The RIAA faces stiff opposition in Marilyn Barringer-Thomson, the lawyer of Debbie Foster -- a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Capitol Records, which accused her of sharing songs on a P2P network. Berringer-Thomson has asked the court to block Capitol Records' expert witness, whom the RIAA has not identified, which runs counter to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Capitol's RIAA legal team responded that they can't identify their expert until they know how much they might owe, promised that they would identify the expert eventually (if there is one), and tried to pressure the judge into forcing the defendant to file the crucial fee application earlier.
Why is it crucial? Capitol Records vs. Debbie Foster looks like a landmark case in the years-long RIAA/P2P lawsuit saga, because the judge has granted Foster the right to collect attorney's fees from the RIAA. This could become a dangerous precedent for the record labels, because they would face financial consequences for suing the wrong people -- an increasingly likely scenario, given how much intentional and unintentional Wi-Fi sharing is going on these days.
