the ISP account holder responsible for all traffic; theorganization attempted a similar thing
last summer in a case called Virgin vs, Marson, but was forced todiscontinue it after the defense proved that all sorts of people wereaccessing the Internet through her account.
Hopefully, the judge in Capitol vs. Foster will feel the same way as the judge in that case did.
It'd be a shame if open Wi-Fi hotspots became yet another casualty ofthe RIAA's war against reality.
**
(via ars technica)
