U.S. Sides With RIAA on Disclosing Identities

The Bush administration is siding with the recording industry in its court fight to force Internet providers to disclose the identities of people who are illegally trading songs over the Web.

A Justice Department brief, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, supports the effort by the Recording Industry Assn. of America to force Verizon Internet Services Inc. to identify a subscriber suspected of offering more than 600 songs from well-known artists.

Verizon has asked a federal judge to halt a subpoena seeking the subscriber’s identity, arguing that it violates the 1st Amendment because it does not provide “protection of the expressive and associational interests of Internet users.”

The subpoena was sought by the music industry under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows companies to force disclosure of Internet users’ names without a judge’s order.

The Justice Department filing said the subpoena was legal and no 1st Amendment protection would be violated through disclosure of the name.

A federal judge now must decide the constitutional issue, which is viewed as an important test of the 1998 law’s applicability in Internet copyright cases.