The 14,000 P2P users who have been recently sued for alleged illegal file-sharing may end up having the cases against them dismissed because of a technicality.
Rosemary Collyer, one of the federal judges overseeing the US Copyright Group cases in Washington, DC has ruled that because defendants in the cases reside all over the United States, the DC court may not have jurisdiction over many of them.
"These defendants appear to live outside of Washington, DC," Collyer stated. "Mr. Ansell lists an address in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Wright lists one in Oregon. Because they live elsewhere, it is questionable whether Mssrs. Ansell and Wright have had sufficient contact with the District of Columbia to warrant this Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over them. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that Plaintiff shall SHOW CAUSE, no later than September 30, 2010, why this case should not be dismissed against Mr. Ansell and Mr. Wright for lack of personal jurisdiction."
Despite the jurisdiction issue, however, the cases could still move forward even if the DC court will not hear them. While it will be a much more expensive endeavor, the US Copyright group does have the option of filing lawsuits in a defendant’s local area once they are identified by the ISP and their location is known.
What strikes me about these cases is that they can be filed before the identity and location of the defendant is known. After the cases are filed, a subpoena is then sent to the ISPs in order to identify the owners of the offending IP addresses. It just all seems a bit backwards to me. Also, something tells me that if the RIAA and MPAA are willing to spend millions of dollars lobbying the government to get their way, they will probably be willing to spend the extra money to re-file all of these cases in their local jurisdictions.
