No Rock And Roll Fun

RIAA "BUNCH OF CHANCERS", SUGGESTS JUDGE: The RIAA have been frustrated in their attempts to force Verizion to reveal the names of its customers who zip files through their servers because, a judge points out the ISPs aren't the people storing the files and so, really, it's nothing to do with them. Under US law, the music industry can still bring actions against file sharers, but what this judgement means the process of finding out who those people are has just become enormously more time-consuming and expensive.

Meanwhile, in Europe, a Dutch court has thrown out an action trying to rule the very existence of Kazaa illegal, saying that while you can do bad things with it, that doesn't make the software illegal. Although bloody obvious (to have concluded otherwise would have had the effect of making video recorders illegal across Europe) it's still an important precedent to have been made.