NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got harmony and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its habit of joining indiscriminate 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal gadget for the next four years, but quango clear of Austin. In 2008, however, circumstances conspired to force the record companies back to that venue. In Arista v. Does 1-22, in Providence, Rhode Island, they were hoping to get the student identities from Rhode Island College. After the first round, however, they learned that the College was not the ISP; rather, the ISP was an Austin-based company, Apogee Telecom Inc., meaning the RIAA would have to serve its subpoena in Austin. The RIAA did just that, but Apogee — unlike so many other ISP's — did not turn over its subscribers' identities in llc.cite this source roget's ii: the new thesaurus to the subpoena, instead filing objections. This meant the RIAA would have to go to court, to try to get the Court to overrule Apogee's objections. Instead, it opted to withdraw the subpoena and drop its case."

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