by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
A federal judge in New Mexico denied a request to subpoena UNM for the personal information of Internet users suspected of music piracy.
Negotiations between UNM and the Recording Industry Association of America should begin this week to find the best way to release the information, UNM lawyer Richard Mertz said.
The RIAA filed lawsuits May 17 against 16 unidentified UNM network users.
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On May 24 in New Mexico Federal District Court, Judge Lorenzo Garcia denied an attempt by the RIAA to subpoena the University for information of campus Internet users, Mertz said.
"They wanted to subpoena the names of people that they think they had identified as file sharers from UNM," he said. "It was denied, but that doesn't mean it's over."
Garcia ordered UNM and the association to look for an "appropriate process" to ensure the users are notified and get a chance to challenge the disclosure of personal information.
In his ruling, Garcia denied the subpoena because he said it was too broad and could divulge information that would be a violation of privacy.
"Access to a subscriber's Internet information may include a wealth of information including name, address, Social Security numbers, credit card information, purchase histories, as well as a road map of the subscribers' Internet activities, and perhaps disclosure of their private e-mail communications," he wrote in his ruling.
Mertz said negotiations are expected to begin this week via conference call.
UNM will fight to help students challenge the music industry's subpoenas, Mertz said.
"We will try to get as much notice time as we can for students," he said.
The RIAA will get the information it needs to proceed with the lawsuits, said Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for the association.
"The court, in this decision, asked for a specific process, which we will accommodate," Lamy said.
Lamy said the association has advocated for Internet service providers to notify network users when they are suspected of illegal file sharing.
The court will intervene if UNM and the RIAA can't come to an agreement on how to disclose the information, said Sherri Burr, a UNM law professor and expert in copyright law.
"This isn't necessarily a major setback for the recording industry," she said. "If they can't do it together, then the court will call them in and put together an appropriate method for discovery."
While Garcia's ruling slowed down the litigation, Mertz said people shouldn't get false hope of winning a lawsuit with the association.
"Winning little motions on technical things doesn't mean you win a lawsuit," he said.
Rather than hoping to win in court, people who receive notice of an RIAA subpoena should look to settle, Burr said.
"Basically, students who are facing litigation should be thinking about a way to negotiate a settlement," she said. "If they've got you, and you've got the stuff on your computer, it's similar to being caught red handed having stolen stuff from a store."
The RIAA made 7 more requests for network information since the 16 lawsuits were filed, Mertz said.
He said the three most recent requests could not be granted because UNM keeps logs of network usage for only 28 days.
"UNM recently received three more notices that request the preservation of the network log information on supposed file-sharing incidents," he said. "We received them on June 13, but they were outside the 28-day log retention time, so UNM doesn't have any information to provide the RIAA on those three incidents."
