Record companies drop suit against alleged file sharer in precedent-setting case

Record companies in the US dropped a case against a woman they claimed was illegally sharing music files after she successfully argued that they couldn’t prove that she had downloaded illegal music.

The record labels, including Virgin, Sony BMG, and Warner Brothers, demanded $3500 from her, but her lawyers argued that despite the presence of illegal music files on her computer, it could not be proven that she had downloaded them herself.

Part of the argument was that as she had a Wi-Fi system set up in her house, anyone within range could have used her connection to download music.

Her lawyers also said that since she was a cheerleading teacher and had cheerleaders frequently through her house, any one of them could have had access to the computer to download music files.

This case could set a precedent in the US that would seriously weaken record companies’ legal basis for prosecuting alleged file sharers.

Via

The Register