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University of Ohio Abandons Students Attacked by RIAA
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat May 26, 2007 01:34 PM
from the just-have-to-run-faster-than-the-hafling dept.
from the just-have-to-run-faster-than-the-hafling dept.
newtley writes "The University of Ohio was putting a brave face on being #1 on the RIAA hit list, but it now appears they have caved in to RIAA intimidation. Now, 'It appears that many institutions are simply prepared to wash their hands, refusing even to question the tactics of the industry,' let alone giving students meaningful legal assistance, says Ohio lawyer Joe Hazelbaker. He's written to OU associate director of legal affairs Barbara Nalazek saying, 'Ohio University has an obligation to protect the privacy of its students and their records, which includes directory information.' The Recording Industry vs. The People blog is hosting a letter universities whose students being attacked might want to consider."
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Ohio University Leads U.S. Colleges in File Sharing 135 comments
An anonymous reader writes "The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that Ohio University leads the nation in illegal music download notifications, having received 1,287 RIAA complaints since September, with between ten and 15 notices arriving daily. The University is attempting to deflect criticism with a PR piece, saying open networks required for academic freedom make it difficult to stop illegal file sharing. They also point out that the University's architecture makes it much easier to determine who is actually sharing the files. This makes a complaint more likely, as the RIAA knows who to target. "
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Ohio University Blocks P2P File Sharing 425 comments
After receiving the highest number of notices from the RIAA about P2P file sharing, Ohio University has announced a policy that restricts all fire sharing on the campus network. Some file-sharing programs that could trigger action are Ares, Azureus, BitTorrent, BitLord, KaZaA, LimeWire, Shareaza and uTorrent. Claiming that this effort is 'to ensure that every student, faculty member and researcher has access to the computer resources they need,' is this another nail in the coffin of internet freedom in American universities or a needed step to prevent illegal fire sharing?
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How It Went Down (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot's hugely biased reporting (Score:5, Informative)
And mind you, many of these words may be buzzwords, but at their heart, can you honestly say this is not intimidation? How many people who have NOT downloaded anything illegally have been sued? How many laws (note, LAWS) has the RIAA tried to bend/break in order to GET information on people?
And one last bit that gets said over and over again:
When you pay for that System of a Down CD, 95% of that money (number made up off top of my head, point is, vast majority) goes to... the RIAA/its affiliates. Bands make money off of tours, merchandise, etc.
And for the record, no, I don't pirate music. Or anything, really. I simply don't really care for most music, and my last album (Weird Al's Straight Outta Lynwood) I did get in physical form.
Parent
Re:Slashdot's hugely biased reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_efforts_against
A list of people who have been sued for downloading songs when they didn't own a computer, know how to use one, weren't even 13, and had no clue as to either how to use a computer or the consequences of downloading. Hey, they've even tried to sue dead people!
And this list is obviously incomplete. And let me ask you: How did the RIAA find out about who took what? It obviously isn't very effective. And considering that they've gone to courts to ask for permission to lie to customers to snoop for information, they've threatened ISPs into handing over data, etc.
Honestly, if a company wanted to read your mail and check your packages for stolen goods without any warrant, would you be fine with that? I fucking wouldn't, that's for sure. So why should we put up with it in our digital mail?
And hey, here's ANOTHER question. How do you know these threatened students are guilty? You seem to have a pretty clear attitude of "guilty until proven innocent."
I mean, suppose for a second that ALL these kids are innocent. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. We don't know. But for the sake of argument, let's say they are. How, exactly, are they going to get out of this? Hire a good lawyer? Yeah, because a bunch of college students can hire a great lawyer to match wits with the RIAA's team of lawyers. Their choices include settle for thousands of dollars or... well, that's it, really.
It'd be one thing if they WERE just protecting their "rights." But they're doing so by taking wild shots in the dark, forcing people into expensive settlements, and trying to bend or break the law into their own will. That's a FUCK ton worse than downloading Paris Hilton or whoever the fuck is out there's latest overpriced shit.
And yeah, copyright infringement is NOT theft. That's why it's CALLED infringement, NOT THEFT. Theft involves taking something. I take the money from your wallet. That's stealing. I hijack your car. That's stealing. I COPY your book. That's infringement. (Notice how in all but one example you lose the ability to use the object? That is a key point)
Parent
Re:Slashdot's hugely biased reporting (Score:4, Interesting)
For another example, fan fiction and fan art, except where explicitly approved by the creators, are in fact acts of copyright infringement. You're using established and copyrighted characters and stories for your own use. However, companies find this to be free advertising in many cases, or too trivial to worry about. Yet we don't have police attempting to shut down fan-fiction.net. Why isn't DeviantART being pulled down for numerous charges?
This is why I said, though poorly, it was not illegal. Personal use, as opposed to ripping DVDs/CDs and selling them on a market somewhere, is often a very disputable act.
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Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score:5, Interesting)
I buy a CD, artist gets their $0.50. I sell the CD to a friend, artist doesn't get a cut but now I have another $9 to spend on another CD.
Compare this to only downloading.
I buy a CD, artist gets their $0.50. I upload the music and half a million people get the song; artist gets nothing, I never get an additional cent to buy another CD.
Parent
Re:Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the existence of a second-hand market is part of what allows them to sell the CD for $9 (or whatever) in the first place -- people will spend more up front if they believe they can get some of it back later. The value of the used CD is factored in to the price of the new ones.
Going by your original logic, half a million people now have an extra $9+ to buy another CD. This would seem to be an improvement from the "available money" point-of-view.
Parent
so I went into the pawn shop (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted a used but serviceable electric drill, a simple plug in model, the old one I had had for years finally went TU. Picked one out, maybe half price of new, pay for it, go home, use it. Now, it's a black and decker, they got paid once for the drill, but nothing on the resale-should they be?
Anyway, the digital point is moot, the tech genie is out of the bottle now and in widespread use. It's our first replicator technology, folks thinking they can still charge a huge per unit markup for copies that quite literally at best only cost a few cents need to realise they have been put into the position of buggywhip makers and sellers. Sorry if that hurts their plans and all, but those are the facts. the future world is *not* going to be paying huge amounts of money for single copies of digital bits, no matter what those bits are. We still are some, but that is only from inertia. If that means 15/16th of digital bits creators go broke or have to switch to doing it for a hobby, that's life.
I'm a blue collar worker, as in hard labor worker for not a lot of money compared to the business and IT people here. I have already been told that my labor is now only worth a dollar an hour or something, because it can be reproduced in china for that sum, and society seems to think that is OK, that I have to "deal with it". It's rather an unpleasant FU from my fellow americans, but oh well, that's reality, I *have* to deal with it because there is no sympathy of note, nothing that is effective anyway, it's not really personal as another saying goes, it's just business. OK. I went from middle class to now pretty far down the pole, barely above poverty level. I get by, but that's it. Trying to do better, but working a few jobs doesn't leave a lot of time for much else.
So... you digital content creators.. you are no longer the elite either, you are at the tail end nadir of that point, and digital reproduction-replicator technology- makes your efforts quite a bit less valuable per unit then you think they should be. That's reality,. you'll have to adjust eventually. Single copies of your stuff are worth pennies, not dollars.
The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall. It won't happen overnight-cars didn't replace horses overnight either, chinese furniture didn't replace my furnbiture over night, but eventually it finally did, and with digital bits -it's happening. My only advice is adapt and change as fast as you can, prolonging it makes it worse. Jump at the high point, don't hang on except as a hobby. You may be making the big bucks now, and may for some more years, but eventually-you won't be, there's tens of millions more people a year entering the digital content "business", whether it is in the arts or sciences, and the ability to reproduce the work for pennies isn't going away. And you will NOT get much notice either, business and society doesn't work that way.
How many buggy whips have you bought lately? You have a much larger pool of workers every year all trying to sell stuff that is only worth pennies per unit, and it's beoming easier to make those copies, even cheaper than pennies, and the pool of creators is exploding. This is called a "bubble", a normal economic term.
The *only* reason you can still get dollars per unit now is inertia, but eventually that will go away, like alcohol prohibition. At first it was rigidly enforced, then eventually it was so universally ignored that they finally dropped the notion of trying to restrict technology, which after all is what booze making was, just simple chemistry. Simple chemistry and human nature doomed prohibition. Simple electronics and human nature will doom high dollars per unit digital copies of bits, laws or no laws.
You won't be able to restrict replicator technology, so the sooner you adapt to that reality and change course the faster you ca
Parent
Another one bites the dust (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess that a couple hundred University of Ohio students will be receiving some pre-litigation notices in the mail sometime next week.
Re:Another one bites the dust (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm by no means suggesting that the college has any obligation to provide any assistance, but it's certainly to their benefit in the long term.
Parent
Re:Another one bites the dust (Score:5, Informative)
Ohio University's office of Student Legal Services has done an excellent job -- far better than the SLS at many other schools -- of advising the students. In fact they affirmatively went out of the way to help them find counsel [blogspot.com] and to make them aware of their legal rights [studentlegalrights.org], and of resources upon which they could draw.
The problem is that under their charter, they're not authorized to litigate in federal court, and have to refer the students to outside counsel.
Now the university's counsel's office should be taking a more activist role than it has, as Mr. Hazelbaker eloquently pointed out in his letter [ilrweb.com] (pdf).
Parent
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Victims? (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds to me like we're making a classic stupid military mistake: we keep on defending ourselves, at our homes, schools, and workplaces.
So let me ask: how do we take the fight to them? How do we start fscking over the RIAA / MPAA / Disney / NJ Turnpike Authority?
Re:Victims? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way IMHO to really beat the RIAA is to not consume their products in any form. If DRM prevents you from making a backup copy, don't buy the CD, don't download, listen to something else. Then if their revenues drop, the execs can't point to the evil pirates as scapegoats to appease the shareholders.
To take a page from Oscar Wilde, "The only thing worse than being pirated, is not being pirated"
Parent
Re:Victims? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
How about personal responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Ohio University (Score:5, Informative)
It may sound quaint... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the lawsuits are a bunch of bull, and yes, the RIAA is a bunch of thugs. But I have no doubt that the university told people that file sharing is a good way to get sued, and they went ahead and did it anyway. I have no sympathy for these people. As unfair as it is, they should suffer some consequences to what they did. Most anyone knows that file sharing can make you the target of a lawsuit, but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it isn't considered illegal. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of the students did it because they wanted free music, not because they somehow believed they were sticking it to the man.
If you want to change the situation, downloading files and trying to get sued isn't going to fix anything. Donate to EFF, move near the RIAA headquarters and intimidate them directly, or some other more direct means would be more effective.
Re:It may sound quaint... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the university put themselves directly in the middle of the situation by agreeing to act as *the* ISP for their students. They include the cost in tuition and provide the service for "free". The result is that the students have no choice but to pay the university for Internet service. Consequently, the university has a responsibility to protect those same students from the dangers of the net.
Additionally, most college students are *not* adults when they start at a university, which is when most of them will run afoul of the RIAA / MPAA / Drinking laws. The university has agreed to act as the reponsible party for those students who are still minors, but instead of acting responsibly and defending the students from harm, they are actively handing over the students and the parents' to the Mafiaa. You tell me how many parents are going to let their kids attend a university that is abdicating the responsibility they agreed to take on, and leaving the kids and parents exposed to this kind of trouble.
-=Geoskd
Parent
Re:It may sound quaint... (Score:5, Funny)
> but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it isn't considered illegal.
As unfair as it is, they should suffer some consequences to what they did. Most anyone knows that [practising homosexuality] can make you the target of [the death penalty in Iran], but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it isn't considered illegal. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of the [homosexuals] did it because they wanted [to have homosexual sex], not because they somehow believed they were sticking it to the man.
As unfair as it is, they should suffer some consequences to what they did. Most anyone knows that [taking drugs] can make you the target of [the death penalty in Thailand], but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it isn't considered illegal. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of the [drug users] did it because they wanted [to take drugs], not because they somehow believed they were sticking it to the man.
As unfair as it is, they should suffer some consequences to what they did. Most anyone knows that [not wearing religiously sanctioned clothing] can make you the target of a [being raped with no legal recourse in more than one Middle Eastern country], but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it [won't result in you being raped with no legal recourse]. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of the [women] did it because they wanted [to wear clothing that was not religiously sanctioned], not because they somehow believed they were sticking it to the man.
Parent
Re:It may sound quaint... (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't realize there was a difference... >.>
Parent
Don't give them your money then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What is the RIAA accomplishing? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the point. At the least, they can make it more difficult for pirates to rip artists off.
Why do you "fucking hate" a company legally protecting the rights of its represented artists? We go after stolen GPL code violations all the time here on Slashdot. But piracy of music artists, game developers (like John Carmack at id), movie studios, and so on is okey-dokey?
Parent