Source: ARS Technica
By: Eric Bangeman

Students at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic are continuing their fight against the RIAA’s legal tactics. A motion filed earlier this week on behalf of two “John Doe” University of Maine students sued by the RIAA seeks to not only have the John Doe lawsuit filed against the 27 U of M students thrown out, but to bar the RIAA from bringing any such lawsuits in the future.

Previously, the students had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed for what have become “the usual reasons,” including the RIAA’s use of a boilerplate complaint without specific facts to support its case. US Magistrate Judge Margaret J. Kravchuk denied the motion, but expressed concerns that the RIAA was “intentionally flouting” Rule 11, which covers “factual contentions” made to the court by attorneys.

At issue is the RIAA’s practice of clumping a number of Does into a single lawsuit for the sole purpose of serving subpoenas on a single school or ISP. The only relationship between the Does is that they attend the same school or all subscribe to the same broadband provider. The RIAA argues that’s a sufficient relationship for the purposes of its lawsuits, but once it obtains names and addresses, that relationship suddenly disappears as individual lawsuits are filed.

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