The RIAA has recently dropped a pair of cases against accused filesharers almost immediately after the defendants offered up the fact that they used a wireless network thaat was open to anyone in their neighborhood. IP addresses are the meat of the RIAA’s filesharing cases, and since they knew it was possible that they could lose in court since these folks had opened their network to the world, the RIAA dropped the charges rather than set a precedent for others to get off in the future.

Of course, it’s a helluva gamble to rely on this as your primary defense if you get caught downloading Clerks II and Monster House, but it’s definitely interesting.

For years, the RIAA has claimed that having the IP address of a computer that has shared unauthorized files is the equivalent of having the evidence of who was actually sharing files. That, of course, is false. The IP address simply can help you know who paid for the Internet access, but not who was using what computer on a network. In fact, this even had some people suggesting that, if you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you”re best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors.

Full story here.

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