The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA, if you’re nasty) has quietly dropped a two-year file-swapping lawsuit against Joan Cassin. The news demonstrates that the RIAA is finding itself more and more on shaky legal ground, and begins to raise even more questions about its tactic for identifying and prosecuting individual file-sharers. The case, Warner v. Cassin, was voluntarily dropped without explanation, although RIAA attorney Ray Beckerman made a reference to Cassin’s challenge of the dodgy “making available” argument.

The foundation of many of the RIAA’s file-sharing cases is that simply making content available online constitutes infringement. The RIAA outsources companies to download files from an individual’s Upload folder to demonstrate that the person is illegally file-sharing. Now that defendants are successfully challenging the making available argument, the RIAA is folding its poker bluff, and moving on.

The Future: Is this the beginning of the end of the RIAA’s lawsuits?