VERIZON SQUARES OFF WITH RIAA FOR ITS SECOND DAY IN COURT

Verizon Communications is about to offer up one big “I told you so.” Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America unleashed a firestorm of copyright infringement lawsuits against broadband music pirates, using subscriber information Verizon and other ISPs were forced to give up after the carrier lost a customer privacy case against RIAA in May. This week, Verizon's appeal goes in front of a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“We anticipated this would happen—that RIAA would file thousands of lawsuits against our customers if given the power,” said Sarah Deutsch, lead counsel for Verizon on the case. “RIAA knew they had a window, so they decided to go after as many people as they could.”

Last year, when RIAA began sending subpoenas to carriers and ISPs under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for customer information about suspected music pirates, Verizon refused to turn over names, saying the subpoenas were unconstitutional and violated customers' privacy. RIAA took Verizon to court and won, and immediately began collecting thousands of names. Last week, RIAA filed 261 lawsuits against file traders it claims have downloaded more than 1000 copyrighted songs off of services such as Kazaa and Morpheus. And RIAA has threatened to file thousands more, targeting every broadband user that has downloaded more than 1000 music files—the equivalent of 100 CDs worth of music.

Verizon claims RIAA's lawsuit campaign is overzealous and plans to show in court that the recording industry is taking on far more enforcement power than the DMCA originally intended.

“RIAA has become its own worst enemy,” Deutsch said. “They say they're only going after the most egregious offenders, but they're suing a 12-year-old girl and a 73-year-old man.”

But while the public relations fiasco surrounding RIAA's crusade makes it appear as a bully, it's doubtful it will have much effect on the court, said Sean Sullivan, an intellectual property attorney for the firm of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff.

“While there may be some inclination to look out for the ‘little guy’ in a case like this—and RIAA is certainly going after the little guy—the court ultimately has to look strictly at the law itself, not what RIAA is doing with the law,” Sullivan said.