In a 37-page decision, US District Judge John Bates said the wording of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires Verizon to give the Recording Industry Association of America the name of a Kazaa subscriber who allegedly was sharing more than 600 music recordings. Bates said "the court disagrees with Verizon's strained reading of the act, which disregards entirely the clear definitional language."
This case represents the entertainment industry's latest legal assault on peer-to-peer piracy. If its invocation of the DMCA is upheld on appeal, music industry investigators would have the power to identify hundreds or thousands of music pirates at a time without going to court first.
The dispute is not about whether the RIAA will be able to force Verizon to reveal the identity of a suspected copyright infringer, but about what legal mechanism copyright holders will be able to use. The RIAA would prefer to rely on the DMCA's turbocharged-subpoena process because it is cheaper and faster than other methods--but Verizon and civil liberties groups have said it is not sufficiently privacy-protective.
At issue in the RIAA's request is an obscure part of the DMCA that permits a copyright owner to send a subpoena ordering a "service provider" to turn over information about a subscriber. Verizon says the DMCA does not apply because the company is only a conduit and is not hosting the material on its servers.
Bates said Verizon's proposed solution--a lawsuit with a "John Doe" defendant to be named later--is "more burdensome and less timely" in copyright cases. Bates ordered Verizon to comply with the RIAA's subpoena.
"We appreciate the court's decision, which validates our interpretation of the law," Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said in a statement. "The illegal distribution of music on the Internet is a serious issue for musicians, songwriters and other copyright owners, and the record companies have made great strides in addressing this problem by educating consumers and providing them with legitimate alternatives."
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