February 8, 2005. 10 months after the alleged infringement.

Verizon, the ISP, responds to a subpoena from RIAA. Verizon received 95 requests and is only able to resolve 61 of them. Unfortunately for kimberly Arellanes, her name pops up as one of the ones identified.

Verizon says "No session information exists" for about 35% of alleged offenses. So 1 in 3 cases, at least through Verizon, die before they turn into a lawsuit. Using this figure at a national level, since there have been 20,000 actual lawsuits initiated, that means about 30,000 alleged infringements were actually investigated.

A 35% loss points to a significant amount of lost, unavailable, mismanaged, or inaccurate data and user authentication logs. It can indicate that the remaining records are not totally accurate and therefore invalid in a court of law. This could explain the empirical evidence that many RIAA lawsuits are served on the wrong parties.

The accuracy of ISP logs could represent another area where RIAA's evidence could be attacked. I have not studied or seen research in this area, and so can't say. There normally are plenty of holes in RIAA's cases. So this isn't critical. But another hole can't hurt.

What is important to note here is that Verizon caved to RIAA. There was no court order demanding it turn over customer records. The customer, Mrs. Arellanes, was not contacted. She was not given an opportunity to respond to the allegations or to defend herself against the subpoena, and never notified of the release of confidential information. Verizon likely violated one or more privacy and customer policies in the process. Verizon's actions were unethical if not illegal. At a mininum Verizon placed the interests of a third party above that of an actual customer. They certainly are not your friend.

P2P CEO and blogger Marc Freedman serves as an expert consultant and witness in Sony BMG et al v. Kimberly Arellanes, a United States Federal music copyright infringement lawsuit. Stay tuned here as he follows the case with news, background, and observations. More information on the case and an index and timeline of blog entries can be found at Save Our Music and the Arrelanes page.