] A U.S. federal appeals court has dealt the RIAA a long
] awaited kick to the groin in its pursuit of file
] swappers, saying the music label lobby group can no
] longer force Internet providers to turn over their
] customers names.
]
]
] The Friday ruling from a three-judge panel hearing the
] case for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of
] Columbia is likely to slow down the RIAA (Recording
] Industry Association of America) hunt for file swappers.
] The judges have blocked the pigopolist mob from being
] able to subpoena users' names from ISPs. This decision
] overturns a district court ruling earlier this year that
] ordered Verizon to give up the goods on its customers.
]
]
] "We conclude . . . as Verizon contends, a subpoena may be
] issued only to an ISP engaged in storing on its servers
] material that is infringing or the subject of infringing
] activity," the court wrote.

w00t!

] It is not the province of the courts, however, to rewrite
] the DMCA in order to make it fit a new and unforseen
] internet architecture, no matter how damaging that
] development has been to the music industry or threatens
] being to the motion picture and software industries.

Its been hard to find an article that really explained what was decided here. This is not really a victory. This isn't a judge saying "DMCA" subpoenas are illegal. This is a judge saying they only apply to content you are hosting on someone else's computer; Congress didn't envision P2P when they wrote the DMCA.

While in the short term this trips up the RIAA, if this decision holds it simply means that they need to go back to Congress and ask for even broader powers. Is there any doubt that after Congress has loosened the rule of law time after time after time for the benefit of their friends in the media industry that they will fail to do it again? No, they will pass another law, with more broad subpoena powers, and a lot of other nasty stuff that they'll add in while they're at it.

Stop celebrating and get ready to fight. Only if the RIAA fails to gain new powers can this be considered a victory.