Recording industry withdraws suit -- Mistaken identity raises questions on legal strategy

Boston Globe ^ | 24 September 2003 | Chris Gaither

[steve-b]

The recording industry has withdrawn a lawsuit against a Newbury woman because it falsely accused her of illegally sharing music -- possibly the first case of mistaken identity in the battle against Internet file-traders....

The lawsuit claimed that Ward had illegally shared more than 2,000 songs through Kazaa and threatened to hold her liable for up to $150,000 for each song. The plaintiffs were Sony Music, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista.

Among the songs she was accused of sharing: "I'm a Thug," by the rapper Trick Daddy.

But Ward, 66, is a "computer neophyte" who never installed file-sharing software, let alone downloaded hard-core rap about baggy jeans and gold teeth, according to letters sent to the recording industry's agents by her lawyer, Jeffrey Beeler....

[steve-b]

D'OH!!

[Enterprise]

Perhaps a vigorous countersuit?

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Perhaps a vigorous countersuit?

Word! True 'dat!! Granny be looking at some Bling-Bling!!!

[martin_fierro]

Beeler complained to the RIAA, demanding an apology and "dismissal with prejudice" of the lawsuit, which would prohibit future lawsuits against her. Foley Hoag, the Boston firm representing the record labels, on Friday dropped the case, but without prejudice.
"Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote to Beeler.

Legalese for "Whoops!"

[zeromus]

The recording industry then issued a subpoena to Comcast, the user's Internet service provider, demanding the name, address, and e-mail address of the person behind the IP address.

<Comcast> "Oops. did we make a mistake? so sorry."

[afz400]

"Perhaps a vigorous countersuit?"
If I am on her jury, I'll award her $1 billion. Screw these Sony, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista, etc thugs! Bankrupt and ruin them like they want to do to Kazaa users.

[Dog Gone]

I'm going to make the music industry happy. I've decided to that I won't download music.

I'm going to shoplift their CDs.

[Happy2BMe]

Who let these kooks loose?

[steve-b]

Who let these kooks loose?

A legal system that does not effectively punish people for bringing frivolous and harassing lawsuits.

[RogueIsland]

The recording industry then issued a subpoena to Comcast, the user's Internet service provider, demanding the name, address, and e-mail address of the person behind the IP address.

Interesting. IPs with Comcast are not static (normally), although you can have the same one for a very long time if you keep connected, or if you happen to get it reassigned from the pool. I wonder if she got an IP that was previously held by a swapper.

[webstersII]

"although you can have the same one for a very long time if you keep connected"

Mine is supposed to be on an 8-hour change cycle. I've casually observed it and that seems to be about right. But the ISP logs should show who had that IP Address at a particular time, unless their database is hosed up.

[zeromus]

I do not think the duration of the use of a dynamic IP address is an issue. I mean, I doubt very much that they don't know which customer has it at 0:59:59 but at 1:00:00 hours, they do. I would imagine they log which customer received which ip address at the time it is assigned.

What I am not sure about is how they relate the request for an IP address to the customer. Do they have a serial number for the cable modem that you are supposed to be using? What if you use another modem? Does their equivalent of a dhcp server (they use something else complicated that sends back alot of other configuration information) actually check a database to determine if the modem is authentic?

An even better question is why the ISPs log this anyway. Legal requirements? Or is there some reason why it is smart for an ISP to do this (to curb system abuse somehow?)

[zeromus]

Theyre not supposed to change every eight hours. That would mean you could never sustain a connection for longer than eight hours, which would be a very crippled internet connection indeed. They are supposed to see if your PC is turned on and plugged in every eight hours, and if not, free up that IP address.

[webstersII]

"An even better question is why the ISPs log this anyway."

I've asked this question numerous times and haven't gotten a good answer. Part of the issue is that they have to maintain some records to trace the origin of viruses and such but that doesn't answer the question as to why they would have that data on file for so long.

[webstersII]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Mamzelle]

A bullying plaintiff ought to have something of his own to lose, something to fear. A powerful and well-funded plaintiff who throws his weight around as in this story ought to get his gut punched. Any legal retaliations to fear?

[zeromus]

Well, remember that the ISP industry has worked out arrangements with law enforcement and Big Media to the effect of: ISP is not responsible for anything, as long as they cooperate. In the spirit of that agreement, keeping records to link IPs to users is sort of a minimal requirement.

But it makes me burn with wrath and desire strongly to set up my own ISP where i promise to not keep track of anything like that, and if we go down, we all go down together.

[El Gran Salseron]

Hmm.....I am supposed to have a dynamic IP address. However, I can turn off my cable modem and computer for hours, turn them back on, and bingo!......always the same IP. The only time I have been able to get the IP to change is if I disconnect the router and plug the computer directly into the cable modem. I would expect the IP to change then. It gives the computer a new IP but then if I turn off the computer and modem for hours and turn them back on, again, bingo! the same IP. When I put the router back in the line, bingo!......back to the original IP. This has led me to believe that IPs are assigned by MAC address......at least maybe by my ISP.

[zeromus]

You're right--many of the servers will attempt to remember which MAC addresses had which IP and give that same ip address back to it. Thats just one way of setting it up. But if it only has ten addresses available, and it has used up nine of them, and someone is requesting an IP address, and it remembers that the last one available was used by another MAC address, it will almost certainly hand out that last IP address regardless. The MAC address is just a guideline to make everyone's life easier.

[webstersII]

"ISP is not responsible for anything, as long as they cooperate."

I wasn't aware of this. I thought the ISPs had won court cases which said that they were not responsible for the content.