In a small victory for personal rights in the never ending battle of copyright violations, a recent court decision has blocked the RIAA from confiscating a defendant's hard drive. The lawsuit was filed by Sony and several other companies against a downloader, and during the course of the case they attempted to get unrestricted access to the person's hard drive, regardless of what content might be on it. Of course, many were outraged by this, considering the amount of personal material that can be stored on any one person's drives.

Instead, a 3rd party forensics group has to be brought in to look for evidence of copyright violation. The ruling will probably impact future cases, since RIAA and companions seem relentless in their struggle against individual downloaders.