The nearly year-long struggle between the Recording Industry Association of America and several students over the illegal downloading of music on campus has reached a new chapter after a North Carolina judge issued a stay on two subpoenas July 2.
District Judge Louise W. Flanagan issued a ruling pledging that the courts were going to revisit the cases and take a more specific look at the motions to quash the subpoena and possibly dismiss the case altogether.
Dylan Hudock, a senior in business management, said he hopes the cases get dismissed.
“It’s messed up that they can sue people just for downloading music,” he said. “It seems like RIAA is targeting colleges and universities just to get students in trouble. Targeting college kids is kind of ridiculous.”
Pam Gerace, the University’s director of legal services, said the ruling will keep the RIAA from finding out the names of students who are being sued because of downloading music illegally while living on campus.
“In this case, it sounds like Judge Flanagan issued an order and then sent the case to a magistrate for further consideration in order to make a decision,” she said.
The attorney for several of the defendants, Stephen Robertson, has also filed motions to quash and dismiss the case on behalf of his clients.
“We are filing these motions now to dismiss, to strike the Linares Declaration, and quash the subpoena,” Robertson said. “And the judge looked at our motions briefly and said the courts would take a ‘fresh look’ at the cases.”
Robertson said new information about the company the RIAA uses to investigate copyright infringement, MediaSentry is one of the new pieces of information that may lead to a dismissal.
“MediaSentry has illegally investigated the computers because they don’t have a private investigator’s license in the state of North Carolina,” Robertson said. “They were invading people’s hard drives and rummaging around and then sell the information they find to record companies.”
Robertson said he hopes the court will now dismiss the case based on the new information rather than simply quashing the subpoenas and prolonging the matter.
If either motion is granted, the RIAA would more than likely not be able to go forward with their case, according to Gerace.
“If the judge grants the motion to quash, that means the subpoena is thrown out,” she said. “That means the RIAA cannot get the names of the students through the subpoena and will have to do something different.”
Hudock said he doesn’t think the current lawsuits will do anything to curb the illegal downloading of music.
“Who doesn’t download music?” he asked. “I don’t think suing people is going to do anything to fix the downloading problem. It is just too widespread at this point.”
Nikki Whitt, a freshman in biological sciences, said she feels students who live on campus seem to be more careful since the lawsuits first came up over two years ago.
“People on campus seem to want to be smarter,” she said. “I do it the legal way and actually just buy music.”
Although Whitt said she believes students should have to pay for the music they illegally downloaded, she said she doesn’t see it as a major problem.
“I guess it really just depends on how much you downloaded,” she said. If it was a lot then [the students being sued] should pay but if it wasn’t very much I really don’t see the problem with it.
The decision of whether or not to grant the request for a quash or dismissal now rests in the hands of Magistrate Judge James E. Gates, the person Judge Flanagan referred the case to in her decision.
Gerace said the success or failure of the RIAA’s case rests heavily on the decision the magistrate judge will make with regards to the quash or possible dismissal.
“Really the only way the [RIAA] can get the IP address and names of students is through the subpoena,” she said. “If the subpoena’s don’t work, they are not going to be able to go forward with the case.”
