In opposition papers served yesterday in Elektra v. Barker in Manhattan federal court, the RIAA has argued that merely making files "available for distribution" is in and of itself a copyright violation.

Were the courts to accept this misguided view of copyright law, it could mean that anyone who has had a shared files folder, even for a moment, that contained copyrighted files in it, would be guilty of copyright infringement, even though the copies in the folder were legally obtained, and even though no illegal copies had ever been made of them.

I am one of the attorneys for Ms. Barker.