RIAA fights for 93 user names

The Recording Industry Association of America is fighting in court to obtain the names of 93 file swappers from US cable company Charter Communications.

The RIAA has demanded a federal court block Charter's attempts to protect the identities of its subscribers.

On Friday, the trade organisation filed a court memorandum opposing Charter's "motion to quash" a subpoena request for the names. The RIAA charges that Charter is unlawfully withholding the identities of its high-speed internet subscribers who, it says, disseminated more than 100,000 copyrighted songs in peer-to-peer communities such as Kazaa without the permission of rights holders.

Among other arguments, the RIAA is denying claims by Charter that it has not filed proper documentation to receive the detailed information on alleged infringers, including their names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

The filing says: "Charter...has the IP addresses of the 93 infringers, a subpoena validly issued...a declaration complying with all of the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] requirements, and notices listing copyrighted works illegally disseminated by each infringer. Charter claims instead that the DMCA requires RIAA to fill out 93 different subpoena forms that will differ only as to the IP address [for each infringer]...Charter's goal is transparent - to increase the paperwork burden on copyright holders."

The memorandum, submitted to the US Eastern District Court in St. Louis, was filed a week after Charter motioned to quash a subpoena for the names. In doing so, Charter became the first cable company to fight the RIAA in its campaign to target peer-to-peer song swappers with lawsuits.

Telecommunications companies, such as Verizon Communications, have taken similar measures against the RIAA without success.

Stefanie Olsen writes for News.com