One of the most closely-watched copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA appears to be coming to a screeching halt, much to the music industry's delight. A judge ruled Monday that a defendant had willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence of his P2P activities after being notified of pending legal action by the RIAA. Furthermore, since it was done in bad faith, it "therefore warrants appropriate sanctions."

The order in Atlantic v. Howell was issued at the end of a pretrial conference held in an Arizona courtroom. Jeffery Howell, the defendant who represented himself throughout the case, was accused of copyright infringement for sharing music over the KaZaA P2P network. Howell denied the charges, saying that the music MediaSentry saw in his shared folder was for his own private use.

Howell won a major victory against the RIAA this past April, when a judge rejected the RIAA's cornerstone legal theory that simply making a file available on P2P network constituted copyright infringement. Judge Neil V. Wake denied the RIAA's motion for summary judgment, ruling that "a distribution must involve a 'sale or other transfer of ownership' or a 'rental, lease, or lending' of a copy of the work. The recording companies have not proved an actual distribution of 42 of the copyrighted sound recordings at issue, so their motion for summary judgement fails as to those recordings."

After that ruling, it appeared as though Atlantic v. Howell was headed for a bench trial this fall, but at the end of July, the record labels filed a motion seeking judgment in their favor due to what they characterized as Howell's attempts to cover his tracks. According to the RIAA's brief, Howell destroyed evidence on four separate occasions after first receiving the prelitigation settlement letter and later being served with the lawsuit. The RIAA's forensics experts found that Howell uninstalled KaZaA and deleted everything in the shared folder, reformatted his hard drive, downloaded and used a file-wiping program, and then nuked all the KaZaA logs on his PC. "Defendant's intentional spoliation of computer evidence significantly prejudices Plaintiffs because it puts the most relevant evidence of their claim permanently beyond their reach," argued the RIAA. "The deliberate destruction... by itself, compels the conclusion that such evidence supported Plaintiffs' case."

Judge Wake agreed with the RIAA, and will inform Howell of his fate (and presumably the amount of damages he'll have to pay) in a forthcoming written order.

Howell elected to defend himself in the case due to his limited financial resources and the difficulty in finding a lawyer who would take the case with the possibility of not getting paid at the end. "What this really underscores is how difficult it is for individuals who can't afford counsel to defend themselves," EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann told Ars. "He never had an adequate opportunity to explain what happened on his PC, while the RIAA had forensics experts and lawyers to tell the story. I think if Howell had an expert and lawyer to speak for him, he would have told a different story."

von Lohmann became involved in the case back in January when the EFF filed a brief on the making available issue. von Lohmann told Ars that he also tried to find Howell a lawyer, but failed due to Howell's inability to pay as well as the law firms that might otherwise take such a case as a "training exercise" deciding not to once they realized that they'd be facing the likes of Sony and the other Big Four labels. "Lawyers who do cases for free aren't willing to make enemies," said von Lohmann.

It appears that the RIAA's case against Howell will end in much the same way that the MPAA's lawsuit against TorrentSpy did: with the defendant ordered to pay damages due to mucking with the evidence. TorrentSpy was ordered to pay $110 million in damages to the MPAA after the judge found that the site's admins had intentionally destroyed evidence. So while opponents of the RIAA's legal campaign did win a very significant ruling out of the Atlantic v. Howell case, they've also learned another lesson. Once you're sued by the RIAA, reformatting your hard drive and nuking your P2P apps is likely to get you in hot water with the judge.