University of Washington Will Aid RIAA 406
Several readers let us know that the University of Washington has announced that it will pass on RIAA settlement offer letters to students identified, presumably by IP address, as suspected file sharers. "The notices say offending students have 20 days to settle with the association by paying it about $3,000 to $5,000 or be taken to court without possibility of a settlement." The Vice Provost for Student Life sent an email to all students saying, "The University has been notified by the RIAA that we will be receiving a number of these early settlement letters. After careful consideration, we have decided to forward the letters to the alleged copyright violators."
Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Those of you calling colleges "spineless", would you rather the kids were blindsided by the legal system instead?
--saint
How can the University be certain (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather have the University give the students a head up and tell them that the University is doing all they can to help the students, instead of aid the music industry. The University should look after their interests: the students.
How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:1, Insightful)
So is it just one group who thinks that indivuals shouldnt be sued and a different group who thinks that the companies should be immune? How should the RIAA protect its intellectual property rights? Is it just a fundamental belief on here that copyright holders should have no recourse against violaters?
Re:Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:4, Insightful)
While I think the old model of the music industry is dieing and mp3s will eventually all be free, you already had that information before you went to the presentation. "Listen kid, every band signed on to a RIAA label is backed by rabid lawyers. The bands that made the music have a right to decide what to do with it, and they chose to sign on to labels that sue fans. Don't buy or steal their music. Even if you don't get called into court there is no sense in supporting a band that would allow their management to abuse their fans. If you want music to be free support and listen to free music."
of course what kid ever listened to their parents about music?
suspected == guilty (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps the folks at the University of Washington simply don't feel comfortable using their network as a haven for illegal filesharing. Seriously, if it was my network I would do the same thing. I'd send out a flier to all of the students telling them that the University would cooperate with the RIAA and then I'd watch network utilization drop. There will be some students that are so ridiculously retarded that they continue to use the university network to distribute files on unencrypted networks, but they aren't likely to be the sort of folks that you want graduating from your institution anyhow. No screening process is perfect, and this simply adds one more failsafe in the UW's screen processing. Think of it as one of those signs keeping small children off of rides ad Disneyland.
You must be at least this smart to graduate from the U of W.
I can sort of understand why it is that the ISPs shield their customers. After all, downloading illegal content is one of the primary draws of broadband connections. To a certain extent ISPs profit off of illegal filesharing. Universities, on the other hand, aren't selling bandwidth, but are instead paying for it.
Don't get me wrong, I personally think the RIAA is evil. However, I don't think that distributing the RIAA's copyrighted material illegally is the best use of the University of Washington's resources, or even the best way to bring down the RIAA.
Re:This just in... (Score:4, Insightful)
No students = No Money = No School = No Bandwidth.
Schools should have a backbone and tell the RIAA to fuck off. After all the RIAA wont sue something that has money and resources to dedicate to a fight like a school or big company (like schools or the RIAA)
Re:result of years of lawsuits against custumers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
So is it just one group who thinks that indivuals shouldnt be sued and a different group who thinks that the companies should be immune? How should the RIAA protect its intellectual property rights? Is it just a fundamental belief on here that copyright holders should have no recourse against violaters?
I don't think anyone on Slashdot is against the RIAA going after copyright violators it's just how they are going about doing it that bothers people. The RIAA is exploiting the ignorance of the justice system in order to get what it wants. Also, they seem to mostly go after those who lack the ability to adequately defend themselves. Then when someone does try to defend themselves the RIAA tries to have the case dismissed.
The RIAA has shown time and time again that their methodology to figure out who is infringing on copyright is flawed at best. I would have no problem with them going after someone if they brought more to the table than just a screenshot with an IP address or at least were held more accountable for when they are wrong. Their so called expert was anything but and they have sued dead people, minors, and those who have never even owned a computer.
Going after college students is just another extension of this. Lets say the RIAA sends some random IP addresses that they know are in use to a university. These are college students, relatively up on todays technology, what do you think is the probability that they will have one or more songs that the RIAA says they have allegedly downloaded? Pretty darn high you think? And if they don't have all of the songs they just say that they deleted them. Just because they have the songs doesn't mean they downloaded/uploaded them from/to a P2P network. Maybe they made a digital copy of a CD they own. So while you ask how can the RIAA protect its property rights I ask how do I protect my rights?
Re:Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:4, Insightful)
University is Heavily Funded.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps this is a good lesson about the perils of privatized funding?
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are kidding right.
The University of Washington is heavily subsidized by the government. The students aren't paying for bandwidth, taxpayers are paying for bandwidth, and I can guarantee you that they aren't paying for the bandwidth so that college students can distribute the latest pop albums.
Besides, why precisely should the schools get tangled up with the RIAA. The University of Washington has copyrighted material that it wants protected, why should it aid students in distributing someone else's copyrighted materials illegally? I can't believe that *all* Universities, or at least all public Universities, don't do the same thing. When you consider the wasted bandwidth, and the increased likelihood of viruses and other malware that invariably follow online filesharing it is a wonder that this isn't the status quo.
I don't like the RIAA either, but I protest by not listening to its copyrighted material, not by trying to make their material even more popular by distributing its wares.
Re:result of years of lawsuits against custumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that a typical college student has zero cash to spare for a settlement, let alone to fight back and proclaim their innocence if they do get accidentally snagged? It's a disaster waiting to happen, and woe betide any Uni who not only finds that an innocent student was hit, but that said student fights back... because now (IIRC) the RIAA and UW may wind up on the wrong end of a lawsuit. (Unless the Uni would be willing to help defend any provable innocent students who accidentally get targeted).
* yes, I said notoriously insecure. When one can literally sit across the street from a major university in Utah (I won't mention which) with a Pringles Can rig and get full Internet access in no time flat, it can't be secure... and odds are VERY good that they aren't alone in having such gaping holes in their network.
Re:result of years of lawsuits against custumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This just in... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I have an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
> to its users.
This is hard to do. I used to work for a university - they didn't habitually identify users, but for various purposes (hacked computers, viruses, people running misconfigured DHCP servers, finding stolen computers, broken equipment), we needed to be able to identify, at least, where a computer is physically on campus.
In order to do this, we used a number of techniques. If a computer is plugged in to the LAN, then we could see its MAC address. There was a database of which switchport goes to which wall jack and where that jack is. Many times, this is a dorm room - and at that point, it's pretty easy to ID the user, if necessary. Most of the time we didn't - we'd instead filter their MAC so that when they tried to use the internet they'd get a notice (i.e., 'You have a virus. Please reformat your computer.').
But for those times when it was necessary, if we couldn't pin it down by room, we also had a tool which would keep records of where people logged in to common campus servers from. If you're claiming that that MAC isn't yours and we could see that you'd logged into the mail server daily from there
I'm all for universities protecting their students privacy - but in order to keep everything running, certain measures need to be in place. Sorry.
Re:How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to democracy. In a democracy, the interests of one part of the population are to be balanced with the interests of the other parts. Ideally, this happens by each part of the population electing representatives and watching out what laws get passed, etc.
Copyright law is not one of the ten commandments: It's just a law that some people made up at the time because they thought it might have value. Some people today believe it no longer has the same value, and here on slashdot plenty of people think that. Deal with it, move on.
Academic Freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say Focus on the Family writes a series of letters to the University accusing a "John Doe" embryonic stem cell researcher at the university of violating federal restrictions on the creation of new lines. Mind you, they've shown no real material information that any individual has violated the law, just blanket accusations with flimsy identifying information.
They say to the University "give us personal information on every human embryonic stem cell researcher at the University or we'll subpoena that information."
The University replies: "Well, we can't roll over that easily. Send us letters demanding that the recipient contact you or suffer severe legal concequences, and we'll forward them to everyone working on human embryonic stem cells here. Then you'll get your identifying information, and we'll be off the hook."
Let's be clear about what's being done here. From the original e-mail:
Whether the University is directly identifying students to the RIAA or indirectly does so by sending the students a letter directing them to contact the RIAA, the net result is the same.
Do people not understand why academic institutions MUST behave differently than this?
What if the coal industry threw letters at climatologists?
What if the junk food industry thew letters at obesity researchers?
The University has access to a massive collection of very personal information, including detailed financial, academic and medical records. It is essential for the primary mission of the University to protect its members against angered outside forces. Without this commitment to protect academics, we'll never be able to get honest answers to questions.
The proper course was to:
1. Not save identifying information in the first place
2. Tell the RIAA to come back with their own damn identifying information.
3. Send letters instructing students to not self-incriminate themselves
4. Provide proper legal services than (borderline negligent) legal advice to settle to any and all demands.
Re:How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a world where the ability to eat, get basic health care and work (since the before 2 are not rights, this logically should be....) aren't rights, I fail to see why an artificial monopoly on distribution of ideas should be one.
It's clear to anyone with half a brain copyright doesn't exist to "support art and sciences." Why does it exist? It generates profit. Artificial profit, that is. There are not really good being transfered, just money shuffled around and "rights" to use information granted.
The reason this exists? Taxes and control. Moving money = taxes = guns = power = moving money. It's the system modern society is built around. The more null-goods a state can provide, the more power it gets. If governments realize this or not is not clear, but I would be willing to bet some people in the US government get it.
Call me a tin-foil-hat, but this isn't much more a conspiracy theory than "the government is full of *IAA bribed politicians!" and I'd bet a lot more accurate...
Hey, U of W is taking... (Score:2, Insightful)
re: The issue runs deeper..... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's NO reason an association the size of the RIAA really needs the government's assistance to get "justice" against infringements on the musical works they hold rights to. The people sharing these songs via p2p, web pages, ftp, or any other electronic method are doing so without any financial compensation whatsoever.
Every time they pursue one of these cases in criminal courts of law, they cost the American taxpayer large amounts of money, using the time of prosecutors, appointed judges, etc. They *could*, of course, opt to "do the right thing" and go after these individuals in strictly civil cases. But that would put the effort squarely on them to build their cases - rather than relying on "boilerplate" complaints and standardized tables of penalties/punishments for criminal copyright infringement that federal courts already devised.
Criminal prosecution should really be reserved for tangible crimes against persons and property
My belief is, if businesses and individuals had to resort to civil remedies for these violations, we'd see much more reasonable and logical outcomes. (EG. A starving college student sharing copies of his/her purchased collection of CDs wouldn't be pressured to "pay back" tens of THOUSANDS of dollars for doing so. Instead, you might see the punishment actually fit the "crime". They might be charged a few hundred bucks, making them rethink how wise it was to offer copyrighted musical works to any and all takers, free of charge. People wouldn't be rushing to condemn the RIAA like they do now, if THIS was the norm.)
Re:result of years of lawsuits against custumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes [slashdot.org] they [slashdot.org] would [slashdot.org], strictly speaking. The RIAA has apparently very little concern for whether or not it hits actual copyright infringers, and everyone it hits still has to show up in court and in the press, or settle out of court for an amount of money they very probably don't have to spare.
For all you students out there.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
"- Even in the worst case scenario - that the downloader and everyone they uploaded to are truly stealing the content (morally wrong), the suits they are bringing are orders of magnitude greater than the theft committed. $3k-$5k out-of-court settlements are nearly universal; tet most people will not upload much more than the amount they downloaded, and even in extreme cases not more than several times what they downloaded. So, if they downloaded a music CD worth $15, they have (assuming all parties are stealing) stolen (or willingly facilitated stealing) 2x-5x that (5x is a bit arbitrary), or $30-$75. Even at the high end of theft ($75) and low end of damages ($3k), that is *40 times* the value of that which was stolen; the other way around ($30 and $5k), it's almost 200 times the value. Can you honestly tell me that you support that? "
I think its reasonable because 75 dollars is not an effective deterrent. If you shoplift a purse from a department store and the penalty is you have to pay whatever the purse is worth it seems kind of pointless doesnt it? Damages should be high enough to deter people from committing the crime, this is a principle that is often espoused by members of our legal system.
"- The RIAA has been using legal but immoral tactics to bring these cases. Most commonly, the RIAA picks people who they believe do not have the resources to defend against the suit, making the outcome the same, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent (and short-circuiting the justice system entirely): they have to settle, because they can't afford a lawyer to defend themselves (and if they do hire a lawyer, the RIAA lets them accumulate a sizable bill, then drops the case, so the people will usually have to pay more than the settlement would have been). This is done to build fear by maintaining a perfect prosecution record, to discourage others from sharing files or hiring a lawyer to defend themselves. I know of not a single case the RIAA has won - that is, the case has gone to verdict and the verdict was in their favor; if you know of a single case, click "reply" and link to it, right now. And because they drop cases once it becomes obvious they cannot win them, they have just the same never suffered a loss (though that tide appears to be slowly turning). They care so much about their perfect record that they will continue suits against people who they either knew from the beginning or learned during the trial are innocent, because dropping the case would show that they don't have absolute power, and diminish the fear they seek to create. Do you support each and every one of these methods? "
You claim that they go after people who cant afford to defend themselves, but I think it has been well established that they have no idea who they are going after when they first send out their letters. I am not entirely certain that your claim that they continue to pursue cases they know are erroneous is correct. If it is, then no of course I do not support that. But I do believe they have every right to pursue the basic idea of sueing people who unlawfully distribute their music.
All this being said, I am not a huge fan of the RIAA in general. I think it is regrettable that the success of an artist is primarily determined by getting 'signed' by a label. But copyrights are basically a good thing, and is your copyright is being violated then I do believe you should have legal recourse. And that should not be revoked just because it is happening on a large scale or because your company is less popular. And frankly, everyone who makes their living by producing copyrighted material (Like me, I am a software engineer) is benefiting from the RIAA's actions, whether they want to recognize it or not.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you do not. You have to right to say whatever you want in response. Just because I say something does not give you the right to determine who I am through any means that would otherwise be unlawful.
The "easy way out" remark was made because the UW is giving into the RIAA which is using questionably unlawful means to obtain information about UW's students. It is not unreasonable to expect the college to protect your rights when someone is trying to violate them through the college itself.
Re:How should the RIAA defend itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but there is a problem with the system as it presently exists. The protection of intellectual property was orignially enshrined in the Constitution as a *limited* (not as Jack Valenti was fond of saying, "infinity minus one day") term of protection, and therefore profit, for the creator in exchange for the public receiving the fruits of that idea when it entered the public domain, thereby "promoting the progress of useful arts and sciences". However, something has gone wrong over the last one hundred years and the careful balance that was maintained between creators and the public by copyright, patent, and trade secret laws has been steadily erroded, hijacked, and skewed in the favor of the creators to the point that now many copyrights will not expire during the *lifetimes* of the people presently living that want to use or benefit from these "useful arts and sciences" without paying monopoly rents to the creators.
The average citizen can no longer maintain his position in copyright law against the onslaught of the content creators and their big money full-time lobbyists and so the public domain is erroded to the point where only quaint anachronisms and rare abandonments will ever see the light of day in the public domain. In the face of such a manifestly unfair system, as it stands today, many people have decided to work around or outside of the system because it is impossible for them to work within it.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Likely, the school is pissed abotu how much of their bandwidth is being used for piracy and is stringing up a few students in order to curb the activity. I don't think they care the slightest for the students, it's just a matter of cutting costs.
Re: The issue runs deeper..... (Score:3, Insightful)
If a student had an once of sense he would want to be prosecuted under the standards that apply in criminal law.
Criminal prosecution should really be reserved for tangible crimes against persons and property .... not relatively "fluffy and intangible" losses due to intellectual property "violations"!
Intangible property rights are woven so deeply into the modern world - the world since 1492 - that it is difficult to know where to begin with an argument like this.
The short answer is that we all own intangibles, we all know these intangibles have value and that value must be protected against all comers. Your pension fund. Your health insurance. The corrupt Enron exec goes to jail. In China he would have been shot.
A starving college student sharing copies of his/her purchased collection of CDs wouldn't be pressured to "pay back" tens of THOUSANDS of dollars for doing so
The starving college kid with his cell phone, Mac PowerBook and $400 iPod. The kid sharing his music with 10 million or so of his closest friends on the P2P nets.
You cannot be a player in this game without substantial disposable income or outside subsidies - your "free" connection to the university LAN.
The settlement is a debt. Debts can be structured. It's a lesson worth learning.
Re:Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:1, Insightful)
Random Polling for Guilt (Score:3, Insightful)
or the drug dealers, kiddie abusers .... lawless. (Score:3, Insightful)
The UW admins keep this information because otherwise it is hard to find the guy that trying to DOS your mail server into oblivion. Student networks are notorious for having internal attackers of all different kinds. If you were an admin you'd want to be able to put a finger on the students too.
That's crap from start to finish. Network administrators have these systems in place due to federal wiretapping laws and clueless pressure. All networks have a DoS problem and you won't get a finger on it with half ass tracking to catch supposed file traders. DoS and spam attacks come from widespread use of insecure client software like Windows. Finally, co-operating with this blatant shakedown is pathetic. The evidence is flimsy and the University should be giving their students sound legal advice and defense in what's really a civil dispute. Don't try to tell me that co-operating with this scam has anything to do with punishing criminals. It's about stripping people of their rights for money.
Take away the anonymity and people start to behave in a civilized manner. That's just how things work.
Do you think people in jail are civilized? They lack anonymity, privacy, speech, freedom of movement and association, yet they still do horrible things to themselves and their guards. Do you think treating innocent people like criminals will make them any nicer? There is no free speech without anonymity, do you mind giving up your whole society's right to peacefully protest that way? Do you think societies like that are safe places to live? They are not, neither for the oppressors or the oppressed because a society without rights is one without laws, much like the one that exists within prison. It is selfish and savage.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, except, you know, their lives and freedom, the two things you are most likely to lose if you don't have a decent lawyer when you need one. Which, considering the comment was about the justice system . . . .
Re:I still remember the... (Score:2, Insightful)
2) your opinion that copyright law violates the US constitution is not supported by any evidence. Certainly the legal expertes do not seem to agree with this statement. Now, you are free to have your own opionions on this, but independent of your beliefs you are still subject to the law as it stands. If you ignore that, you suffer the consequences. Tough luck.
Re:But IPs and MAC Addresses can be spoofed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer (and I most certainly don't mean this as a troll): They don't give a flying shit.
This is racketeering at its finest. I accuse you of something. You either pay me a large small sum, or I take you to court and you're stuck, win or lose, with likely more than the initial large small sum I would have accepted as a settlement.
I mean, I have a wireless network secured with basic WEP and MAC filtering. Not really that hard to break in, but hard enough to keep random idiot off my network. Who's to say that I don't have some super-brilliant high school kid (a school's down the street) stealing my wireless to download stuff?
Even worse, how do I even begin explaining WEP, WPA, MAC addresses, IP addresses, spoofing, and other aspects of network security to a judge and jury of my 'peers' who can barely manage to figger out one of them thar new iPads? Hell, in the case of the judge, he may be directly paid off.
Back to TFA. If I were a university, I would internally monitor, very closely, my students' bandwidth use. I would warn and then expel those who use university resources of any kind for anything clearly illegal or in the gray area. Then when the mafIAA comes knocking, I'd tell them to go get fucked. They need to build their own case. If they can't figure out who the 'John Doe' infringer is all by themselves, they can go pound sand.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:3, Insightful)
All three of those have very limited definitions. All three are *very* hard to prove in court. None of those come into play when the RIAA calls your ISP and asks for the name and address of the person who leased a specific IP at a specific time and date.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Downloading music is a form of protest, and the school has given in to the enemy of the students' freedoms because it will save them some money on bandwidth, or so someone has convinced them."
Talk to some real protesters sometime. The people who marched against the Iraq War, or even the Viet Nam War. The brave people who participated in the Montgomery Freedom March. The people who defied orders and sat at the lunch counters in Selma. The ones who have had hoses, dogs, and rubber bullets unleashed at them.
There are two differences between them and you: first, they've chosen a real cause -- sorry, "I demand free music" does not even compare in the slightest. And, they took risks. They openly defied the law and welcomed prosecution. You, on the other hand, appear to be comfortable protesting only if your university helps protect you as you break the law. Take some responsibility for your own actions; don't expect a university or anybody else to do it for you.
"The fact remains that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution openly declare that GOD and God alone gave you your freedoms, they are only protecting them. This is a violation of those God-given freedoms, for the sake of profit."
Oh, so you're a Christian? How do you reconcile piracy with the Golden Rule? If you want others to respect your rights, then you must do the same. Musicians, songwriters, composers, and -- yes, even record company owners -- aren't exempted from consideration simply because you want free music.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they have the most to lose, because they will almost certainly lose the little they have.
Another few thousand of debt could easily be enough to relegate them to lower class status.
They have the least to lose, so they eat the loss and go on their merry way.
Those who have little, treasure what little they have more than any other.
Re:University is Heavily Funded.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Forwarding, not revealing. (Score:2, Insightful)
The way I read it, the RIAA is requesting that UW itentify the students, and the university decided that it will. Obviously, they are straying from your "standard procedure."
How does UW internally forwarding the letters to students give the RIAA any more information than they already had? UW is not sending the letters back to the RIAA complete with sticky-labels with names and addresses for re-submission to the students. UW is FORWARDING the letters to the students.
Your logic is that because UW forwarded the letters to students (one of the requests by the RIAA), that UW must have caved to all of the requests by the RIAA? So if I send you a letter requesting that you keep breathing and send me a check for $1000, then either you will die out of spite, or cut me a check. Right? By your all-or-nothing logic, you can't comply with one of my requests (keep breathing) and not the other (write a check).
I realize that this example is ludicrous. So is the RIAA.
Read the subject line in your own post. This whole thread has been about this from the beginning. UW forwarded the letters. They did not reveal anything.
Re:I still remember the... (Score:2, Insightful)