I don't know about UGA, but when I went to college all students were covered with free lawyers and lawyers-in-training from the law school on campus for any dispute that didn't involve the university. They helped me fight off an MPAA attack when they didn't like my posting on Slashdot.

It should be a selling point to students that they'll be okay if they just need a little help by proving they did nothing wrong. Again, what side is UGA on here?

If you own the content and threaten to sue, it's good business. If you don't own the content and threaten to help someone sue, it's extortion.

The blackmail is despicable. But the whitemail is hardly pristine.

This is actually a pretty common scam.

1. Find something that the target group is aware of that "threatens" them
2. Build up a cover that you are in a position to make that happen to them sooner
3. Claim you can make it go away for $$$. Enough so you make some money, but low enough that the target can scrounge it up.
3. ALTERNATE Pretend to be on the targets side. Say you can call a guy and do them a favor and be all sly and help a brother out for a few bucks compared to massive fines or legal action.
4. Cover your tracks and don't get too greedy and be ready to drop and run. This is where the guy in the article failed.
5. Profit

Sounds interesting, is there a story behind that? What did you post on /. that got the MPAA's panties in a bunch?

...and I think it's "asshole". Wow, what a jerk.

That said, this is the sort of situation that inevitably arises when violating the law. If you steal cars, and someone steals your stolen goods -- or tries to extort protection money from you, who are you going to call? A considerable proportion of organized crime exists because of this quandary. Ergo, my guess is that the lid was blown off this situation when the miscreant, probably carelessly, tried to lean on a student who wasn't actually pirating anything.

Yes, I'm intrigued to know too as it implies that Slashdot possibly handed over his details in response to a complaint from the MPAA.

I think I remember Slashdot being forced to turn over details in a Scientology case, but I don't remember any others.

Not sure who's on crack, but I disagree with you. His job from your quote was monitoring, which says nothing about "making copyright accusations" and certainly not extorting the students. So the GP (your parent) is more correct in my book.

The GGP seems to think that just because the students are paying tuition that the university should just turn a blind eye to illegal activity on their network? That just doesn't make sense. Whether or not you think it should be illegal is another thing, but the school certainly has every right to monitor their networks.

For those who don't know...the setup with academic institutions (maybe tied to some payment/government funds/agreement) is that all the RIAA has to do is send them a letter with the IP and content. The school will then go and find the kid and give them some sort of a slap on the wrist and tell them not to do it again. At my university, they kicked you off the network until you talked to the assistant dean of students. First offense was a slap on the wrist (delivered with the apathetic "yeah...we have to do this...its wrong...don't do it again" that you would expect). Second offense was a $2000 fine. Third offense was unclear but involved a disciplinary hearing...doubt anyone ever got past the second offense.

Compare this to how it works with a normal ISP: RIAA sends a letter with IP and content, ISP says "wtf is this?", RIAA says "we want their info", ISP says "as soon as you have a court order". ISP's have a bottom line to worry about and aren't going to pay someone to do what universities do (and their service agreements probably prevent it) and they are not going to turn over customer information without a subpoena (well...in theory). At the same time, the RIAA is not going to waste lawyer dollars getting a subpoena for every single infringer. It is much easier to spend the lawyer dollars writing letters to offenders with IP's in an academic institutions block--it kicks off one filesharer and scares them and their friends into being more careful in the future since they know that someone can see what they are doing.

THIS particular system is protected by the law - the college has no case against Dehelean

Don't believe me? Look at http://www.bsa.org/ [bsa.org]

Here's the short version of the story.

The MPAA tried to hit every IT program in the nation with a "if you didn't pay for it, you stole it" presentation. Word of this spread through /., so everyone saw it coming. Nearly everybody in the class walked out when the MPAA's presenter entered the room... she wanted to cancel the presentation when they saw just me left, but I told the professor I'd demand a refund for the skipped class if he didn't present something, so the MPAA lady went through the script.

Then, it was time for questions. And I attacked the DVDCCA (DVD Copy Control Authority) by asking where they came from, who owned them, and who pays to keeps the lights on in their office. She nicely backed up in her presentation to show that they were paid for by the makers of DVD players, and they had to pay dues to this organization or you won't be able to play new DVD releases.

Mentioned this on /. and then it just happens that my school's law program was also interested in this. Here was the theory... the DVDCCA had become an illegal cartel. DVD makers were being blackmailed to maintain compatibility, but they weren't the people gaining any benefit. There they go...

And their first defense was to attack me. They tried to discredit me on /. but what they ended up doing was exposing their arguments to the world, and were being shot down by law students who knew more than me.

So their next tactic was to offer me money to go away. I had a number in my head, but it was off by more than an order of magnitude from what they offered, so no deal.

At this point, /. turned over my IP address and the university was tricked into giving away my phone number. They sent the team doing the MPAA movie downloader shakedowns to me. I was smart enough to not tell them how much I had for a long while, and then I called University Legal Services.

I was connected with law professors at the university's law school and only had to tell them what I had done privately because they had already read and interacted with me on /. and knew the public writings of themselves, other /. users, and me.

They gave me the key... tell the "collectors" after three calls that they were harassing me, then hide behind the University Legal Service's representation. They were flustered... I was basically inviting the lawsuit, and everybody involved was sure I'd win. Their handbook didn't cover that situation.

So... now they've got a problem. We were dropping the c-word ("cartel") all over /. and they had no defense because they were guilty as charged on that. For a few days, it was thought that the DVDCCA would go bankrupt leading Hollywood to have to chose between unencrypted movies, or no further releases until a legal scheme could be thought up.

Just in time... they solved their part of the puzzle. If the MPAA member studies wanted copy protection, they'd have to pay for it themselves. The DVDCCA started collecting a fee on each disc that used their technology, and argued that publishers would pass that extra dollar and change on to customers, and the $19.99 price would be replaced by $22.99 thanks to me. Um, that never happened!

So, in the end I discovered something that the MPAA didn't like, and their first reaction was to accuse me of downloading I never did. When their proof on that came up empty, they then addressed the original problem.

I am not equating, merely comparing. I do not believe that breaking unjust laws is unethical, regardless of magnitude.