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RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Sep 22, 2007 03:27 PM
from the back-up-off-of-the-uw-if-you-don't-mind dept.
from the back-up-off-of-the-uw-if-you-don't-mind dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of 'early settlement' letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to 'take a hike'. The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."
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News: Harvard Law Professor Urges University to Fight RIAA 180 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Distinguished Harvard University Law School Professor Charles Nesson has called upon Harvard University to fight back against the RIAA and stand up for its students, writing 'Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement. But these responses distort the University's educational mission. ...[W]e should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students.'"
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News: RIAA Adds 23 Colleges to Hit List, Avoids Harvard 282 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike. 'Under the new scheme, the RIAA sends out what it calls 'pre-litigation' settlement letters. Actually, they're self-incrimination documents and they're designed to extort preset amounts of around $3,000 from students with the empty promise that by paying up, they'll remove the threat of being hauled into court on charges of copyright infringement. In reality, all the students are doing is providing the RIAA with personal and private information which can conceivably be used against them ...'"
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403 Error: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:403 Error: (Score:5, Funny)
I guess now every nerd will be sending the MafIAA a 404 reply letter saying sorry resource not found, go blow smoke up somebody Else's ass because it wasn't me.
Parent
Dangerous move... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dangerous move... (Score:5, Funny)
Correction: Harvard is located right next to MIT.
Parent
This only means the RIAA has no case (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This only means the RIAA has no case (Score:5, Funny)
"It's a miracle!" exclaimed the priest.
"No... professional courtesy", explained the journalist.
And that also explains why the RIAA isn't going after the Harvard kids.
Parent
Re:This only means the RIAA has no case (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This only means the RIAA has no case (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This only means the RIAA has no case (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
On way... (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinda find it interesting that one of the best law schools in the country isn't receiving these threats.
Re:On way... (Score:5, Funny)
Only if you are a media company.
Parent
Perfect picks. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wonderfully, it seems the RIAA is picking a bunch of colleges with both the money and the staff to assist in defending their students. With other colleges already taking similar stances, I expect that many of the current round will do so as well. Thus, I expect the RIAA to soon learn that this method is fraught with enough reasons to ensure they fail.
My only worry is their attempts at creating circumstances and/or laws that "coerce" the colleges to give up their (possibly) innocent (or not) students without due process.
No one likes the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
This can only mean one thing... (Score:4, Funny)
Figures, corrupt lawyers and all...
Harvrd Legal Counsel (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
- Bullies won't go after you if they are afraid that there's a chance of getting their nose bloodied.
- Don't have to run faster than the bear... just faster than the slowest guy running from the bear.
Harvard students are excluded from these notifications, not because of their innocence, but because of the fact that there are literally thousands of easier targets to go after that have no chance of fighting back!
RIAA does target Harvard... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thecrimson.com/archives.aspx?SearchTerms=RIAA&SortField=0&PageSize=10&News=1&Opinion=2&Sports=3&Magazine=5&Arts=4 [thecrimson.com]
I hope the Crimson's servers stand up.
The RIAA frequently targeted students individually, and AFAIK continues threatening letters occasionally to individual students if they can figure out who you are. As you can see from the Crimson archives there was some pushback from the law school profs.
Back in the late 90's, your (fixed, non-DHCP) undergraduate IP at Harvard mapped to username.person.harvard.edu or something like that, making it trivially easy to see who was where, and you would 'magically' get spam for visiting websites, as your email was username@fas.harvard.edu. This was changed around '99 or so, now it is a roamXXX.student.harvard.edu I believe, and DHCP'd to a real IP address. This helps protect anonymity and individual student's activity, and Harvard does not give out the mapping to individual students.
Harvard internally sends curious emails reporting "excessive bandwidth" use to us, which also still continues AFAIK. Several of my friends received these, we think it was in the neighborhood of > 10 GB per day use. They basically said to quit it, or we might look further as to what you are doing, or bring you in front of a disciplinary committee. This was back in the days of i2hub (remember this?), and most of my friends just throttled their bandwidth with no further problems -- very scared of the hassle of defending yourself even if it is "legit" activity.
Mickey Mouse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mickey Mouse...MOD UP PARENT (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very wise, if obscure to many, comment that copyright law has been so skewed towards the big corporations that civil disobedience is more than justified. Study the history of copyrights and you'll understand why the Founders of the USA democracy specified that secure for a limited time was part of the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, Congress (Republicans), the President (Clinton), and most of all, the Supreme Court of the United States have totally let us down on this issue over the last decade. The RIAA is now hard at work to steal back what little of the Public Domain still remains.
At the very minimum, DRM should be legally required to expire on the day that the copyright for the work it's protecting expires!
Parent
side bar (Score:5, Insightful)
When a college passes a RIAA extortion letter to a student that they believe is the intended recipient, the college has done nothing wrong. In fact, I think it would be a liability to not pass the information along. I know that I would never want my university to act as a legal threat filter on my behalf because in the end, it isn't the university being held responsible, its me! The bottom line is that everybody who receives a threatening letter - be it legal or other - should consult with a lawyer and respond appropriately.
Many of the posts did recognize the *real* problem with some of these institutions: unethical cooperation with RIAA. Providing *any* information about a student, whether that information be an IP address, mailing address or name should be illegal. I know that recent laws have made it impossible for even my parents to access my student records and GPA without my express permission (which I have given
"This school acts as a neutral internet service provider. The intended recipients/users have been notified. It is up to them to respond individually. If you require any additional information, please obtain a court-ordered subpoena."
So for now, the real problem seems to be that many schools lack a fair and effective internet/data privacy policy.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, if it hurt the RIAA I'd be all in favor of distribution of their copyright works. Unfortunately, I don't think it does, it only exposes you to risk (not much, but some). As such I think it's stupid. (OTOH, you'd need to pay me large sums to listen to most of what they release as music. $100/hour might do it, if it weren't too loud...and I could play computer games at the same time. So my opinion of relative worth vs. risk may not be normal.)
Parent
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:So I am on the list. (Score:4, Insightful)
Go to Ray's blog and read up on the legal motions filed by students at other universities to challenge the RIAA's misuse of the law and true lack of evidence. And them file similar motions for any students sued at this university.
Parent
Re:So I am on the list. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Good For Them (Score:4, Informative)
Parent