A Florida judge this week quashed subpoenas filed by the recording industry against two file-sharing suspects at the University of South Florida. But college officials hoping for a precedent-setting ruling may be disappointed: The decision was made on “narrow technical grounds,” as Ars Technica points out.
This summer the Recording Industry Association of America sent a batch of “John Doe” subpoenas to South Florida, asking campus officials to turn over the names of 40 students identified only by their Internet-protocol numbers. Students cited in those subpoenas are supposed to be notified once the subpoenas are granted. But many South Florida students had already left the campus for the summer, and the university wasn’t able to locate some of them in time to tell them they were about to be sued.
In striking down two of the 40 subpoenas, Judge Thomas G. Wilson ruled that the notification system had broken down. But he declined to make a broader decision on the recording industry’s use of ex parte discovery tactics. Already, a couple of judges have argued that the RIAA has no justification for identifying students through ex parte discovery, which is typically reserved for drastic and time-sensitive situations. —Brock Read
