Late last week, the RIAA was dealt another setback in its battle against copyright infringement on college campuses in the US. A federal judge denied the record labels' motion to conduct ex parte discovery to determine the identities of seven students at the College of William and Mary, making the task of identifying those targeted by the record labels much more time-consuming.

Ex parte discovery is the music industry's method of choice in its legal campaign against file-sharing, as it allows the RIAA to file a John Doe lawsuit based only on an IP address.

Ars Technica