Judge Rejects RIAA 'Making Available' Theory
Found on Slashdot on Sunday, 24 February 2008
A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely - as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas - upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you did. That's like charging someone with murder without actually delivering any reliable proof.