University Bows to RIAAs Demands for Student Names

jcgam69 writes "Hours after a federal court judge ordered Oklahoma State University to show cause why it shouldn't be held in contempt for failing to respond to an RIAA subpoena, attorneys for the school e-mailed a list of students' names to the RIAA's attorneys. But now that the RIAA has what it wanted, the group is unsure about how to go about sending out its pre-litigation settlement letters. Some of the students are represented by an attorney, meaning that the RIAA is barred from contacting them directly."

The bully's fear

[kshrop]

A person who isn't all alone and easy to scare. Whatever should they do if someone has a defense and won't give up thier lunch money so easily?

makes sense

[JasonEngel]

I see no reason why universities should fight to protect the privacy of it's students in circumstances like this where a judge has pretty much given the approval for the plaintiffs actions. I would not want a uni to cave just because the MAFIAA contact them, but if a judge has reviewed their requests and then tells the uni to cough up the details, I tend to feel more comfortable with it.

i dont understand why...

[theheadlessrabbit]

I don't understand why universities dont just 'loose' these records. Is there a legal reason why records of student's online activity must be recorded? My university had a massive drive where all students could temporarily store their data. the drives were wiped clean every Friday. why not just wipe the students internet usage records every week or so?
I can't see what use that information is to the University, aside from handing it over to RIAA lawyers to screw over the very students who pay to go to that university.

you can't hand over evidence you don't have.

Re:Hmm..

[AvitarX]

I think it is more a matter that the University is entrusted with a lot of your personal data (all network traffic, your social security number etc.). The University should fight to not release that information unless they are compelled, otherwise they are not being a good custodian of your information.

I would hate for a list of every dirty website I went to in open court only to be deemed innocent in the end.

They mailed a list of names...

[LiquidCoooled]

They might have mailed a list of names, but the important thing here is, are they the right names and were these the people actually sitting at the terminals requested at the time?

University Bows to Judge Order

[IceRa]

...would be a headline which boils it down correct.
Wheter the judges order was ok in the first place is a diffrent story.

Re:The bully's fear

[Brian Gordon]

That analogy works well with slashdot anti-RIAA sentiment, but it's not completely accurate.. the RIAA isn't just some big stupid bully, it has the full support of United States law. It sees a multibillion dollar cash cow and it's milking it- this is not the RIAA's fault, it's the government's for allowing it to happen.

Re:Hmm..

[Dunbal]

it is assumed that the University should help protect students from the consequences of their (potentially) illegal actions

      So according to you, Universities should hand over lists of their students to anyone on demand? How about banks - I'd like to know how much is in your account. If you have too much money then you must have earned it illegally. Hey maybe I should have a look at your medical records too while I'm at it. Our studies show a positive correlation between piracy and type 2 diabetes...

IT'S A TRAP

[downix]

Funny how the RIAA got what it wanted, only to them find themselves facing something they did not expect, a prepared defense with direct experience against their tactics. One could almost say that they've fallen into a classic military maneuver, put a small token defense up first to bring the enemys offense to the front, to have it fall back, leading the enemy onto terrain of ones choosing, where you then spring the trap. Classic Sun Tzu.

I see Xerxes vs 300 Spartans in a legal sense here, so long as the defense does not leave the goat path to open up their backs they will do well.

Re:makes sense

[zappepcs]

I have to agree... The universities should be acting as common carriers, no matter how involved they are in the lives of the students. The school's infrastructure should be seen as no different under the law than and ISP's infrastructure. With judicial review of the legal actions, it is as fair as it will ever get under the current system. I feel confident that there is a way to structure their Internet services so as to qualify as common carrier-ish.

I hope that the student's lawyer is better than good.

That said, there is little outside the Terms of Service an ISP can do to stop each individual from acting as a common carrier. If you open your WiFi for all to use, current trends are to hold you responsible for how the Internet is used. Emphasis is put on filtering/regulation rather than individual's use of the services.

I was going to think of a car analogy, but water is a better likeness here. If you get your water from the city, and let your neighbors use it, are you responsible for them watering their lawns outside of prescribed watering hours? The basic legal interpretation of what Internet access is, is being treated the wrong way, or thought of in the wrong way.

Access to weapons does not make you a killer. Access to P2P sites does not make you a copyright thief. Selling guns that get used in bank robberies or murders don't make the manufacturer guilty of said crimes.

If all students were on WiFi connections, each infringement issue would involve possibly hundreds of students. While that sounds like I'm supporting wild flouting of the law, it's not. I simply do not support the way the law has been used to harass and bludgeon citizens for nothing more substantial than supporting the failed and woefully unrepentant business model of greedy bastards who mistreat customers and clients alike.

Re:The bully's fear

[Grimbleton]

Who said he wasn't referring to the government?

The bully's fear? Bollocks.

[apodyopsis]

Where is the bully?

do you mean the group that is backed by national and international law, has legal precedence and is largely backed (albeit reluctantly) by the makers of the music being traded?

a better analogy would be school teacher who is about to punish the kid that nicked a mars bar from the tuck shop without paying.

we may not like the **AA here on /. but to pass them up as a evil "bully" oppressing the poor users is insane. I prefer to call them a monopolistic, parasitic group screwing the creators of the music on one side and the listeners on the other, whilst using a powerful lobby to change the law in their favor to further their ambitions.

roll on the day when the radiohead model is accepted as a way to get rid of them once and for all.

Re:Hmm..

[jmnormand]

Because innocent until proven guilty is the foundation of the american justice system, and the universities are the back bone of that justice system (teaching future lawyers, judges, politicians, ect.). The universities, perhapse even more than the average american or coorporations, have an obligation to fight what it views as a potentially unjust action, until such time that they are conviced the action is warrented.

Re:Hmm..

[bconway]

So according to you, Universities should hand over lists of their students to anyone on demand?

How about to court orders? Like, you know, in this case.

Re:Hmm..

[jank1887]

"unless they are compelled," But they were compelled, by a legal subpoena, issued because of evidence of illegal activity taking place. So how is what the University did wrong? They held out as long as they legally could, but you can't expect the University to take a contempt charge over students' illegal activities.

and unless you visiting all those dirty websites was somehow illegal, the university would be under no obligation to divulge any of that information. a legal subpoena would have to be based on evidence of illegal activity.

Re:The bully's fear

[oyenstikker]

It isn't at all the fault of the people who actually broke the law?

These people distributed copyrighted material that they had no right nor authorization to distribute. Representatives of the copyright holders found out about it, and are suing. Unless the representatives found out about it in an illegal way (read: non-admissible in court), they are fully within their rights to sue.

That the representatives may be ripping off the copyright holders, engaging in questionable business practices, producing garbage, and contributing nothing to society is entirely beside the point as far as these cases go. If anything they do is illegal, sue/prosecute them independently. If you don't like the laws, stop voting for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, move to another country, or overthrow the government.

But let us not forget that that there is evidence that the people being sued have broken the law and that the plaintiffs are completely within their rights to sue, and to use the facilities granted to them by law (i.e. warrants and subpoenas).

Re:i dont understand why...

[badfish99]

It was TorrentSpy. The judge told them that they had to start keeping logs, so they did do. But they couldn't be prosecuted for not keeping logs before they were told to do so.

So, if the university had a policy of not keeping logs, their students would be safe up to the point when the RIAA got a court order to force them to start logging. Then the university could simply say to their students "we have been forced to start logging: stop your filesharing now, because the RIAA are watching".

The reason that universities don't do this is that they want logs for their own purposes, for example to track down infected machines, or people posting rude messages about the vice-chancellor.

Re:Good

[billcopc]

That's precisely why things will be much more interesting over the next 15-20 years. What better way to enter a business relationship than to kick your client in the teeth.

What I'm curious about, is how does an RIAA lawsuit affect a student's ability to pursue their education ? Is the cartel destroying someone's future career over a few hundred overplayed pop songs ? What does that say about the future of the nation ? We all agree that piracy is a crime, but does the punishment fit ?

Corporate America's obsession with instant profits will inevitably have a deleterious effect on tomorrow's economy. It's bad enough that students get pelted with dozens of credit cards and start their life in the red, now we're trying to tack on another few thousand dollars in RIAA settlements. The people who actually wind up paying for this are you and me. We pay when professionals increase their hourly rates, when basic food staples jump in price, heck we're paying it right now with the time spent debating these vengeful issues. Inflation is not an ethereal process that happens on a spreadsheet. The more we screw each other over, the stronger the elastic bounce-back to recover what was ours.

Greed begets greed.

Unless you're in Canada and camming

[phorm]

Here, while most of the "online" activities are still fairly safe, camming movies in a theatre is now a crime and can net you jailtime. Interestingly, that law was pushed forward by one of our ministers who was fired for sleeping with a US Corp lobbiest, yet nobody ever reviewed the bills that she had pushed forth on their behalf...

IMHO movie cammers are idiots anyhow, but I think that our prison and justice system could be put to better use, and I'd rather not be arrested myself because somebody decided to nab me because my digital camera (which I tend to keep with me at most times) can do (crappy) video and some theatre thug decided it's close enough...

Re:Hmm..

[Arccot]

it is assumed that the University should help protect students from the consequences of their (potentially) illegal actions

So according to you, Universities should hand over lists of their students to anyone on demand? How about banks - I'd like to know how much is in your account. If you have too much money then you must have earned it illegally. Hey maybe I should have a look at your medical records too while I'm at it. Our studies show a positive correlation between piracy and type 2 diabetes...

This is not "anyone on demand." To reverse your straw man, should businesses be allowed to break all the laws they want?

There was a legal request for these names, under enforcement by the court, and the University was still refusing. The University should not break the law to protect the accused. If there was a legal request made for my bank account information or medical records, I would expect the bank or medical officials to release my information. Why should they break the law to protect me? Corporations should not be able to pick and choose which laws to obey and which to ignore.

Re:The bully's fear

[kegger64]

it's the fault of the people who voted into office the legislators that made it illegal.

Which candidates did you vote for that oppose copyright?

Re:What happens when the RIAA goes after the Penta

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, like that will *ever* happen.

Like terrorists, they prefer "soft targets".

Re:The bully's fear? Bollocks.

[Chabil Ha']

It's all based on your point of view. They see it as theft because pirates are depriving them of money that would otherwise have been in their pockets from the result of a sale.

The error in this assumption, which the MPAA suffers from as well, is that all other things being equal, a pirate likely would not have payed for the copyrighted work *anyway*, even if the work was not available to 'steal'! That's what is ridiculous about the whole affair.

Re:The bully's fear

[kegger64]

Bzzzt. Sorry to disappoint, but not voting does not 'illegitimize' the law. If I don't vote FOR taxes, does that mean I don't have to pay them?

Actually, they are a big stupid bully

[gnutoo]

and they are violating multiple laws [slashdot.org]. We shall see how this comes out for the 11 students, and society will make even better laws to stop this kind of harassment. The recording industry is simply wrong and people know it.

Stop with the Defense, go to Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it has been pretty obvious for a long time now that the RIAA members part of the music industry has been acting as a price fixing cartel, or to be legally fair, it gives an appearance of it, enough to question if it has occurred and remains ongoing. The cost of duplication onto plastic disk or downloaded bits is way lower than what they charge at retail, to a huge degree, and there doesn't seem to be normal price differences like one might expect in a truly competitive market that was being regulated adequately according to existing law. Now, I don't think it has been applied to them yet, but in a few other cases-precedent- private individuals through their lawyers have used RICO and sued the offending party (it was in reaction to businesses undercutting local competition via use of illegal immigrant labor), although normally that is a governmentally used tactic. That's another way to approach to the problem I haven't seen yet, but would certainly shake things up a little if it was. It would be a very expensive case to start obviously, but potential plaintiffs would be anyone who purchased a disk or a downloaded tune from any of the association's members through any service or outlet..and that's a lot of people and the total sums involved are pretty high.

Technology has changed radically within the last generation, new ways of content delivery have *dramatically* lowered the cost of making copies of digital bits and delivering them. The official "legal" prices don't seem to reflect what copies should or could cost in the marketplace, it looks artificially skewed to keep per unit pricing up to the same (relative) levels as when a few tunes had to be pressed into a large vinyl disk and physically trucked around, and that manufacturing process was a lot more expensive. In short, where are the one dollar CDs and 10-15 cent downloadable songs? Those prices would still result in tons of profit for the distributors, using the volume sales model, yet those level prices don't exist in the legal marketplace. It certainly gives the appearance of long term collusion and price fixing.

Re:The bully's fear

[oyenstikker]

It is not a witch hunt. A witch hunt is going after people who have not committed a crime and no crime has been committed. This is going after people who broke the law. Yes, they may have gone after a few innocent people, which is why we have a court system to determine if the defendants are guilty or innocent.

The laws may be bad. The courts may be broken. The judges may be corrupt. The juries may be ignorant and stupid. The plaintiff may be abusing the system and bullying. The lawyers may be . . . lawyers. But all of that does not justify the actions of those who are guilty, and there are many of them.

Should the copyright holders and their representatives just stand by idly while their copyrights are being violated?

Should open source developers just stand by idly if companies take their code and distribute binaries in a manner that constitutes copyright violation?

Re:The bully's fear

[prod-you]

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke

Re:The bully's fear

[vux984]

These people distributed copyrighted material that they had no right nor authorization to distribute. Representatives of the copyright holders found out about it, and are suing. Unless the representatives found out about it in an illegal way (read: non-admissible in court), they are fully within their rights to sue.

This would be like you coming home, and finding that someone keyed your car. There aren't any footprints nearby in the muddy ground, but a particular tire tread swerves within a few inches of your vehicle. So you deduce that someone pulled along side your car reached out and keyed it.

So... the first thing you do is get the court to subpoena the surveillance tapes of a business down the road so you can see *everyone* who drove down the road. Then you make a list of the vehicles driving down the street with that tire tread -- turns out its a fairly common tread and there are 4 or 5 cars that match. So, you make a list of plate number. (Yeah its CSI fairy land where surveillance cameras are high resolution colour devices with the magical ability to see hidden surfaces...how convenient for you.)

So now you've got a list of plate numbers of possible cars so off to court you go to demand the department of motor vehicles hand over the contact information for each of these plates so that you can visit each of those homes and check the vehicles to find out which one has mud on it, so you can sue the owner...

Nevermind, that you've still only identified the registered owner, not the driver. Turns out the cars are leased - so the plates go back to a leasing company... so off you go to court to get more names...

Which they give you, and at this point all you've got is the guy paying the lease... still not the actual driver.

Yes you were harmed by *someones* actions, and yes you should be able to recover your damages... and yes, you could theoretically follow a trail like this to a person that possibly did it. But there's no way in hell you should be allowed to conduct a private investigation like that over a frustrating but ultimately minor wrong. The neighboring business should have no obligation to turn over their tapes to YOU simply because you're out a few bucks. And the DMV shouldn't hand over a list of names of people who drove on your street simply because one of them MIGHT have been the vehicle that damaged your car. All the while ignoring the fact that identifying the car doesn't reliably identify person who keyed your car.

And that is an RIAA investigation.

I would tolerate an invasive dragnet investigation like this for a serious crime like rape or kidnapping. But some jack ass keyed your car and you want to sue him for damages in civil court? If that's legal then something is seriously wrong.

And guess what... its NOT legal... but the RIAA is using loopholes and other abuses to game the system, *relying* on the fact that its cheaper for victims to roll over and pay them off than fight them and risk losing. And to combat them for their abuses of the system? They'll bankrupt any individual who even tries.

Can you imagine if SCO had sued YOU for infringment instead of IBM? The fact the SCO was wrong wouldn't matter... you'd have been bankrupt YEARS before a judgment was made. Or, as the RIAA has demonstrated, as soon as the case goes sideways, they drop it. Your still out all the money you put out defending yourself, probably more than you would have paid to settle, and that's good enough for them.