The US government hauled two members of the "most notorious Internet 'release' group of the last decade" into court this month for a trial—but when it ended on Friday, both men walked away free.

The two men were Adil Cassim of California and Matthew Chow of Texas. According to the government, both had been active members of a prelease ripping groups called "Rabid Neurosis" (RNS). RNS existed from 1997 through 2007, at which point members hastily dissolved after European police snatched one of their servers. In the decade of its existence, RNS released nearly 18,000 copyrighted sound recordings onto the Internet, many of them before their official release.

The group was allegedly headed by Cassim, who went by the handle "Kali." The group's rippers included radio DJs, buyers who purchased albums from stores or countries with early release dates, and a pair of workers at a North Carolina CD manufacturing plant that made discs for Universal.

As for Chow, he came aboard the pirate ship around 2000, and was first asked to spice up the art in the group's .nfo files included with each RNS rip. Later, he allegedly served as a ripper, buying discs legally the day they were released and then ripping and uploading them.

"Private financial gain"

While we focus most commonly on civil copyright infringement lawsuits and the massive damages at issue in those cases, this case was a bit different. This time, the federal government went after RNS and hit the group's members with criminal conspiracy charges (max of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine, along with possible restitution). According to US law, such charges could be brought only if a person's behavior was done for one of the following three reasons:

For purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain

By the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of one or more copies or phonorecords of one or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000

By the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution

Note that the government did not charge anyone with actual counts of copyright infringement; the charge was simply conspiracy, and whether or not the group actually managed to infringe copyrights was a separate matter.

The government alleged that RNS members violated not one, but all three of the legal provisions cited above. The second and third items are fairly clear, but more interesting was the government's insistence that all of this work done for a decade was performed for purposes of "private financial gain." It does not appear that members of the group made money from their work, but the US copyright law so broadly defines "private financial gain that it can apply to "the receipt of other copyrighted works."

The government claimed that RNS members were given access to huge bodies of infringing works from other ripping groups around the globe, including expensive software and movies still in the theater.

The group was busted up in 2007, when FBI agents executed a search warrant on Cassim's house and rounded up other RNS members. Several of those arrested pleaded guilty to the charges and in fact went to trial last week as witnesses for the government, testifying against Cassim and Chow. But Cassim and Chow decided to take their chances at trial, which got underway two weeks ago in a Texas federal court.

Before the trial began, Cassim's lawyers filed an intriguing motion asking the judge to ban the government from using the term "music piracy."

"The term 'music piracy' is not evidentiary and, thus, has no probative value," said the filing. "The term only serves to label the accused a 'pirate,' a highly inflammatory label. Therefore, Cassim asks that the court order the government to refrain from using the term 'music piracy' and to instruct its witnesses not to use the term 'music piracy' in trial." The motion was denied.

The government brought out FBI special agents who had conducted forensic research on Cassim's hard drive. It offered up evidence from an interview with Chow in March 2009 in which he "admitted to purchasing music CDs, copying them, and distributing music to other members of RNS on the Internet." It also featured encrypted IRC chat logs of group members discussing operations and deciding to wind down RNS as the feds moved in.

Not guilty

But last Friday, when the matter was sent to the jury, a unanimous decision came back: not guilty. The government had not met its burden of proof on the conspiracy charge.