Marshall University Challenges RIAA 117
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And even after all the years of these articles. (Score:5, Interesting)
A music thief is someone who steals CDs from Best Buy. A music thief is also someone who scams a recording artist he's signed a contract with out of all his royalties, like the music industry has done time and again.
Which label do you work for again, Mr. Cpward? Sony-BMG? If so, there's a special place in hell for you.
Re:Hunh? (Score:3, Interesting)
It may be that high-end networking equipment can disable wireless connections originating from a duplicate MAC during a session--I just don't know enough about the capabilities of this equipment.
Nonetheless, universities tend to want to know who's sitting at the other end of the connection. It's disingenuous to suggest that they could take action themselves based upon spurious data, but that that same data isn't good enough to hand back when faced with a subpoena. If the university decides to abandon tracking of students, then more power to them. But I doubt that it's the case that most universities are willing to do this.
I Don't Get It (Score:3, Interesting)
But then there's this:
absent the identifying information from the university, plaintiffs simply cannot proceed with their lawsuit, establishes to the Court's satisfaction that Marshall University's obligation under the subpoena is not unduly burdensome.
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!!!
Re:And even after all the years of these arti SUX! (Score:3, Interesting)
And the punishment (fines) for stealing that physical CD from Best Buy is one to several hundred times less than the statutory damages asked for and allowed under law ($750 to $150,000 PER TRACK) for online copyright infringement. Tell me how that makes any sense!
And the recording industry is lobbying hard to RAISE those statutory damage limits EVEN HIGHER.
I'm sorry, but they have an overly exaggerated view of the true value of their product.
Re:Hunh? (Score:3, Interesting)
If a gun is used in a crime, and you have a body and a bullet, then yeah, you can go and talk to him. And if he doesn't want to talk? He doesn't have to. Unless you arrest him, in which case he gets a lawyer, and you have to release him if you dont' have at least some evidence he did something wrong that you can charge him with.
With these RIAA cases, we don't even have a *crime* here. Nevermind a bullet. Yet the ISP (university) is expected to hand over contact information without so much as blinking.
My neighbor can't wake up one morning, pick a random IP out of his ass, and tell an ISP to hand over the contact information for who ever was using it last night. *That* is very nearly what the RIAA does. Of course they have some vague claim of 'ip infringement' behind it, but provide no evidence of it, and what evidence they might be worthless or even obtained illegaly...
Tomato, tomahto? (Score:2, Interesting)
Marshall argues
Exactly how is finding "the person associated with [an] IP address at [a] date and time" different from determining who was "using a given computer at a given time"? Assuming a DHCP environment, I can see how it would be more difficult to start with a physical computer and trace back to a person, but I can't see how Marshall could have understood "computer" as anything but "IP".
My School Just Got Targeted by the RIAA (Score:2, Interesting)
E-mail is as follows:
Students,
Be advised that the University has recently received several copyright infringement notices from the RIAA and SafeNet DMCA.
Each individual RIAA notice states an account on the University network âoewas used to reproduce and/or distribute unauthorized copies of one or more copyrighted sound recordings.â The notice provides details of the infringement and warns âoethis network user may be liable for the infringing activity occurring on your network... This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained. Moreover, this letter does not constitute a waiver of our members' right to sue the user at issue for copyright infringement.â
The notice also encourages the user to visit the MUSIC Coalitionâ(TM)s website at www.musicunited.org.
The SafeNet DMCA notices are similar in nature.
Details provided within the notices will be used to identify students for further action.
All students should discontinue the sharing/copying/downloading of copyrighted material. Safe and legal access to digital music and movies is available through Ruckus.
Re:2nd university to show a movie? (Score:3, Interesting)