back in April 2006. The motion for dismissal was filed last month and it was approved on June 4 by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
As expected, RIAA decided to pull over the lawsuit fearing it didn’t have a solid case. Or even a case. The legal battle against Cassin started after RIAA’s MediaSentry program detected a Kazaa account linked to the defendant that was sharing several hundred files. The lawsuit followed, but then RIAA’s lawyers came face to face with a major problem: they had no evidence to back their accusations of copyright infringement.
Cassin did put up those files in the share folder, but RIAA couldn’t prove that the files had actually been distributed. No distribution proof, no case.
The organization already had a couple of cases being thrown out on the same reason and a third such mishap could be the starting point of a dangerous precedent for RIAA, which could’ve been used by other defendants to get favorable sentences.
The case was dismissed "without prejudice," so each party will pay for the legal services, while the plaintiffs reserve the right to sue Cassin again if more evidence just happens to pop up. On the other hand, Cassin could very well sue RIAA and turn the whole story into a very interesting case.