RIAA Still Feels Entitled To Scour Hard Drives

Ever since the RIAA started taking on file sharing, it's always acted as if it were entitled to all sorts of things it isn't: access to the names associated with IP addresses without filing lawsuits, private info on the people they're suing and even the aid of the FBI in what's clearly a civil, not criminal, dispute. What's amusing about this is that the entertainment industry likes to accuse those who push for a fairer balance in intellectual property laws as having a "sense of entitlement" to free stuff. The latest case involves someone accused of file sharing. The RIAA wants to examine her computer, and for very good reasons, she feels uncomfortable with just letting them scour her hard drive. As a compromise her lawyers suggested a neutral expert -- which seems much more reasonable. Instead, as Nick Burns submits to us, the RIAA has filed a response explaining why they will not accept a neutral independent forensics expert. It's difficult to see how they can legitimately complain about a neutral person examining the drive. However, this isn't the first time this has happened. The last time, the judge actually went in the other direction entirely, telling the accused that she could just hire her own expert to examine her drive, and the RIAA should pay for it.