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Judge: Schools Don't Have to Help Music Industry 281

Posted by timothy from the judicious dept.
peg0cjs writes "www.canoe.ca reports that a federal magistrate has ruled that two North Carolina universities do not have to reveal the identities of two students accused of sharing copyrighted music on the Internet. U.S. Magistrate Judge Russell A. Eliason ruled that the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University do not need to cooperate with the RIAA in identifying two students accused of music piracy. The two unnamed students, who go by the aliases "hulk" and "CadillacMan", allegedly used University computer systems to distribute copyrighted material. The lawyer for one student said, 'We would never condone music piracy. What we're interested in is the rights of the individual -- privacy rights being protected.'"
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Judge: Schools Don't Have to Help Music Industry More

Judge: Schools Don't Have to Help Music Industry

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  • ISP's (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rixkix ( 205339 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:14PM (#12365311)
    Now only if ISP's felt the same way . . .
    • I don't think your implication is accurate here. Nowhere in the summary or FA did it say the school "felt that way." On the contrary most colleges unfortunately have been all to eager to help the RIAA in whatever way they can. There is nothing preventing them from simply turning over the information anyway. There could be any number of reasons why they may still want to (they don't approve of the activity, they wish to avoid further legal problems with the RIAA, it's part of their network service agreement,
      • What I meant by 'felt that way' was the schools' eventual willingness to take it to court to fight for the students and their privacy. I was rather unclear about that.
      • I think quite a few students might think twice about a university if they read a story about it turning people in to the RIAA. Unfortunately the RIAA have no need to worry about publicity because they don't deal with consumers.

      • No, now you can sue your school and have hope of winning if they do not protect your privacy until there is a court order.

        There is a process in place to get information, it involves subpoenas and other such legal things. This is expensive for the RIAA, much easier to just ask the school who either way will have to turn the information over. The difference isn't major, but it is critical to rule of law (as opposed to anarchy).

      • If colleges and universities allow themselves to be drawn into being the RIAA and MPAA's copyright cops, they will have to forget about educating anyone, because there will be no time for being anything but copyright cops. Higher education has always been about the free flow of ideas, not locking them up as property, and locking ideas up as property is what copyright does.

    • Re:ISP's (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As an employee of an ISP whos works with this a bit indirectly, we have a very simple policy. If you do not have a court order or a Subpeona you get nothing. I would expect that to be standard practice anywhere, otherwise you run into a slippery slope of who exactly you give information to and who you don't. Then eventually you get sued, either because you discriminated against someone and don't give information to them, or one of your customers sues because you release their information. Not a good place t
    • It seems to me that the RIAA can still just go file John Doe suits against these students, and it's pretty clear that the school can identify them, so I'm not really sure how much of a difference this makes...
      • The difference is that, now, the RIAA has to go through the process of getting a subpeona and filing a lawsuit, rather than simply demanding the information and getting it. They've been relying on bullying tactics so far, intimidating their targets with threats of lawsuits, so they don't actually have to pay their own lawyers. This way, the RIAA companies actually have to put some effort (and money) into proving their accusations.

  • Woohoo (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eric(b0mb)Dennis ( 629047 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:14PM (#12365313)
    Good: 1
    Evil: 42
    • "Good: 1
      Evil: 42"

      You are just sooo wrong! How can you claim that Evil is the answer to life, the universe and everything?

      all the best,

      drew

      • Re:Woohoo (Score:5, Funny)

        by Pyrion ( 525584 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:31PM (#12365496) Homepage
        Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

        • Re:Woohoo (Score:2, Funny)

          by ryusen ( 245792 )
          but it doesn't matter, because my schwartz is as big as your schwartz AND i don't play with dolls...

  • Punishment and Crime (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:15PM (#12365322)
    > The two unnamed students, who go by the aliases "hulk" and "CadillacMan", allegedly used University computer systems to distribute copyrighted material. The lawyer for one student said, 'We would never condone music piracy. What we're interested in is the rights of the individual -- privacy rights being protected.'"

    ...because having the entire campus knowing you call yourself "hulk" or "CadillacMan" would be cruel and unusual punishment, even by RIAA's shockingly abhorrent standards.

    • Re:Punishment and Crime (Score:5, Insightful)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:43PM (#12365632)
      This looks fishy. I would expect a "hulk001" or "CadillacMan512", something with a number.

    • Remember, the unenumerated "right to privacy" is the foudation of Roe Vs Wade [wikipedia.org], maybe if we start to frame the dispute as the RIAA trying to eliminate the right to privacy as a precursor to an assault on the "right to choose" we can get people who care nothing for digital rights, but have deep pockets, to come on board in the fight.

      LK

  • Ha ha ha (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:17PM (#12365343)
    Note to RIAA: Not ALL our base belong to you.

  • CadillacMan (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:19PM (#12365360)
    Yea Biotch!

    I own this school! wooo! Party on Wilmington St tonight! gonna get LAID!

  • In the words of Ali G (Score:5, Funny)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:19PM (#12365364) Homepage
    Booyakasha!

  • Privacy Rights and Breaking the Law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by radar2k2 ( 632371 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:20PM (#12365370)
    > "We would never condone music piracy," attorney Michael
    > Kornbluth said. "What we're interested in is the rights of the
    > individual -- privacy rights being protected."

    This seems like a pretty weak legal argument to me. If the crime had been assault or theft of a laptop or breaking and entering would anyone with material evidence of the crime be justified in not cooperating with the investigation in order to protect the privacy of the alleged perpetrators?

    • Re:Privacy Rights and Breaking the Law (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ost99 ( 101831 ) * on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:24PM (#12365408)

      If the crime had been assault or theft of a laptop or breaking and entering would anyone with material evidence of the crime be justified in not cooperating with the investigation in order to protect the privacy of the alleged perpetrators?

      If the investigation was done by the someone else than the police, then YES.

      - Ost
    • If there are privacy concerns, nobody should even know that they have material evidence. Also, is the justice asking for the logs? I don't think so (it's just the **AA), since a court decided that they don't need to give it.

    • Re:Privacy Rights and Breaking the Law (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KD5YPT ( 714783 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:25PM (#12365424) Journal
      It's not weak legal argument. The question was are schools LEGALLY bound to assist music industry in identifying the perpetrator. And the answer was no, unless the music industry obtained a subpoena, which will give them the authority to ask for information. It's a similar case with doctors (can't think of another similarity), we entrust the entity with our personally information, they should do everything in their power to keep that information secret until a legally binding paper (like a subpoena) force them to release it.

      • Another similarity : Lawyers. And getting information out of lawyers is like.... errr....... yeah. Not as hard as doctors. Another example is counselors. Easier than lawyers. Basically any personal-service consultant has a minor obligation of this kind.... probably even fiscal planners, to a point.
      • unless the music industry obtained a subpoena

        According to TFA, they filed subpoenas. Am I missing something?

        • Re:Privacy Rights and Breaking the Law (Score:4, Informative)

          by KD5YPT ( 714783 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:11PM (#12365966) Journal
          Sorry, it did appear I made a mistake in confusing subpoena with a warrant. Yes, they did obtained a subpoena. However, a subpoena merely requires the entity to show up in court, not force them to divulge information (in Doctor/Patient situation, a doctor is legally binding NOT to divulge information). In another word, unless the court issue a court order to force them to divulge information, an entity could refuse to (I think that falls under the Fifth amendment).

      • Like lawyer/client or priest/parishiner. I don't think the student enjoys the same sort of privelege with the school.
        • This isn't an issue of privilege, it's an issue of privacy laws. The university is required *BY LAW* to keep your information secret under state privacy laws. They cannot divulge stuff like
          • Your SIN
          • Your Student #
          • Your DOB
          • Your class schedule
          • Your phone #
          • Your address

          .Now along comes the RIAA saying "Please give us this private info on one (or two) of your students, because we think they've done bad things." What's the University to do? According to justice Eliason, not a damn thing!

          This is how it's *supp

          • Re:Doctor/Patient is legally priveleged relationsh (Score:4, Informative)

            by Peyna ( 14792 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @01:55AM (#12368691) Homepage
            Copyright infringement is only a criminal offense if it is done for profit, or the work which is copied has a retail value over $1,000.

            Law enforcement does not investigate civil cases.

            So, it's more like:

            1. The RIAA suspects someone has infringed on their IP and files a John Doe lawsuit in federal court.
            2. The RIAA has to figure out who this person is before they can go much further in court.
            3. The RIAA requests the court to issue a subpoena on the ISP to identify the infringer pursuant to 17 USC 512(h).
            4. The ISP responds to the subpoena, and the RIAA now knows who the infringer is.
            5. The RIAA amends their complaint to include the infringer as the defendant.
            6. The lawsuit proceeds.

            None of this has anything to do with warrants or the criminal system.

    • Re:Privacy Rights and Breaking the Law (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:25PM (#12365426) Journal
      If the record industry were to press criminal charges, then I'd see your point. But then the police would be involved, and we can justifiably (albeit naively) assume that they want only to serve the public trust.

      However, this is a civil matter. There's no reason to trust the word of lawyers involved. If it's that important to them then they can go through appropriate procedure. The university is obliged to take a fairly neutral stance.

    • Quite different (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:39PM (#12365581)
      This isn't a criminal charge, it's a civil action. Also, it's generally one based on rather weak evidence. The RIAA has companies that work for them that scan the filesharing networks for people sharing lots of files. They don't download and check them (at least not last I heard) they just get a list and assume it to be true. They then file a John Doe suit against the person behind the IP they supposedly came form and try to get their name.

      Well there's a lot of problems here. First, as noted, they don't really check to see if the files are what they claim they are. I mean just because they claim to be song X doesn't mean that's actually their contents. Second, not all file sharing networks, Kazaa in particular, are that good at reporting files on a computer. Sometimes you'll ask it for a list of a host's files and it'll give you a list for a different host. Now, even if it is the right list and they are legit, you have no idea what might be behind that IP. Maybe it's an open wireless access point, maybe the box was hacked. You don't know that the person who was allegedly in charge of the IP is actually responsable.

      So this is a pretty weak case to ask a school to violate it's prvacy policy for. This isn't like a criminal investigation, where probable cause would have to be presented to a judge to get an order to have the school give up the information. The RIAA is essentially going on fishing expeditions, and then forcing a settlement because a trial is too expensive and scary. Big difference for a normal sriminal investigation.

    • probable cause (Score:5, Informative)

      by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:42PM (#12365615) Homepage
      Even though you are making the mistake of civil v. criminal, I am going to try to explain this.

      Even in a civil case, you must have probable cause to go into someone's bank records, medical records, phone records, search someone's house.

      The school said, we are going to require you to have some basis to invade these student's privacy -- nothing is wrong with that. If this is a criminal case, the police would have to get a warrant from a judge. Here in a civil case, the school is saying get a judge to order us to.

      This test has already come up in many courts. The plaintiff (RIAA) has to show that there is a likelyhood that they would be successful, before unmasking these people.

      This comes from many cases where employees or investors have commented about companies and the company files suit only to unmask the people, then drop the suit. One of the early decisions [crn.com] was released in 2000.


    • If the crime had been assault or theft of a laptop or breaking and entering would anyone with material evidence of the crime be justified in not cooperating with the investigation in order to protect the privacy of the alleged perpetrators?

      Absolutely! No one is required to give up private information solely because of an accusation. We require due process of law.

      Example: I hereby accuse you of horrible, unspeakable crimes. I claim that information related to these crimes is stored in various computer

  • Isn't theft a stepping stone to terrorism? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:22PM (#12365395)
    Wait! Aren't we all supposed to be on the same Team here? There's no "I" in "SCHOOL"
    I'm sure most people in the music industry at one time went to school, right? Therefore schools should be helping the music industry. It's plain and simple "IF A THEN B" logic, people.

    Oh won't someone PLEASE think of the children!
    Or at least think of how Chewbacca, living on Endor would gladly give up his privacy rights to help out the music industry.

    (yeah, yeah...mod me either off topic or funny)

  • There you go... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Audent ( 35893 ) <audent@ilov[ ]scuits.com ['ebi' in gap]> on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:26PM (#12365428) Homepage
    finally some sense. If the university breaches your privacy by handing over your details without a search warrant/appropriate court demand/whatever then you have a case to bring a suit against them. Same goes for ISPs, phone companies, cable companies or whatever.

    Isn't there something about probably cause? Surely I can't ring up MIT and say "One of your students who goes by the name Stud Muffin has been posting copies of my material online, take it down now" and expect to be taken seriously without providing some evidence?
    IANAL
    I didn't RTFA
    • handing over your details without a search warrant/appropriate court demand/whatever

      I may be confused, but the RIAA did subpoena the information from the university according to TFA. Is the RIAA subpoena different than a "court demand." I thought subpoena's were court ordered. Please feel free to explain if I have missed something.

      • No, no... you may be right, but (and I'm not an American so I don't know how it works there) I thought a subpoena was simply a demand that someone turn up in court to answer questions. Does the subpoena have the recipient's name on it? If it does, why involve the university at all? If it does not, what part of it forces the university to provide that information?
        Again, I'm most definitely not a lawyer... just seeking clarification.
        • Well, as far as I can figure the RIAA subpoenas the university for the information they seek. Then, the university will give them the info, and then the RIAA will serve a summons (i think) on that individual to appear in court because they are being sued. But, I'm not sure if there are more than one type of subpoena.
      • It is a little bit strange, but in U.S. federal courts, subpoenas are issued by the authority of the court, but without specific approval by the court. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(a)(3) [cornell.edu]:

        The clerk shall issue a subpoena, signed but otherwise in blank, to a party requesting it, who shall complete it before service. An attorney as officer of the court may also issue and sign a subpoena on behalf of [a court].

        There are rules about what a subpoena can request from whom. If you ignore a valid s

    • Re:There you go... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jason Earl ( 1894 )

      Since when do Universities or ISPs profess to protect your anonymity when you are connected to the inherently public Internet? "hulk" and "CadillacMan" weren't doing anything *private*. If they were doing something private then no one would have known that they had copyrighted material to distributed illegally. Honestly, what's more public than filesharing?

      This isn't about the right to privacy, this is about the right to anonymity. What these students did was illegal, and the school has the informatio

      • Re:There you go... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:07PM (#12365919)
        In essence the University is witness to a crime, and it is refusing to testify.
        Not quite. The university is witness to a civil matter, and is refusing to cooperate. Criminal charges have not been filed; the RIAA is trying to extort money from these students, not put them in jail.

        • And... Universities get involved in civil matters all of the time. If you don't believe me, try your hand at plagiarism on a college campus some time. That's essentially the same crime as filesharing copyrighted works, except on a much smaller scale.

          Besides, do the Universities really want to push the RIAA towards filing criminal charges? I'm sure "hulk" and "CadillacMan" would really appreciate their University's efforts if it forced the RIAA to bring in the feds. Instead of paying thousands in fines

          • You make a good point. Now that the university is under no legal compulsion to provide information on these students' identities, I hope the universities are destroying any log files that might identify the students.

      • Re:There you go... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Audent ( 35893 )
        But the university isn't a person (in the legal sense) and has no ability to "witness" anything, does it?

        Sure, as an institution it has (presumably)AUPs that say the students shouldn't do anything illegal - anyone know what penalties the university states for such activities? - but that doesn't mean they have to hand anything over to the RIAA when they show up demanding names numbers and dates. Presumably they would simply cut the students' acounts off.

        As far as I'm aware here in New Zealand the ISPs need

        • The RIAA could turn the matter over to the feds, and pursue these cases as a criminal matter. The problem with this is that the RIAA doesn't really want to send kids to prison under laws that were designed for the prosecution of Mafia bootleggers. The penalties for the illegal distribution of copyrighted works in the U.S. are ridiculously severe. You would probably be better off to commit armed robbery and get caught than to share a Gig of copyrighted material over the Internet.

          I personally think that

      • Re:There you go... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by d34thm0nk3y ( 653414 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @09:27PM (#12367258)
        This isn't about the right to privacy, this is about the right to anonymity.

        No, actually, this is about the right to due process.

        Call me naive, but you still have to be rich enough to buy the laws ahead of time in this country. You can't actually change them mid-stream (yet?).

        • Actually, the existing laws are part of the problem. The RIAA could hand the investigations over to the feds under the existing laws that deal with the distribution of copyrighted material. However, this would land these stupid young punks in a federal penitentiary for a very long time. The existing laws are designed around busting up Mafia bootlegging operatins and the penalties are ridiculously stiff.

          Instead the RIAA is handling this through the civil court system, mostly because this allows them to

  • civil vs. criminal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymouse Cownerd ( 754174 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:28PM (#12365461) Homepage
    the riaa being a corporation and not an arm of the gub'ment (last i checked), i don't understand why all these lawsuits are criminal suits and not civil suits.

    anyone care to explain?

    • Re:civil vs. criminal (Score:4, Informative)

      by The Cisco Kid ( 31490 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:45PM (#12365650)
      There is no such thing as a 'criminal' lawsuit. Filing suit implies a civil action (regardless of how uncivil it might get). For criminal action, one needs to file a criminal complain with the appropriate LE agency (which is then investigated, and if appropriate, charges filed by the DA)

    • Re:civil vs. criminal (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sTalking_Goat ( 670565 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:55PM (#12365759) Homepage
      Its not criminal. If it were then the a Judge would issue a subpeana and the Uni would have no choice but to hand over the data.

      As it is the RIAA's Lawyer SWAT team stepped up and said "We want their names." The Uni refused. The matter was taken to a civil court and a judge decide that the Uni didn't have to cooperate.

      Score 1 for justice.

      Let me be clear. The issue here isn't whether hulk and CadillacMan stole/unlawfully copied/legally through fair use copied something. The issue is whether or not the Uni has to hand over confidential data just because some corporation says so. I don't care what side of the copyright debate you're on its hard to see this as anything but a good.

      • The issue here isn't whether hulk and CadillacMan stole/unlawfully copied/legally through fair use copied something.

        Yes. This goes way beyond the whole copyright thing. It says just because you have a stable of lawyers, and are a massive corporation, you can't go swaggering in, demanding information. You have get a judge first.

        In reality, when this happens to a small ISP or school, they probably pee their pants in fear, and roll over for the big bad wolf. But at least the legal option to fight this

    • No, they are not an arm of the govt. They do however own some of the politicians in it...

      Does anyone else think it's strange that there are so few US new agency reporting this, and the OP is quoting a Canadian agency??? There are [p2pnet.net] a [washingtonpost.com] few [businessweek.com] national reports, but mostly local [the-dispatch.com] reports [wfmynews2.com]. It sure isn't seeming to get much attention...

  • Legally sound ruling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by doormat ( 63648 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:29PM (#12365471) Homepage Journal
    Since the RIAA != A local, state or federal law enforcement agency, the RIAA has no legal ground to demand student information. They need to go to court just like every other person or corporation in this country.

    Yea for logic and reasoning in the legal system!

  • In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by metoc ( 224422 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:30PM (#12365481)
    All government funding to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University was suspended today for failing to trample all over students right to privacy and bowing down to commercial interests.

    Unnamed sources were quoted as saying that individuals attending any organization receiving government funds have no expectation of privacy.

  • Specious argument ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mclaincausey ( 777353 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:31PM (#12365494) Homepage
    I'm glad someone's standing up for pirates, but couldn't you use the same argument (privacy) these schools are using to defend withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring or some other illegal activity? They should address the IP issues instead of using privacy as the standard by which their actions are to be judged. This could be an opportunity to take a stand and make a statement instead of a ruling that will be overturned. Thoughts?

    • Re:Specious argument ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by KD5YPT ( 714783 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:50PM (#12365703) Journal
      The issue here is which system is easier to abuse. The schools are arguing that they shouldn't be required to turn over info unless a subpoena is issued. And frankly, a judge will issue a subpoena/warrant to track down kiddie porn ring and such pretty quickly. The main issue currently is that the RIAA is trying to bypass the subpoena route and go directly to demanding information.

      • Exactly. All this does is up the ante for the kids. If the RIAA calls the Universities bluff and files criminal charges against these filesharers then the school will hand over the information needed. The only difference is that instead of simply paying a large fine the kids would also go to prison.

        The Universities are just hoping that criminal charges aren't forwarded. If they are, then they will have essentially flushed these two kids' life right down the toilet.

    • I'm glad someone's standing up for pirates

      They're standing up for the school and the student body as a whole.

      but couldn't you use the same argument (privacy) these schools are using to defend withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring or some other illegal activity?

      Well, you'd have to convince a judge that. In that case it wouldn't be the RIAA going to a judge, it'd be law enforcement, because that'd be a criminal case instead of a civil one. Plus, you'd have to be able to argue that t
    • I'm glad someone's standing up for pirates, but couldn't you use the same argument (privacy) these schools are using to defend withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring or some other illegal activity? They should address the IP issues instead of using privacy as the standard by which their actions are to be judged. This could be an opportunity to take a stand and make a statement instead of a ruling that will be overturned. Thoughts?

      I would THINK that anyone investigating a kiddie porn ri

    • Re:Specious argument ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:53PM (#12366398) Journal
      withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring

      Actually, I'd be more than happy if the University did this. Imagine if YOU were the one arrested. Everyone sees your name and picture plastered all over the news. Of course, you're not a pedophile, and after dismantling your computer, the charges are dropped, and nobody speaks of it again.

      Then graduation looms. You start sending out resumes. Not a single response, not even a rejection letter. Deciding that your college town sucked anyway, you spread the net a little wider, graduation just around the corner. Graduation comes and goes. You go back to living with your parents. Finally, on the other side of the country, you get a nibble. You fly over there for an interview, they hire you on the spot. Over the next few days you arrange a year contract on an apartment, move in, and start working, then the Regional Manager drops by to see how everything is going. Of course he recognizes you, and two days later you're jobless again, your position having been downsized ("we're terribly sorry").

      I'm all for posting signs in pedos' yards after they've been found guilty of screwing little kids or something, but face it... we live in a world where a lynch mob recently killed a pediatrician because their collective intelligence couldn't beat an amoeba. Innocent until proven guilty requires a certain level of privacy and delicacy for situations like this.
    • And thus, the police would get a warrant, and they would recieve co-operation. Why does somebody always have to make it a "please think about the children" issue.

      The RIAA is fully capable of persuing this manner further, through the proper channels, just like everyone else. We're not "standing up for pirates," but rather standing up for the rights that we all share.

  • Precedent. Ignorance? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I'm a racist. ( 631537 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:31PM (#12365497) Homepage Journal
    That's all well and good, in North Carolina. But, how is it going to play as a precedent in other courts? Particularly of interest is the federal level. I haven't kept up on the various decisions lately, but I believe other court rulings have supported the MPAA/RIAA.

    I sincerely doubt that a judge in California [opensecrets.org] will see things the same way. Of course, I've been wrong before.

    Additionally, what's the motivation for organizations (schools or ISPs) to fight for privacy versus just rolling over? I don't hear much of an outcry from the public over this bullshit, so it's not like they're really trying to protect their images. And, we all know that corporations don't go to much effort just on priciple (schools are a bit better in this regard).

    In terms of "selling piracy", the MPAA/RIAA have won. The public really buys into the idea of it being stealing (as opposed to copyright infringment), and doesn't seem to get too pissed off over the draconian punishments that have been handed down. Even people who are fairly technically literate, or well versed in law, often don't see the distinction between theft and infringement. It's pretty sad. Who else is up for forming a non-profit [dontbuycds.org], whose mission is to educate the public on intellectual property issues? Lastly, if the public doesn't understand the issue all that well, can we really expect much better of the judiciary? In an ideal world, the judiciary represents the populace (of course, I'd hope them to be much smarter than the average asshole on the street though).
    • "Additionally, what's the motivation for organizations (schools or ISPs) to fight for privacy versus just rolling over?"

      Money. Students pay tuition. Students become alumni who donate. ISP customers pay for connectivity. Though they won't admit it, they indirectly make lots of money off of piracy. Being able to boast that you won't roll for the RIAA (feasible if you're a big ISP) will become a increasiblgy desirable as the lawsuits keep ramping up.

      Don't think of it as "fighting for privacy rights."
    • Even people who are fairly technically literate, or well versed in law, often don't see the distinction between theft and infringement.

      Oh, I think people understand it better than you're giving them credit for. The real issue is that they don't care that there's a difference, because, at a gut level, they know (and you should) that the issue is the same: somebody wants something, and doesn't want to pay what the owner is asking for it. This has zero, nothing to do with the legal distinction between infri

  • About Damn Time. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chrontius ( 654879 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:31PM (#12365498)
    The civil liberties crowd will be happy that we're back to innocent until proven guilty -- "there's a large chasm between suspected and convicted" after all.

  • Does it really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kizzbizz ( 870017 ) * <kizzer&gmail,com> on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:35PM (#12365539)
    They'll find another case like this they can bring to court again and again untill they find a judge that'll agree with them, and then THAT will set the precedent for all the next cases.

    As long as the *AA's have the bank accounts and the lobbyists, these cases will just be a bump in their road.

    And that really really blows.

  • Not a crime, even if they did it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:50PM (#12365710)
    Copyright infringement, even if they did do it, isn't a crime. At least, in the UK it would not be. It's a breach of civil law.

    So, no police turning up, no-one behaving like police to try to 'stamp it out', no-one going to jail even if they did do it. Taxpayers won't pay for the police or the jail, they have better uses for their tax dollars.

    Go to a judge. Tell him about the John or Jane Doe. See if the judge will force John or Jane to come along and tell his or her side of the story --- for all I know, maybe their computer was broken into, or maybe their open WAP was hijacked.

    Believe the judge. It's his duty to uphold the law as between civil litigants in the best way he sees fit.

    Getting John or Jane Doe's details, and then intimidating them, well, that might be a crime.

  • Take a tip - get hip (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:06PM (#12365908)
    What the music industry doesn't seem to understand is that they are going through a fundamental shift in their business. Things are never going to go back to the way that were before the MP3-P2P revolution. If the music industry succeeds in stopping file sharing of music recordings, they will end up shrinking their industry much more than would happen if they let file sharing continue unharrassed.

    File sharing is critically important to the industry because it is becoming the only way that people can find new music that they like. The old method of music sales, which was a single song or group of songs unalterably imprinted on a plastic disk (or tape spool in the case of cassettes), enforced the perspective that the only 'natural' way to market recordings was to have every disk have the same price for every song sold to every listener. This seemed obvious and actually did work well for 100 years.

    Then digitization hit. Digitization takes any media and separates it into parts in ways that were impossible and inconceivable before the medium is converted into a digital format. This happens to every media that becomes digitized. These separated forms are then recombined with other forms that have become separated from other media. All the wealth that is created from commercializing digitized media comes from the recombination of these separations into new formats that were impossible before digitization. Usually the new products are inferior in quality to previous pre-digital products, but this is ignored by customers because the new products have so much more utility than the previous higher quality but more expensive products.

    Examples abound: the typewriter keys split from the printing of letters and combined with television to become the word processor. The piano split between the keyboard and the sound of the hammered strings to become the sampler. The light bulb split from the generated heat and combined with offset printing to become the LCD graphics display terminal....and so on.

    Digitization split the recording from the disk. The recording combined with the telephone to become P2P and the disk combined with the telegraph to become the CD-R. The $15 group of songs on a disk became the $0.15 CD-R with 10 albums worth of songs. This isn't going to change back regardless of the draconian incarceration laws passed by the music industry. They're just going to turn ordinary college students into hardened criminals and dedicated revolutionaries. Just to attempt a vain effort to preserve an outmoded pop-music distribution method from its inevitable transformation.

    The new method of music distribution will be centered on the marketing to the individual listener/customer instead of marketing individual disk recordings. The industry has to get used to the principal that in the new era, every listener is going to pay a different amount of money for each recording in their collection. Currently with file sharing, that cost is $0.00 with the listener/consumer having to do all the filtering of the junk and uninteresting recordings available on the Kazaa. (a new noun meaning the underground file-sharing network, as opposed to 'being in Kazaa'). The music industry will reap unimaginable profits off file sharing when they learn to filter the astronomical amount of recorded music to individual listener's tastes.

    This is where their real future lies, not with harassing and alienating their customer base.
    • If the music industry succeeds in stopping file sharing of music recordings, they will end up shrinking their industry much more

      Maybe they don't want to succeed in stopping file sharing. Maybe this is the new cash cow, suing people and then settling for ridiculous amounts of money, using underpaid non-attorneys to mill through the cases to keep costs down. Sue just enough people to make sure that other people buy their CDs and make a tidy sum off the settlements, while the file sharing networks serve as
    • File sharing is critically important to the industry because it is becoming the only way that people can find new music that they like.

      This is exactly why they want to stop it. Are people really going to take a chance and buy an unknown album at today's rate ? Probably not.

      What are they going to do ? They will buy what they know. Which mean what they heard on radio or saw on TV.

      Who control radio and TV ? Big corporation.

      With P2P (and projects like Indy [www.indy.tv]), artists don't need big bucks anymore to promote

  • The article is short on details (Score:3, Interesting)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:08PM (#12365930) Homepage Journal
    But I'd bet this was one of the expedited subpeonas the DMCA allows - the ones that are complete and utter bullshit, and are routinely struck down by courts.

    If the RIAA were to actually file John Doe lawsuits, they could get a real subpeona, and this wouldn't be an issue at all.

    But filing a real lawsuit costs more than filling in the boxes on a form.

  • "Form Subpoena" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Karma Farmer ( 595141 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @07:57PM (#12366464)
    Here's a page describing the type of Subpoena being used by the RIAA:

    Subpoena Defense Alliance [subpoenadefense.org]
  • When I first read this post's header I thought it was referring to public schools not having to help the RIAA brainwash kids to not "steal" with their propoganda programs. Alas, 'twas not the case. Now if only ISPs could tell the RIAA to take a hike.

    With new legislation here [bbc.co.uk] coming across Bush's desk in the next little while, I'm getting a little tired of all the attention given to the RIAA and the MPAA. My brother was killed by a drunk driver five years ago. Where are the corporate sponsored programs

  • Privacy Rules (Score:3, Funny)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Thursday April 28, 2005 @08:19AM (#12370087) Homepage Journal
    "You have been charged with two counts of Privacy. How do you pleed?"

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