RIAA lawsuit "pipeline" not empty

Just because the Recording Industry Association of America isn’t launching any more copyright infringement lawsuits doesn’t mean an end to court summonses and complaints.

As recently as December 29, a resident of Canton, Mass. was served a complaint and summons for copyright infringement, with the plaintiffs listed as UMG Recordings, Inc., et all. Record companies such as Universal Media Group typically file the lawsuits when the RIAA is involved.

The music industry trade group announced in December that it will no longer prosecute individuals for copyright violations, but later clarified that it will continue on with any lawsuits still in the "pipeline."

It may appear that the latest lawsuit reveals otherwise, but Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said in an e-mail that the summons is not the first step in the process. These cases begin against a "Jane Doe," until the trade group can get the defendant’s name by serving a subpoena to the Internet Service Provider. Once the defendant is identified, he or she has an opportunity to settle before the RIAA files a lawsuit with actual names.

Duckworth said the RIAA was telling the truth when it said no new cases have been started since August, meaning that no new "Jane Doe" cases were filed after that date. She declined to answer questions on how long the pipeline of lawsuits will last for and whether the case in Canton, Mass. is among the final batch.

"But I’d emphasize that our focus is now on our new approach with Internet service providers which we think will provide a more meaningful deterrent moving forward," she said, referring to a proposed "three strikes" program where an ISP would ban users who repeatedly violate copyright laws.

Research by Wired’s Threat Level blog turned up no participating ISPs, but Duckworth then said that it’s just a matter of confidentiality. She reiterated those claims in e-mails to CDFreaks.