By Ted Hearn in MultiChannel News:
"A Federal Appeals Court ruled Tuesday that Charter Communications Inc. was served with illegal subpoenas as part of an effort by the music industry to obtain the names of high-speed-data subscribers suspected of illegally swapping songs over the Internet.
The decision was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which held that Charter was not required to comply with the subpoenas because the cable company had acted as a disinterested conduit that file swappers utilized allegedly to exchange copyrighted material.
“With its ruling, the [court] has concurred with our belief that no statutory basis exists for the issuance of subpoenas requiring the disclosure of customer information to the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] by Charter,” Charter spokesman David Andersen said in a prepared statement."
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