Marshall University Challenges RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, has become just the second US college or university to show the moxie to stand up for its students instead of instantly caving in to RIAA extortion. In February, Marshall, represented by the Attorney General of the State of West Virginia, made a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena for student identities, pointing out in exquisite detail in its long-time IT guy's affidavit (PDF) the impossibility of identifying copyright 'infringers' based on the RIAA's meager evidence. Unfortunately, the Magistrate — under the mistaken impression that the RIAA isn't going to sue the identified students, but merely wants to talk to them — recommended that the subpoena be okayed by the District Judge (PDF). It is not yet known whether Marshall will be filing objections. The first US college or university known to have attacked the RIAA's subpoena was the University of Oregon, which — also represented by its state's Attorney General — made a motion to quash last November, and even questioned the legality of the RIAA's methods. The Oregon motion is still pending."

Re:Hunh?

[corsec67]

What about University provided wifi?

At the University I went to, CU, the wifi was unsecured, aside from the MAC address check. Yes, I did have to register the MAC to me, but then the MAC address was broadcast in the open, and could easily be spoofed, which I have used in the past.

Agreed that over wired ethernet, it is much easier to prevent MAC spoofing, but what about wifi?

Re:I Don't Get It

[esome]

That seems to make no logical sense at all. The judge seems to be saying that if Plaintiffs cannot proceed with their case otherwise, then there is no such thing as a subpoena that's too burdensome on non-party Marshall University.

Is this judge out of his freaking mind!!!

You're correct that the notion that the plaintiff's ability to proceed or not should have little bearing on the decision of whether or not the subpoena is overly burdensome. You've left out the first half of the argument though, that it's not burdensome because it only requires the names and IP addresses. The judge seems at best guilty of poor (maybe even deceptive) wording here. I see nothing wrong with the actual basis for his decision though. I mean, how burdensome is it to cough up the info?

Seriously, as I have no technical background in this area, I'll ask a dumb question: Why can't a system admin just copy the relevant logs to a disk, turn it over to the RIAA, and let them sort it out? Note that I'm asking why they can't, not why they wouldn't want to.

I don't like the RIAA poking around in the schools networks fishing for students to sue any more than the next slashdotter but the argument "Gosh, it's just too hard for us to give out the info on our computers." seems kind of weak.

Re:Go WVa

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

That's "Country". And what do you mean, where is he? He's what we like to call "the submitter".

Thank you, LMacG.

What did you think of the IT guy's affidavit? I felt it was a model of clarity, explaining to the judge that the RIAA doesn't have a case against these kids. The IT guy at the University of Arizona did a good job on that same issue [blogspot.com] but the school, like idiots, just caved in and turned over the information, ignoring the motion to quash [blogspot.com] which one of the students had filed.

Re:I Don't Get It

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

1. The subpoena asked for the identity of the infringers.

2. The university argued it can't identify the infringers, and spelled out in the IT guy's affidavit why it's impossible, without conducting an elaborate investigation.

3. The magistrate ruled 'they're not asking you for the identities of the infringers', they just want to know who's associated with the IP address.

4. He is apparently unaware of the RIAA equation, "whoever is associated with the IP address" = "the defendant" = "the infringer". He is assuming the RIAA lawyers conduct themselves like real lawyers.

Re:Hunh?

[Technician]

That's pretty surprising. What's the purpose of allowing access through that proxy server, but not full blown access?


Students need to log into school servers to use school resources. The www proxy is often not under that umbrella. Try it. An Ubuntu live CD works fine for a zero fingerprint session. Boot, set the browser to use autoproxy, and surf. No login ID or finerprints are left on the machine. BT and an external USB drive work fine.