RIAA can't look at your hard drive

Filed in archive Legal on March 26, 2006

A judge ruled that RIAA cannot inspect a consumer's hard drive, as RIAA requested, and instead allowed only a limited search by a neutral third party.

Here is more from Ray Beckerman's blog:

We've received a report that in Atlantic v. Andersen, where the RIAA made a motion to compel complete access to Tanya Andersen's computer to make a "mirror image" of her hard drive, federal judge Donald Ashmanskas declined to allow that, and instead granted Ms. Andersen's request to appoint a neutral expert who would be given a specific list of files and an identified protocol to review her computer.

The RIAA had proposed using "specialized tools and methods" along with "licensed software" and a "special device" to accomplish their review by private forensic expert. The judge did not feel that both parties interests were adequately protected with this process.