Good Thing Publius Didn't Have the RIAA to Contend With

The Recording Industry Association of America has scored a double victory against p2p file trading and the pesky privacy that makes it hard to prosecute. A U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected Verizon's request to stay subpoenas demanding that the telecom firm hand over information on four users accused of trading copyrighted music with Kazaa. The subpoenas were issued under "fast-track" provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which allows user anonymity to be stripped away on the basis of allegations of copyright infringement, even absent a pending suit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an extensive archive on the case.