U.Maine Law Clinic Is First To Fight RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "'A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution' says p2pnet. For the first time in the history of the RIAA's ex parte litigation campaign against college students, a university law school's legal aid clinic has taken up the fight against the RIAA in defense of the university's students. Student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, under the supervision of law school prof Deirdre M. Smith, have moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint in a Portland, Maine, case, Arista v. Does 1-27, on behalf of two University of Maine undergrads. Their recently filed reply brief (PDF) points to the US Supreme Court decision in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, and the subsequent California decision following Twombly, Interscope v. Rodriguez, which dismissed the RIAA's 'making available' complaint as mere 'conclusory,' 'boilerplate' 'speculation.'"

Re:still stealing music?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if they call it stealing or what it really is. copyright enfringment.

I'm still going to STEAL every damm song i want. And never ever buy another ANYTHING they sell.

ever.

and i will continue to help other people STEAL music.

I dont care what they say. be it that it's wrong, illegal, immoral. ect. I still havent been busted for price fixing and i dont screw the artists out of cash no matter what they claim. the music mafia still has a lock on being that immoral, illegal, and wrong.

fuck em. they can never get me back as a customer. ever. i want to see them all broke and have to get real jobs.

Are Universities common carriers?

[Artifakt]

What a university provides to students is usually geographically restricted high speed access to the Internet. There's a heavy investment in wire and routing, but the university doesn't necessarily put a lot of file servers and storage in sync with that. Most often the university's own research computers are behind firewalls, and their administrative systems invariably are. Some mail services are frequently offered, but the storage amounts are generally much smaller than even free sources such as Google or Yahoo. So in that way, a university network is more similar to a common carrier's systems, like the phone company or snail mail, than is a commercial ISP's. It's designed to deliver information, not to be a static source.
      Wouldn't it be interesting if, a few years down the road, all this gets thrashed out in the court system, and the legal decisions are essentially that the university systems don't enjoy any of the protections of common carrier status, but commercial ISPs do? All carriers are equal, but some are more equal than others.
     

Re:still stealing music?

[sethawoolley]

I know /.'ers hate it when people reply and just say "yeah, I agree!"

But, all I gotta say to this is, I wish I were this brave (I'm just a lowly boycotter). If you can get away with it, more power to you!

My wife wants me to steal music for her so she can figure out what to buy, (although she bought ten times more CDs than I have). I have been reluctant to help (I have static IPs at home that would be easy to trace and don't have the time to spend time keeping updated a TOR router).

Should I spend the effort to help her out?

(here's the quoted post, just to show my agreement and pull it out of the anonymous coward bins of most people:)

I don't care if they call it stealing or what it really is. copyright enfringment.

I'm still going to STEAL every damm song i want. And never ever buy another ANYTHING they sell.

ever.

and i will continue to help other people STEAL music.

I dont care what they say. be it that it's wrong, illegal, immoral. ect. I still havent been busted for price fixing and i dont screw the artists out of cash no matter what they claim. the music mafia still has a lock on being that immoral, illegal, and wrong.

fuck em. they can never get me back as a customer. ever. i want to see them all broke and have to get real jobs.

Heheh. Kinda OT, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I've aged (I'm 41), my interest in contemporary music has waned to the point that I've almost completely lost interest in "modern" music.

The only stuff I listen to now is my classical collection, which I built up over a few years in my 30s.

I purchased a few high quality imported CDs from brick-and-mortar stores, and downloaded a bunch of albums and and tracks via KaZaA Lite in the 90s.

I haven't downloaded any music in at least the last three years.

Get the fuck off my lawn.

Before breaking out the champagne....

[westlake]

The law students who begin these cases will have graduated before they reach the higher appellate courts, a full third may be gone before their cases go to trial.

There is a world of difference between the law school and the law office.

How about we wait until we get definitive victories on appeal and in Congress?

The federal criminal code was revised to remove any doubt that an infringer could be prosecuted even when there was no financial gain.

The statues could be just as easily revised so that "making files available" to the P2P nets becomes sufficient to establish infringement as a matter of law.

Re:Harvard

[Skapare]

Even if you are downloading something that is legal, like Linux?

Re:still stealing music?

[ScrewMaster]

Neither law enforcement nor big business understands that respect is a mutual affair. The fully expect us to respect the law, and to respect their rights under that law ... and they just can't seem to figure out why we do not. Unfortunately, they have treated us so poorly that there is no longer any respect possible from our perspective. Not until they clean up their acts and become deserving of it again.

Re:Harvard

[SuperBanana]

Even if you are downloading something that is legal, like Linux?

Yes; they're fully aware of Linux distributions and whatnot being preferably distributed via BT. If you let them know ahead of time, it's not a problem. Granted, that was in the context of staff- I don't know if this applies to students. Staff can also get semi-permanent authorization; students MIGHT be able to as well.

Also, I should mention- this may only apply to the medical school.

Re:still stealing music?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Should I spend the effort to help her out?"

In my opinion, I don't think you should for two reasons. First, don't risk it. Yes, we'd all like for people to take a stand against the RIAA, but it's a lot easier to back when someone else is doing it. Second, they'll use those numbers to prove that anti-piracy legislation needs to be strengthened. I don't believe that mass-downloading and mass-not-purchasing can bleed the RIAA fast enough to prevent them from sinking ridiculous amounts of money into the pockets of politicians. To me, that's a no-win scenario.

I have an alternative, though. You could try a music subscription service. For $10 a month, you could get Rhapsody. You'll have instant access to all of their music. You don't get to keep it, but for less than the cost of a new CD a month you have something like 4 million songs. If you pay an extra $5 a month, they'll sync up with certain MP3 players, so you can take care of your mobile needs, too. I am a Rhapsody subscriber, so if you have questions about specifics about it, feel free to ask. I'm reluctant to say too much initially, though, for fear of being branded a Rhapsody shill. I don't know much about the other services like Napster so I cannot tell you which is the 'best'.

I think this suggestion might be a solution to both your problems. One of my main attractions to Rhapsody (besides not having gigs of MP3s to try to keep synced across all my machines....) is that I've broadened my tastes in music. That sounds like something your wife is looking for. It also proves the point to the RIAA that you actually are willing to spend money on music, but that you need their business model to be modernized. I could save a few bucks and just go download a bunch of MP3s. But I don't because I'm happy with the service I'm getting. If money's being made this way, they're more likely to be open to alternatives. But if money is being 'lost' (by lost I mean their silly definition of it... like billions of dollars evaporating into kazaa smelling vapour even though their sales are higher than the previous year's) they're more likely to fight back via lawyers. It's the carrot vs. the stick. Tempt them with the possiblity of generating revenue instead of scaring them with the threat of losing it.

But, that's just my opinion. Other suggestions would include purchases of DRM-free music that's starting to appear. Purchases towards indie labels are potentially a win, too. If indies make money and the RIAA isn't, it's hard for them to claim that losses are due to piracy as opposed to boycotting. I don't personally back this option, though, simply because I haven't been all that impressed with indie offerings. Still, though, I'm at least a year or two overdue for re-examining that option so I really don't want to state that opinion too strongly.

Cheers and have a good weekend.

Re:From a Mainer's perspective...

[WingedEarth]

The RIAA is trying to maintain control over content distribution. That control is more important to them than the bottom line. But that control does not serve the purposes of the Copyright Act or the Constitutional authority thereto, which is to increase the public's access to content. The evil cabal controlling the mainstream media doesn't want to lose their precious monopoly for fear that the human spirit will rebel against them. But their Machiavellian approach will be their undoing. They treat people like cattle, and as a result, they'll be destroyed themselves in the end.