Around
1,000 subpoenas within a mass BitTorrent lawsuit have been rejected by
the American District Judge Faith S. Hochberg. The case involved a lot
of Internet users who were accused of illegal downloading of the latest
album Dark Adrenaline by Italian metal band Lacuna Coil.
A few months ago, the label named Nuclear Blast Records, which signed metal band All Shall Perish, was trying to pursue eighty BitTorrent users alleged of having downloaded the latest album of All Shall Perish through BitTorrent websites. Today a similar lawsuit is filed by Century Media Records – the record label of Italian Lacuna Coil.
Faith S. Hochberg, the judge ruling in the lawsuit, decided that the lawsuit wrongly joined too many defendants together. As such, he has voided all of their claims, except one, saying that there must be some kind of a connection between the defendants aside from the shared content and method of distribution. In other words, the judge thinks that the defendants must be simultaneously involved in the same transaction with the same downloader.
The lawsuit in question had been launched by a New Jersey attorney representing Century Media Records. Like in most of the largest file-sharing cases, the attorney chose to hire a law firm which specialized in tracking the IP addresses alleged of being involved in illegal distribution of the content. Then, they would have subpoenas issued for each respective IP address in order to force ISPs to find their subscribers and threaten them with an enormous copyright trial. This is how people are usually forced to settle the case and agree to pay a few thousand dollars to get rid of the problem. However, users who are ready to fight back can hire a lawyer and give it a try.
A few months ago, the label named Nuclear Blast Records, which signed metal band All Shall Perish, was trying to pursue eighty BitTorrent users alleged of having downloaded the latest album of All Shall Perish through BitTorrent websites. Today a similar lawsuit is filed by Century Media Records – the record label of Italian Lacuna Coil.
Faith S. Hochberg, the judge ruling in the lawsuit, decided that the lawsuit wrongly joined too many defendants together. As such, he has voided all of their claims, except one, saying that there must be some kind of a connection between the defendants aside from the shared content and method of distribution. In other words, the judge thinks that the defendants must be simultaneously involved in the same transaction with the same downloader.
The lawsuit in question had been launched by a New Jersey attorney representing Century Media Records. Like in most of the largest file-sharing cases, the attorney chose to hire a law firm which specialized in tracking the IP addresses alleged of being involved in illegal distribution of the content. Then, they would have subpoenas issued for each respective IP address in order to force ISPs to find their subscribers and threaten them with an enormous copyright trial. This is how people are usually forced to settle the case and agree to pay a few thousand dollars to get rid of the problem. However, users who are ready to fight back can hire a lawyer and give it a try.
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