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RIAA: "we have no choice" but to file more named lawsuits

By Nate Anderson | 6 May 2009

The RIAA said it would file no more "new" lawsuits against individual file-swappers, but it filed more such lawsuits in April. How to explain the apparent contradiction? By defining "new" in a particular way.

The RIAA's lawsuit campaign against individual file-sharers never quite seems to wrap up, and as long as the music labels continue filing their suits, stories about how the RIAA is a lying collection of lying liars (who lie) aren't going to die either.

Such a story came yesterday from Ray Beckerman, the lawyer who runs the Recording Industry vs. The People blog. Beckerman noted that the music labels had filed new cases in April, despite their claim to Congress (and Ars) that they had stopped "initiating new lawsuits" in August 2008. That claim, says Beckerman, was a "total fabrication," and the continued court filings prove it.

The answer remains (as it has every time we've covered this issue) that the RIAA did not pledge to stop filing legal documents. The group's own definition of "new cases" does not include those that were already in process as "John Doe" cases or where settlement letters had already gone out.

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