RIAA wins P2P case after defendant reformats hard drive
August 26, 2008
A few months after rejecting the RIAA's argument that making a file available over a P2P network is copyright infringement, a judge is handing the labels a victory after the defendant reformatted his hard drive, nuked his KaZaA installation, and downloaded and used a file-shredding program.
One of the most closely-watched copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA appears to be coming to a screeching halt, much to the music industry's delight. A judge ruled Monday that a defendant had willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence of his P2P activities after being notified of pending legal action by the RIAA. Furthermore, since it was done in bad faith, it "therefore warrants appropriate sanctions."
The order in Atlantic v. Howell was issued at the end of a pretrial conference held in an Arizona courtroom. Jeffery Howell, the defendant who represented himself throughout the case, was accused of copyright infringement for sharing music over the KaZaA P2P network. Howell denied the charges, saying that the music MediaSentry saw in his shared folder was for his own private use.
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