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RIAA Adds 23 Colleges to Hit List, Avoids Harvard
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:30 AM
from the actually-has-some-educational-value dept.
from the actually-has-some-educational-value dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike. 'Under the new scheme, the RIAA sends out what it calls 'pre-litigation' settlement letters. Actually, they're self-incrimination documents and they're designed to extort preset amounts of around $3,000 from students with the empty promise that by paying up, they'll remove the threat of being hauled into court on charges of copyright infringement. In reality, all the students are doing is providing the RIAA with personal and private information which can conceivably be used against them ...'"
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Harvard Law Professor Urges University to Fight RIAA 180 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Distinguished Harvard University Law School Professor Charles Nesson has called upon Harvard University to fight back against the RIAA and stand up for its students, writing 'Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement. But these responses distort the University's educational mission. ...[W]e should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students.'"
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Your Rights Online: RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard 159 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of 'early settlement' letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to 'take a hike'. The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."
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Illegal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's think about this logically.
RIAA has a right to sue anyone they think has committed copyright infringement against one of their members. This is because there is a _law_ that was passed by _congress_ supported by the _constitution_ that gives them this right. Unless you completely reject our system of government, you can't argue that a company is evil for suing someon
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. The RIAA has a right to sue anyone against whom they have evidence suggesting copyright infringement against one of their members. In the past, they've sued someone who didn't own a computer [slashdot.org], continued suits knowing their target was not responsible [wikipedia.org], and deliberately target people who would be least able to defend themselves [blogspot.com].
The RIAA doesn't have a track record of playing fair in their suits. They've sued people using very little evidence, and have persisted in their cases, often driving innocent people to settle to avoid legal fees.
I'm currently attending one of the schools on the list (not surprising, considering the rampant amount of file sharing that goes on there). I haven't shared music online since the ninth-circuit court of appeals handed down the Napster decision, but if I'm targeted with one of those letters, I suspect my parents will encourage me to pay up rather than face the stress and legal costs of fighting it.
If they send 20 letters to random college students, they'd probably get 15 settlements and 5 court cases - they would then drag out the 5 court cases as long as possible to drive up the legal costs for the defendants in hopes of reaching a settlement. Once it becomes clear they won't reach a settlement and have very little hope of winning their case, they'll ask to dismiss with prejudice so they can avoid paying the legal fees of the defendant. Of all of the 20 original letters, they probably got $45,000 from the 15 who settled right away, and another $30,000 or so from those who settled after going to court - a pretty good haul for random letters.
The reason I vilify the RIAA is not that they are enforcing their copyright, but because their approach does not necessarily target the guilty, and the innocent have almost as much incentive to settle as the guilty. They can rake in the cash by making it more costly to fight a bogus case than to settle, and it's very rare that they're made to pay legal fees. Now, if they were collecting as much evidence as possible and verifying it before pursuing settlements, you wouldn't hear me complain, but their tactics have been much less admirable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I would disagree, as long as the law is legitimate. If you think that passing laws the way congress does lends them legitimacy, because it allows representation, then it is at least unlikely to be immoral to simply use the rights you're granted under those laws in the way they were intended to be used.
If you think that the system of government, or of legislation, is not legitimate in that sense, then I would agree with you.
I do not believe in the legitimacy of the system, it has been corrupted and the masses are too sheepish to rise up, as is their patriotic duty.
Off the top of my head, the last time a federally-ordered scientific study was done on the reasons for keeping Cannabis in the same legal bracket as heroin, the recommendation was, as it has systematically been for every study in every country for about 40 years, to decriminalize the substance.
However the feds said that since tobacco smoke causes cancer, eating pot
Re:Illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks.
Parent
Re:Illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wish I could mod you up for that. What good does it do to spread the RIAA's top-40 tripe around and give it free publicity? GP(AC) does little more than two favors for the RIAA:
A. Free advertising for their artists, and by extension their cynical business/art model.
2. Support their sue-everyone campaign by showing that everyone has their music, and no one has paid for it.
So we have more people getting sued, more outrage from the clueless and influential over all this 'rampant lawlessness', and a bunch more terrible music coming out of speakers. hooray.
Parent
Shamelessly stolen from bash.org and changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Be patient, my friend! These stupid laws will be dumped on your country really soon.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/19/2
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shamelessly stolen from bash.org and changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're only being accused with no reason to actually believe those accusations?
Parent
They are... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The RIAA may have over-reached this time. I'd be impressed if they can even find Northern Michigan University, let alone transport themselves there.
Hope you boys like US 2!
I Can Only Hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I Can Only Hope... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As a student at one of the named universities, I can only hope, for their sake and for the students', that the schools take a good hard look at their situations and view their internet account holders as paying customers and not criminals upon first accusation (looking at you, University of Kansas!). Throwing their own students in front of the RIAA bus would only lose them potential (and maybe current) students, and all the revenue they represent.
And my hope is that the administrators and legal counsel at your school, and the others, take a good hard look at:
-Interscope v. Does 1-7 [blogspot.com] throwing out the RIAA's motion
-the article by Profs. Nesson and Palfrey [blogspot.com] telling the RIAA to take a hike
-Capitol v. Does 1-16 [blogspot.com] holding that it's impermissible for them to proceed ex parte and
-the article by Prof. Nesson and Wendy Seltzer [blogspot.com] urging Harvard to use its clinical legal programs to resist RIAA subpoenas and defend targeted students.
Re:I Can Only Hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Extortion... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK, legally, corporations have all the rights that a person does. They are essentially a "person". You're a person too, try going to the government and demanding they do anything and see where you get. I remember 10 or 15 years ago, almost half the population of Quebec (that's ~3 million people) wanted to separate from Canada, which ended up in a referendum on the matter
Re:Extortion... (Score:5, Informative)
You must clearly state your grounds for claim and allow the other party reasonable time (weeks to months, usually) to either counter your argument or settle your claim.
If the other party disputes your claim you should attempt to resolve the issue by negotiation before you file. If you make it to court without proof that you attempted to negotiate and the other party claims you refused to enter into negotiations you'll usually get ordered to seek mediation and lose costs as well.
If you have not made steps to solve the matter out of court then you usually cannot take anyone to the civil court. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. This rule exists to prevent every RIAA, Dick and Head from suing every random person for which they can find a name and residential address.
"pre-litigation" letters are the first step before even attending the court registry to file papers.
That said, you also need to be able to identify the person(s)/entity you are filing against along with their residential address. An IP address is not sufficient information to do that. This seems like another RIAA scheme to kill two birds with one stone; fish for information about IP address holders and also cover the pre-litigation step required to actually haul them into the court.
With all that's going on in this industry it makes me sad that so much is being invested in tracking down people who download copyrighted music and movies yet there's millions of unsolved actual crimes including kidnapping, rape and murder each year. What about the drug dealers on the streets?
Q: Why aren't we investing more time and money into catching all the really bad bastards?
A: Because it doesn't help corporate suit-wearing wankers get ever fatter pockets and make ever larger "donations" (s/donations/bribes/) to candidates.
Parent
These letters are quite ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:These letters are quite ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The spy in the sewage.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But getting back to the core of the matter, I have to wonder why colleges are bending over about a matter so core to their own liability:
Colleges 'pirate' thousands of documents every year in a way that is NOT allowed by current US copyright law.. and they want to believe it's students.. not professors downloading papers that their library hasn't subscribed to? Taking a hard line on music copyright will only kill the colleges that take it up! They won't only drive away students... but also professors who suddenly can't do their research because of miserable libraries (BU COUGH).
The letter is more dangerous for RIAA than student (Score:3, Interesting)
And It's not just the RIAA (Score:5, Informative)
IP Evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Elsewhere on the website, Mike O'Donnell, a University of Chicago law professor, gives a good discussion [p2pnet.net] of why the RIAA's policy of identifying people solely by their "unique" IP address is a load of crap. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't used this kind of a defense when the RIAA targets them. Maybe it's because it's not well-known knowledge yet?
In any case, I'm glad that I'm living off-campus next year as my university is on that list and is now notorious for its one strike policy. WTF is up with the idiots in Kansas anyways?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Harvard Deliberately Omitted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like how they "deliberately omitted" the 5,673 other schools not in the list of 23 they didn't omit?
Seems strange to assume that the RIAA is scared just because they picked other targets. They're choices in every other instance seem completely random, why would this one be any different?
This is like saying that MIT is "conspicuously absent" and claiming it is because MIT refused to log traffic for the RIAA on their internal network because of the sheer technical insanity of the request. Correlation != causation.
Another RIAA mistake? (Score:3, Informative)
Add to that the fact that no proceedings exist until the RIAA has all your personal details I think it'll be harder creating something that will stand a chance in Court, especially since recent rulings where judges have started to ask the RIAA to follow proper legal process instead of trying to selectively dodge the bits that allow a recipient to ask some rather painful questions. Oh, and why are people asked to self-incriminate?
Copyright infringement is *not* good, but there's such a thing as proof and due process. Even if that is inconvenient, it has to be followed.
With rights come obligations - on both sides.
Each time I read about the RIAA on Slashdot... (Score:4, Informative)
We worked our way up from East End pubs
To gigs and back stage passes
Ex-boxing champs, West End clubs
Americans in dark glasses
Driving ten grand cars, they drink in hotel bars
They're even making money in bed
They wouldn't be no loss, they ain't worth a toss
It's about time they all dropped dead.
[Chorus]
Take 'em all, take 'em all
Put 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em
Short and tall, watch 'em fall
Come on boys take 'em all
Well tough shit boys, it ain't our fault
Your record didn't make it
We made you dance, you had your chance
But you didn't take it
Well, I gotta go make another deal
Sign another group for the company
I don't suppose we'll ever meet again
You'd better get back to the factory.
[Chorus]
Take 'em all, watch 'em fall [x4]
[Chorus Repeat...]
K.U. not O.K. (Score:5, Insightful)
So I lawyers trained at Harvard Law Degree are pretty sharp. All it took from them was a sternly written letter back, presumably quoting the L.A.W..
Colleges that cave-in should consider, what sort of a message does it send prospective students? "Get your law degree with us, and you too can learn how to fold like a wimp" Probably not the best places to learn about Constitutional Rights.
Extortion, pure and simple (Score:4, Interesting)
We've seen ample evidence that an IP address does not necessarily correlate to an individual. In an actual court case, the RIAA would have to also show that copyrighted material exists on the computer in question (through an actual forensic search of the hard drive), that the files were placed in a shared folder that can be accessed by others, that those same files have been actually distributed to others through a P2P network, that no one else has access to the computer in question, that the person in question was actually the one who placed the material there and that the computer has not been compromised through hacking of any kind, etc., etc., etc. WAY easier just to extort a quick $3K a pop through fear.
I wonder why certain schools are targeted, and certain individuals at that school. Are certain universities passed over because they have a law school? A savvy law or pre-law student may well see through the bullshit and give the RIAA a run for its money in court. (And may well have relatives who are lawyers and/or sympathetic professors willing to knowledgably defend them.) Someone in another message said that 30 letters had been sent to the college he works at. Now, unless that is one tiny little college, I find it hard to believe that only 30 students file-share. I wonder if they target specific schools and dorms within those schools because of the type of students likely to be caught up in the dragnet? (I.e., naive freshman, yes; senior pre-law student, no.)
It's not for nothing that so many of you refer to the RIAA as the MAFIAA. The tactics are the same. Tell me, who does the Mafia go after when they run a protection or extortion racket? The big corporation with a bevy of lawyers and a lot of power and influence? Or the small businessman, the store owner who has few resources, barely keeps his head above water, and may well be an immigrant of questionable status or otherwise afraid of losing what little he has? Bingo -- they go after the weak, ignorant, and vulnerable.
The RIAA has been VERY lucky so far in that they have only in a few cases gone after the "wrong" sort of target that will fight back. No matter how careful they are, hopefully sooner or later they will hit a few more people who can really make trouble for them.
Let's help out the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey Everybody... let's all get together and help out our favorite greedy, draconian, ass monkeys!
Is there anybody out there who'd like to instigate an attack against Yale, Harvard, and the rest of the Ivy League in the name of the RIAA? I mean if they're so hot to trot, smacking colleges up side the head, they should go straight after the big guys! Put them in their place. Put the fear of God into the rest of the Universities in this country! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Someone needs to make them put up, or shut up.
Either their case has merits, and therefore they should be going after every college... or it is groundless, and they're guilty of frivolous lawsuits in the name of extorting those least able to protect themselves from legal harassment. So we need to all step up and let them know, that they can't just go around picking on smaller schools and weaking institutions.
The RIAA wants to poke a horets nest with a stick, they should get all the stinging their money can buy!
Re:Harvard may have clout but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. Charlie Neesan is not just "a professor". He's a law professor that started the Berkmen Center for Law and Technology. He's the last guy in America the RIAA wants to annoy. Where do you think Lessig got his ieas on coyright from? He was a student of Charlie's. Charlie is way cool.
Neesan's point is simple and quite legal: the RIAA should not outsource their investigation to universities.
Parent
Re:Harvard may have clout but... (Score:4, Funny)
Harvard will be the RIAA's Vietnam; fighting a guy called Charlie :)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Harvard may have clout but... (Score:5, Informative)
No, but one of those professors at Harvard is former Governor of Massachussetts William Weld(R).
Can you say "we better not piss off the politicians and people with strong connections"?
I knew you could.
--
BMO
Parent
Berklee is ignored (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear about lawsuits and letters against students at many other area schools (BU, BC, etc), but Berklee has always been kept out of it. My guess? The RIAA doesn't want to cause more "real enemies" from their artists. Each year, Berklee kicks out one or two groups
Re:To a New York Country Lawyer (Score:5, Informative)
Similarly, if RIAA tries to sue the student, the student can claim extortion based on false information, even if the student had been downloading music and sharing the same.
The law works for the student's benefit too.
Get a lawer like Ray Beckermann (am not benefitted by this recommendation), or someone good enough and sue RIAA under RICO for sending threatening letters demanding payment.
You don't even need to understand the language written, just highlight words like "sue", "$3000", "failure to pay", etc. with a highlighter and say to the Judge that you received an anonymous note under your door and demand protection.
Parent
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, as much as I'd like to be, I can't say I'm shocked in the least. At this point, the MAFIAA is little more than an extortion ring, trying to squeeze money from wherever you can. "Well, Mr. Dean, you have such a lovely list of students at this college. It'd be a SHAME if a dozen of them were to suddenly drop out because they were sued into oblivion, all because you wouldn't cooperate..."
This isn't about copyright anymore. This isn't about Intellectual Property anymore. This is about a group of thugs in suits trying to use the judicial system to make a quick buck wherever and whenever they can, regardless of the legality or morality of it.
Parent
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Informative)
Thus far, two of my friends have been accused of file sharing by the University and neither of them even do it. Most of my friends DO share music, and those ones haven't gotten caught yet. Of course, neither of my friends who did get "caught" were allowed to appeal the decision so they both had to pay IT services $100 to "clean" their computers (the cost was regardless of whether or not anything was found) and they lost their internet access for a month.
Parent
For those too lazy to read: (Score:4, Informative)
State University of New York at Morrisville
Georgia Institute of Technology
Pennsylvania State University
University of Central Arkansas
University of Delaware
Northern Michigan University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
George Washington University
Ohio State University
New Mexico State University
Eckerd College
University of Minnesota
California State University - Monterey Bay
University of Kansas
University of Missouri - Rolla
University of San Francisco
Case Western Reserve University
Northern Arizona University
San Francisco State University
University of Tulsa
Franklin and Marshall College
Western Kentucky University
and Santa Clara University.
Parent
Re:For those too lazy to read: (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What is it that the RIAA is looking for if we had a legal way to download music?
Um...money?
Maybe I'm not understanding the question.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They are selectively prosecuting people who have the least means to defend themselves (such as college students), and are using tactics like ex parte prosecution, insisting on deposing ten year old girls face-to-face, and a host of other evils. Plus, copyright terms have gotten to be absolutely ridiculous.
If copyright terms were only, say, 20 years and the RIAA used