MI court rejects P2P suit

Could it be a precedent - a court tossing out a lawsuit against a parent who didn't know anything about file-sharing? That's what happened in Michigan, according to BNA Internet Law's email newsletter. The Recording Industry Assoc. of America (RIAA) withdrew its suit against a woman "when it became clear that the woman had no experience or knowledge of computers. The court denied an attempt to relaunch the case against the woman's 13-year old daughter." Here's the decision in pdf format. I've seen no statistics showing what percentage of the RIAA's some 14,000 lawsuits to date are against parents of file-sharers, but I suspect it's a significant portion. Here's MP3newswire on the growing "club" of parents who've decided to go to court instead of settle with the RIAA. "Not one person has ever been found guilty of file-sharing, or of anything else," writes Jon Newton. "And that's because, until Patricia Santangelo [in New York] came along [as the first parent to go to court], not one person had been willing to risk going up against the labels. This in turn has meant no one has appeared before a judge and no alleged case of 'file-sharing' has ever been taken to its conclusion." The Michigan case BNA cites hasn't yet been reported.