RIAA Appeal Denied in Copyright violation

A federal judge is denying the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) request to appeal his decision granting a retrial in the RIAA’s only file sharing case to go to trial.

The U.S. District Judge, Michael Davis, of Minnesota, declared a mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case, months ago, and nullified the jury’s $222,000 award against the Minnesota woman for sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa network. The RIAA tried to appeal; a motion the judge rejected for the same reason he declared a mistrial.

Davis said that the RIAA must prove that others are downloading the music being shared. However, the RIAA said it was virtually impossible to detect whether people were downloading music from an open peer-to-peer share folder on Kazaa.

The RIAA announced that it would partner with Internet service providers with the objective to filter Internet service, in order to impede infringement when the RIAA detects music sharing  online. For the new campaign, Internet subscribers who the RIAA discovers to be “making available” songs on peer-to-peer networks could have their Internet access denied.

Over the past five years, judges have issued conflicting opinions on whether “actual” distribution or “making available” was enough to prove copyright infringement in an online world. The Jammie Thomas retrial in March is looking more and more like a test case for the RIAA’s new copyright strategy.

Source: Wired