Dom

Not too long ago, civil liberties groups aiming to protect peer-to-peer networks like Napster and Kazaa were happy to dispense some free legal advice to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Instead of trying to shutter P2P networks and outlawing a blossoming form of technology, the RIAA's lawyers should sue the specific individuals who were violating copyright law, groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge suggested.

In April 2002, EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann suggested that "a few targeted lawsuits would get the message across." von Lohmann also said that P2P users "are the ones who are the alleged pirates. If this fight were really about stopping piracy, you would have expected some pirate to actually be sued."

Now that RIAA has called that bluff and announced it will in fact start suing some of the more swap-happy P2P pirates as soon as next week, civil liberties groups are less supportive of the idea. With the threat of lawsuits looming, the EFF is now on the pulpit deriding heavy-handed litigation tactics and handing out how-not-to-get-sued advice on its Web site.

A change of tune? Nope, says Wendy Seltzer, an attorney for the San Francisco-based nonprofit group. "Those quotes are half the story Fred was saying at the time," Seltzer says. Suing individuals is "at least a more appropriate direction for their lawsuits, but it has the potential to turn all those people who are accused of direct infringement into critics of the system."

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