Not only does nobody else use her computer in more than a passing way, the computer, an Apple Macintosh, is not even capable of running the KaZaA file-swapping program. And though the lawsuit against her said that she was heavily into the works of hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Ms. Ward says her musical tastes run to Celtic and folk. [via BoingBoing]
I guess I didn’t fully understand the power the RIAA had. They can subpoena name and address information from Internet Service Providers even when they have no real evidence? Could I contact, say, AOL and inform them that I hold the copyright to a specific song and that that song was being shared by IP address 1.2.3.4 at 10:43am yesterday? Would they have to give me that information? If so, hell, I’ll just do that whenever I have an IP address and I want to know who it belongs to.
This is absolutely absurd. Even after realizing what idiots they are, the RIAA didn’t even have the decency to apologize. Instead, with a letter, they dismissed the case “as a gesture of good faith”. But the letter added, “We will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against [her] if and when circumstances warrant.”
I’m going to be sick. How did we allow ourselves to lose this much freedom and right to privacy?