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Music Media Government The Almighty Buck The Courts Your Rights Online News

MTU President Peeved At RIAA 261

Posted by michael from the fully-cooperating-site dept.
mcdude writes "The president of Michigan Technological University has responded to the RIAA suit against one of his students, accusing the RIAA of encouraging cooperation with universities but then bypassing those procedures with the current suit. Curtis Tompkins says, 'I am very disappointed that the RIAA decided to take this action in this manner. As a fully cooperating site, we would have expected the courtesy of being notified early and allowing us to take action following established procedures, instead of allowing it to get to the point of lawsuits and publicity.'" Attention universities: lawsuits are your reward for being a "fully-cooperating site". If you missed the lawsuit news, see our earlier story.
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MTU President Peeved At RIAA More

MTU President Peeved At RIAA

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  • The Current Stunt (Score:5, Funny)

    by Michael_Burton ( 608237 ) <michaelburton@brainrow.com> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:35AM (#5693061) Homepage

    accusing the RIAA of encouraging cooperation with universities but then bypassing those procedures with the current suit

    For some reason, I mis-read "suit" as "stunt." On reflection, I do believe I had it right the first time.

    Awful lot of law-stunts going on these days.

  • Am I the only one who thought... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bazzargh ( 39195 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:38AM (#5693073)
    Maximum transmission unit President? Who does he report to - the Emperor of TCP/IP?

  • No publicity in cooperating (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrMickS ( 568778 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:39AM (#5693075) Homepage Journal
    Title says it all really...

    The RIAA are pushing forward with a number of highly publicized actions in order to draw attention to the problem (as they see it) and try to scare people off. There is nothing to be gained by them dealing with people through the sort of process described Mr Thompkin's letter.

    • Re:No publicity in cooperating (Score:4, Interesting)

      by FlamerPope ( 218608 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:53AM (#5693174)
      Precisely.

      If the RIAA is actually trying to stop P2P music sharing, then shutting the offenders down after the fact is only somewhat effective; the material still gets out there.

      Moreover, killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection. Some schools might take disciplinary action, but most students I know don't perceive it as enough of a threat to stop them.

      Before this, most students thought "I'm not big enough of a target for the companies to come after me". I guess this is their attempt to change that image - these are only local P2P network operators, and not even in the same galaxy as Napster/KaZaA/Chinese bootleg mills.
      • It seems now they are going after the easier target of "local" p2p networks, rather than internet-wide. It makes sense too...why try and track down the big fish in a sea of millions when you could just go after a few students on a college campus?

        It's nice to see the president of MTU standing up for his students, and better yet, publicly stating his disapproval of the RIAA's actions. I think more and more people are starting to catch on.
      • killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection

        It occured to me the other day that this is kind of a battle. The technology is tending toward systems like freenet, where the person receiving the data cannot know where the data originated. Eventually they're going to have to either change copyright laws, or make it illegal to run file sharing software without DRM hooks.

        I wonder If we'll start seeing an increase in the popularity of

    • The New Standard Oil (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dukeofshadows ( 607689 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:54AM (#5693536) Journal
      Our RIAA is acting as though it were Standard Oil from ~1900. Anyone that interferes with it becomes a target for outrageous lawsuits nad public humiliation in hopes that everyone else will cease and desist. What is most concerning here is that the RIAA is a de facto trust that is likely breaking the law by monopolization of intellectual property and distribution with respect to music. Technical innovation is being stifled by the DMCA because they apparently can't keep up to date with current means of distributing music. Mostly this is about greed: both on the part of the RIAA to maintain its non-realistic profit expectations and of some people who refuse to pay for music at all. There are some people out there engaged in blatently criminal acts of intellectual property theft as currently defined by the law.

      What we need to do is 1) Reform the current laws (maybe with a "DMCA Lite"?) 2) Educate incoming freshmen at major universities about what the hell can happen to you for getting involved in this crap and 3) putting the RIAA in check by either legal means or a boycott on their products. Standard Oil did the same sorts of things to potential competitors and had all kinds of legal protection before TR came along and broke it up, but GW is certainly not interested in hurting potential campaign donors nor is anyone else I can think of given the proximity of a presidential election. Certainly the RIAA does not expect to collect 0.097 trillion dollars from a student but I'll wager a Golden Dollar or two that we'll hear that exact same number used in reference to Congress on why the RIAA needs "protection" against a new technology they can not use to their benefit. Allowing this sort of corporate welfare hurts both the consumer by allowing higher prices and the entire populace by allowing a de facto trust to run into the rights of the people simply for corporate benefit. Can anyone else present potential solutions to this problems?
      • What is most concerning here is that the RIAA is a de facto trust that is likely breaking the law by monopolization of intellectual property and distribution with respect to music.

        Horseshit. They're a trade and lobbying association, just like any other. For the RIAA to be in violation of antitrust law, it'd have to (for instance) make secret agreements between major labels about what new acts get signed, or set industry-wide prohibitions on how they distribute music over the internet. While I certainl
        • Hmmm no anti-trust violation ?

          What about the 25% cut in new releases that seems to have been deliberately made by all RIAA members at the same time ... is this not suggestive of a deal to restrict the supply of new music to the market place.

        • For the RIAA to be in violation of antitrust law, it'd have to (for instance) make secret agreements between major labels about what new acts get signed, or set industry-wide prohibitions on how they distribute music over the internet.

          How about price fixing? Because the RIAA has settled a federal lawsuit over price fixing (The CD Minimum Advertized Price [musiccdsettlement.com] antitrust case), which certainly sounds like the behavior of an illegal trust to me. Of course, given recent behavior on the part of the Justice Depart

        • By innovation I didn't mean this case specifically, I meant anything that distributes music electronically (Napster, Kazaa, etc.). The student could get hit for a lack of originality charge if such a thing existed. If the RIAA had foresight, they'd have found a way to do e-distribuition themselves before Napster meant something other than a sleepy infant or a nickname.

          If you think that the RIAA is not involved in practices of intellectual monopolization, please name some record labels disassociated with

  • Maybe it's time to escalate the conflict (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jcknox ( 456591 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:39AM (#5693080)
    The RIAA seems to consider itsself a pretty powerful force, but really, they're just another sales organization. Universities, on the other hand, hold substantial power as gatekeepers to one of the music industry's largest customer groups. If colleges start banning RIAA-affiliated bands from performing on campus, and eliminate all RIAA-affilitated material from their on campus stores, the message to the RIAA might become a little clearer:

    You are an unnecessary organization.
    Music can and will be made, produced, and sold without you.
    Leave us alone or cease to exist.
    • Yes, but after banning all of the RIAA-affiliated bands, the only performer left might be Richard Stallman singing the Free Software Song [gnu.org]...

    • Re:Maybe it's time to escalate the conflict (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <[gpoopon] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:55AM (#5693184)
      If colleges start banning RIAA-affiliated bands from performing on campus....

      I'm not even sure they have to institute a ban, which would be interpreted negatively by the student body as a form of censorship. Most students are constantly on the lookout for something to "go activist" over. The University could simply hold a series of assemblies (or speak at a football game) and explain what happened, then ask the students who are disappointed in the RIAA to express their feelings by avoiding RIAA-sponsored material. While this might not have as big of an impact as an outright ban, it would probably still be noteworthy without damaging relations between the University and its students.

    • Re:Maybe it's time to escalate the conflict (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TGK ( 262438 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:14AM (#5693277) Homepage Journal
      What about equil protection under the law? IANAL, but behavior such as actualy banning material and preformances due to association with a group, particularly if those bans are instituted by a state university, flies the face of "freedom of assembly." Basicly you have a state organization censoring people based on what organization they belong to.

      I don't know the legalistics behind it, but I wouldn't want to be defending that case.
      • Someone mod parent up.

        One of the rare occasions on Slashdot you see someone standing up for "the other side" using tools meant to protect freedom.

        It's easy to see from comments on here, just how people like Ashcroft believe they can do anything they like within the law (letter rather than spirit) to achieve what is "right".

        It takes a strong character to do what the above poster did.
      • You raise a very good point, however Universities are under no obligations to allow anyone to perform at the venues they have, be it musical or oratory. This is a matter solely up to the discretion of the University and the people who schedule and organize events there.
        If they were to decide that they did not wish to support the RIAA and deny any speakers or musicians assosciated with the RIAA access to their venues, there's really not much you can do about it.
      • Ah, but the university is not "banning" the acts, CDs etc, but rather, "not allowing them within the university (campus, systems, etc), in order to prevent illegal copying". So they are helping the RIAA, rather than acting against them. Officially. Of course, the student body can spin it the other way ...

        The dilemma for the RIAA, is that to guarantee no illegal copying, they have to stop making music (media, performances, etc) available for public purchase.

        This spin on the problem brought to you by the "i

  • attention students (Score:3, Interesting)

    by w1r3sp33d ( 593084 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:40AM (#5693095)
    "Our Information Technology department, upon receiving this letter, contacted your office twice by phone (leaving messages for Jonathon Whitehead) and three times by e-mail in an effort to update our reference materials and procedures with you." Read between the lines, you schools are not out to save you. Here is proof they are working with the RIAA and the RIAA is looking to "set examples"

    • Re:attention students (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <[gpoopon] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:11AM (#5693252)
      Read between the lines, you schools are not out to save you. Here is proof they are working with the RIAA and the RIAA is looking to "set examples"

      That's not at all what I got out of it. Whether we agree with the law or not, Joe broke it. The University appears to be interested in protecting him (and all students) as much as possible. This would include disciplinary action by the school that would allow the student to move on after college rather than being burdened for the rest of his life by criminal charges and unjustified financial debts. Bear in mind that the RIAA may choose to smack down the University because their equipment was involved in this incident. Therefore, they have to play ball at least a little. They could have chosen to just tell Joe: "Sorry, you broke the law. Suffer the consequences. Try to enjoy what's left of your life." Instead, they at least had to guts to send an open letter which not only expresses their disappointment to the RIAA, but also informs the public and other universities about the situation. This can be a pretty powerful blow if other universities demand a written contract governing actions to be taken before they are willing to work with the RIAA on anything.

      • Most universities (from what I've read, mine included) will handle the matter internally, making sure that the student stops distributing copyrighted music and then replying to the RIAA that any problem has been resolved. Students who do this repeatedly might be disciplined or lose their network privileges, but they're certainly not turned over to the RIAA.

        Truth is, most college administrators and network people can't stand illegal file sharing and certainly don't want the school to get in trouble- when u

    • Bzzzt. Sorry, try again (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dyslexic ( 112 )
      What this is actually saying is that the matter would have been handled in-house, and probably would have only reached the school's disciplinary system, not the oft-quoted $98.7 billion lawsuit. If anything, MTU is trying to protect its students from the wrath of the RIAA.

      This is probably due to the fact that MTU students provide more revenue to the school than the RIAA does; and the fact that MTU doesn't want to see a drop in enrollment as a consequence.

      But still...just because your university isn't al

      • Re:Bzzzt. Sorry, try again (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @12:27PM (#5693687) Homepage Journal

        This is probably due to the fact that MTU students provide more revenue to the school than the RIAA does; and the fact that MTU doesn't want to see a drop in enrollment as a consequence.

        It mostly has to do with MTU's legal role as the student's loco parentis (I think that's the correct term, but it has been nearly 40 years since that was a part of my life). Whether MTU intended to or not, this public letter to the RIAA seems to me to be a good first move in setting the basis for MTU filing a countersuit, or stepping in to defend the student, or both.

        MTU is saying that it has a mechanism in place for justly disciplining its "children", that RIAA knew of this mechanism, or should have known of it, and that it is inappropriate for RIAA to involve the US legal system when MTU's judgment and disciplinary process was available and would have dealt properly with the situation, with much less damage all the way around. MTU can also argue, and probably would have to do so, that RIAA has damaged its student's reputation in a way that demands some form of compensation. The courts are generally favorable toward this kind of argument.

        RIAA screwed up royally on this one. If they push this, it will blow up in their faces, because no university can afford to back away from this fight-- it challenges the nurturing role of universities and colleges and is an attack on principles of western civilization that were established hundreds of years ago, with the first universities.

  • But what good will come of it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dasheiff ( 261577 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:42AM (#5693099)
    This is all well and good but what exactly are the implications here. Obviously the university can't condone priracy, but the idea of course is that a University does need to be a place for the free exchange of ideas and they need to protect their students.

    I guess what's importain here is that the RIAA can more easy track a static ip whereas for a dial up connection they have to go though the ISP. Though I'm starting to wonder how they knew anyway who it was without the university's co-operation.

    Reguardless, what can we realisticly expect Universities to do to help students? Any takers?
    • Though I'm starting to wonder how they knew anyway who it was without the university's co-operation.


      As a former MTU student, I can give you an idea of how easy it is to find someone there. Try this simple exercise:

      finger nievelt@mtu.edu
      • As a former MTU student, I can give you an idea of how easy it is to find someone there. Try this simple exercise:


        finger nievelt@mtu.edu

        Yeah but all the RIAA has is your IP, of course if MTU allows vanity host names then it's easy. other wise if it's just something like DHCP-xxx-xx-xxx-xxx.xxx.xx.xxx.xxx then it can be pretty hard to figure out, and often only the sysadmins have the ability to reverse lookup these things.

        • Well, I did some student work there for the NOC, and I'm not about to reveal all the security holes I know of in that network. I guess you'll just have to take my word that it's not terribly difficult to find the person who owns an IP on resnet.mtu.edu even if you're not affiliated with the University.

    • Re:But what good will come of it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:10AM (#5693248) Homepage Journal
      "but the idea of course is that a University does need to be a place for the free exchange of ideas"

      Do you really mean "free (as in speech) exchange of ideas" or free (as in beer) music.

      It is the university's responsibility to protect the former, but discourage the latter. Let's try not to confuse the two.

      • If is a university's job to spread free ideas in both senses of the term. This isn't to say they aren't expected to earn expenses, but when they turn to charging for ideas, they have abandoned their purpose. If you want to claim that many have, in that case, done just that already, then I will be forced to agree with you.

        The model for a university is someone lecturing at a hall in a public library. You may need to pay to hear him speak, and that's fair. But you don't pay to have the rights to the infor
    • " but the idea of course is that a University does need to be a place for the free exchange of ideas and they need to protect their students."

      Ah, to be young and impressionable. Try speaking out against the practices of one of the faculty, especially one that has tenure, and see just how "free" your speech really is.

      The schools are interested in one thing and one thing only: Money. When all is said and done, they really don't care what you do so long as you continue to bend over and take it whenever t
  • Universities should also fully cooperate with the BSA. Otherwise they could be in big trouble...

    [--------**-] -- sacrasm meter
    • I fully agree. If all their software is GPL, then that gets them off the hook.

      Of course, BSD would work also, but only for the students in tech classes.

  • Is anyone surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bert33 ( 655799 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:44AM (#5693124)
    Everyone knows the RIAA is a bunch of publicity seeking, money grubbing pricks. They are going to do anything and everything in their power to make it look as if they are being vicitmized and driven out of business. The only allies they have are those that they bought. Hopefully universities and ISPs will realize that cooperation with the RIAA will only cause them more headaches and lawsuits in the long run as the RIAA lashes out and sues everyone in sight.

  • Pick your targets well (Score:5, Funny)

    by jhines ( 82154 ) <john@jhines.org> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:44AM (#5693125) Homepage
    They pick a small technical school (no offense to MTU). If they want some publicity, they should go after a large law school.

    Oh, yeah, they want good publicity.
    • From the original article, they are also after students at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute and Princeton University. Not bad company for MTU.

      Skippy
      MTU Classes of 98 and 00
    • Exactly. Quite frankly, if RIAA thinks they're so powerful, I'd like to see them try the same thing against, oh, lets see... Harvard Law School or Yale or someone like that. Who do you think will wipe the floor with the other one in that case?
      • Actually, Yale was one of the first schools targeted by Metallica - we made the mistake of partially blocking Napster due to network traffic, which made it difficult to argue that Yale ITS was simply a common carrier that didn't discriminate between different types of traffic. The administration caved almost immediately - they didn't think it was worth going to court to support students' music piracy, particularly when the network was getting trashed.

        Unfortunately, I think the RIAA is perfectly within its
    • If I were to sue an organization, it most definitly would not be a law school. Can you imagine having hundreds of law students pissed off at you?

  • Letter starts well, (Score:4, Funny)

    by goldcd ( 587052 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:46AM (#5693132) Homepage
    fair points, well made etc. Builds a little, seeming to draw to the conclusion and then ends with

    Taking all of this into consideration, we realize the seriousness of the allegations against Mr. Nievelt and will cooperate fully in resolving this matter.

    Was I the only one expecting to see "Fuck You" - maybe even all in caps?
    • Does the phrase 'accessory to the crime' mean anything to you? The university is the one providing the network after all...
      • Does the phrase 'accessory to the crime' mean anything to you? The university is the one providing the network after all...

        And the Phone company for providing the T1/T3 circuits...
        And the upstream ISPs, they should be held liable too

        Where do you draw the line? How far up the food chain do you go? The university has not way of knowing if each and every download is legit. There is no one way to find out if content is copy righted, and as soon as there is, people will start to encrypt thier communicat

      • Holy crap! Does that mean that suddenly my ISP is responsible for what I do with the connection? Is the RIAA going to start suing cable companies and telcos next?

        There was the same brouhaha about kiddie porn in the early days of the net---is the provider of a connection responsible for the content passing through it? If you make them responsible for monitoring one type of traffic, they have to then monitor all types of traffic.

        Sorry, but I just don't buy it. Don't the words "common carrier" mean anything
    • In diplomacyspeak that IS FUCK YOU!

      Let me explain...

      In the letter there is focus and detail and attention to the issue. At the end there are the vaporware words: seriousness, allegations, "this matter"

      The president went from full-on point-by-point discussion to "Talk to the hand" vagueness.

  • Too busy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kakarat ( 595386 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:47AM (#5693142)
    Our Information Technology department, upon receiving this letter, contacted your office twice by phone (leaving messages for Jonathon Whitehead) and three times by e-mail in an effort to update our reference materials and procedures with you.

    Your organization responded to none of these messages.

    That's because everyone in the RIAA was too busy either pushing lawsuits or restoring backup copies of their webpage.

  • Duh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hafree ( 307412 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:48AM (#5693149) Homepage
    It's probably a safe assumption that hundreds of students at any given university are sharing copyrighted media files at any given time on various P2P networks. The students being selectively prosecuted in these lawsuits were probably chosen because of the large amount of material they had in their shared libraries or becuse they went to better known or reputable universities. It would seem to me that with millions of users on these P2P networks at any given time, a plea of "not guilty" on the grounds of selective prosecution would be a no-brainer.

    I've received numerous parking tickets in NYC when no other cars on that street received any, simply because I don't have NY plates and would be less likely to contest the tickets. However every single one was dismissed on grounds of selective prosecution, and that's just a $50 parking ticket. We're talking about a $97,000,000,000 lawsuit against a few people that were doing the same thing as hundreds of other people at their university, and millions of other people nationwide. Give me a break, these lawsuits are just plain rediculous and the world knows it.

    • Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)

      by hammy ( 22980 ) <hamish@hbarney. c o m> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:13AM (#5693270) Homepage
      I'm not sure about the case at MTU but the this isn't the case at princeton. The student being taken to court at princeton was running a service that provided a searchable database of all files on window shares on the network. The defendant only had "a couple of hundred" files shared according to RIAA's brief. Note too those windows shares were only accessible on the Princeton n/w not the internet. They weren't targeting a user with a large number of files shared but the person who provided the search database.

    • Re:Duh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jridley ( 9305 )
      I think the student named in the suit was adminstrating the indexing server. That makes him the primary facilitator.

      • Re:Duh (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cliffy03 ( 663924 )
        No, with that logic, it makes the MTU IT department, the hardware manufacturers, the OS vendors and programmers responsible.

        Heck, i'd counter sue stating that since these CD's did not have any copyright protection on them that it is the recording industry itself is to blame. Let's see, make it a $98 Billion countersuit. Is this any more bizzarre?
      • So then why isn't Google being sued? Surely you can use Google and any other decent search engine to find content that shouldn't be out there. I don't understand how the person who simply ran an indexing service for files = both legit and not - is culpable. Seems to me the people who put the files into shares are at fault and if they didn't realize it was shared then perhaps Microsoft is at fault? Really, it seems silly to go after the guy who provided the phone book for having received unwanted phone calls

    • Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)

      by regen ( 124808 )
      It would seem to me that with millions of users on these P2P networks at any given time, a plea of "not guilty" on the grounds of selective prosecution would be a no-brainer.

      Except for the fact that it is a civil suit and not prosecution. Private companies and individuals can do thing, such as selectively suit other entities, that the government cannot.

  • Important For Universities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by augustz ( 18082 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:49AM (#5693156)
    There is an important point here for universities.

    Having served on a comittee that heard some of these cases come up, the RIAA generally asks that the school shut down the site, cut of network access, and turn over the students name.

    The fully cooperating university must be aware of what this last step means. It means the RIAA has the power to bypass any intermediate sanctions and sue a (usually poor) college student directly.

    You would be surprised, but losing dorm room internet access for a year is considered a pretty significant sanction. This raises the issue to whole new level, one that is rarely seen on a college campus in another context.

    The schools involved need to jump into this with their eyes wide open. It doesn't seem they were that aware in this case.
    • Having served on a comittee that heard some of these cases come up, the RIAA generally asks that the school shut down the site, cut of network access, and turn over the students name.

      Fortunately, this is illegal in most countries. Why is a university permitted to share the identity of students with the RIAA in the U.S., by the way? (I doubt it would matter in this case, however. Most likely, these students were tipped off by an insider.)

      Sharing with your friends doesn't pay. -- Your RIAA.
    • the RIAA generally asks that the school shut down the site, cut of network access, and turn over the students name.

      My sense was (at least at Yale) that the last is never actually done, and network access is only taken away for repeat offenders. The university will certainly take care of copyright violations, but the RIAA can't force them to take punitive action or turn over student records.

  • So what's the point of being a member? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlideWRX ( 660190 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:52AM (#5693161)
    With the RIAA? If the RIAA had notified the school of the transgressions, I think they would have had a much better success rate in reducing piracy. Because they pursued legal action, they now have pissed off everyone in that community.

    I wonder, if they pursued legal action at Michigan State University, could they be held legally accountable for the ensuing riot?

    Tom

  • Reminds me of that scene in Star Wars... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:53AM (#5693166) Homepage Journal
    (Modified a bit...)

    LANDO: LAWSUITS? That was never part of the deal!

    DARTH VADER: I'm altering the deal. Pray that I do not alter it any further.

    Vader leaves

    LANDO (to himself): This deal is getting worse all the time!

  • Michael, you got it wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wattsman ( 75726 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:54AM (#5693176)
    So sayeth the editor
    Attention universities: lawsuits are your reward for being a "fully-cooperating site".

    The university isn't being sued, it's the student. The president dislikes the bad publicity that the lawsuit is generating, and I can't blame him for that. It drives away potential students when they find that one of the places they're looking at allows the RIAA in so easily. Sure, you can find out about how MTU was 'fully-cooperating' with the RIAA with a little bit of research, but now anyone who has a slight interest in the RIAA knows about it.

    • That is correct, but the university is getting its name dragged through the mud. This bad publicity isn't exactly a reward for cooperating.

      --T

  • but what did the student do? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:57AM (#5693197)
    So, he's getting sued for a maximum of almost 100 billion dollars (not Trillion, like one article implied). This figure comes from ~650,000 mp3 files @ $150,000 each. But what did the guy do? He kept a database of what was on the university lan. That's it. He didn't create a file-sharing client, or write protocols for distributing music. He actually only had a relatively small mp3 collection on his machine (1100 files if IIRC).. and I know a dozen people that legally own enough CD's to make a 1100 file collection.

    To think I was going to set up a web-interface lan spider here at my university.. if i only had an extra ethernet port around here. That would put any lawsuit in the $23 Bil range for me. Scary.

  • I'm sorry but.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MhzJnky ( 443677 )
    If you don't notice a student with a Massive MP3 server on your network, fire your admin. In my epxerence comanpies and universities realy arn't paying this much attention. They draft polocies and put procidures in place to basicaly cover there asses. They realy don't care about stoping it.

    Perhaps this well be enough of an incentive for network owners to take this stuff seriously. It's breaking the law, and just because you don't agree, dosn't mean you should ignore it.

    If you realy hate the DMCA, then

  • Unbelievable! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cenonce ( 597067 ) <{anthony_t} {at} {mac.com}> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:00AM (#5693202)

    ... not that the RIAA filed suit without informing MTU what it was doing, but because he actually expected advanced notice!!!

    Let's get real here! The RIAA has been exploiting the DMCA since it passed! If anything, somebody at some time is going to have to stand up for "fair use" rights (whether this student is guilty of infringement or not!). My sense is that universities, who have the most to gain from strong fair use laws, should step up to the plate. Instead, in a prime example of the pussification of America, universities cowtow and kiss ass to the RIAA out of fear of legal reprecussions.

    Well, what's worse? Allowing the RIAA to slowly weaken fair use so that any lawsuit becomes a multi-billion dollar slam dunk for them, or stepping up to the plate (and paying the legal fees) to defend now?

    Either way, the universities (whoever) are going to be out of a lot of cash. But, by fighting now, they at least can say they had the balls to do something about it!

    -A

  • Not the real issue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LeotheQuick ( 657964 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:00AM (#5693204)
    Hello there,

    I go to the University of Iowa.
    We had a service here for a while called "HawkSearch" (our team being the Hawkeyes), run by a student. It existed for a while in the form of a http search page. One day, an article was written about it in the paper. The University had Hawksearch down within 10 minutes, and everyone they could prove used it had their internet connection shut off.

    Of course, the university isn't stupid. They know exactly what I know, which is, every student in the school with a computer has kazaa and 80% of them run it like a vital piece of their windows XP. p2p will never die, so we have to live with it. until everyone realizes this (which may never happen), there will be this ongoing, useless struggle where some people suffer and some don't - it's the luck of the draw.

    As for local area network sharing... it's just the wrong place to do it (on campus). I mean, if one of your friends wants a CD, they can borrow it. If you want music off the radio, you may tape it. I mean, let's be honest - your friends burn your cds, and you burn theirs. Is this worse or better? Better because it's not on a large scale?

    p2ps next stage (if wide area sharing dies, IF) will be small local area networks, and without a university packet sniffer to rat out a small percentage of the guilty people, there will be no way to prevent it.

    Let not the guilty go unpunished? Ha.

    "It was like trying to hand out speeding tickets at the Indy 500."
    - Apocalypse Now
    • See, at my school it was exactly the opposite (until this latest lawsuit)---the ResNet folks actually encouraged the Phynd hub, because it cut down on external bandwidth use. Since the University is in the middle of a terrible money problem, they care more about staying in the black than appeasing some far-off corporation.

      Of course, now that the far-off corporation can cost them more money than even the most ridiculous bandwidth use, the equation has changed.

      --grendel drago

  • Bullying and intimidation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by solarlux ( 610904 ) <noplasma@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:01AM (#5693211)
    Set aside, for a moment, the credibility (or lack thereof) pertaining to this case. What scares me is the way a large bullying corporation can intimidate and screw individuals through litigation. Even if they lose the lawsuit, if they can prevent individuals from creating software and services which fringe upon RIAA financial interests and venues of profitability, then they will see themselves as successful. Must we all be looking over our shoulders anytime we work on projects which potentially could be used for piracy in addition to legitimate purposes? Will I be the next person in the RIAA's crosshairs, meat for a litigation nightmare.

    Thanks be to the RIAA for creating a reverse fortune lottery. Millions of Americans are players. I wonder who'll be the next lucky winner who gets his/her life screwed? Perhaps the RIAA can kill two birds with one stone -- innovation and justice.
  • Are they going to sue everybody? I don't understand why artists stand behind this organization. have they all gotten so greedy that they're willing to alienate their fans to this point? this is absolutely ridiculous. 97 billion?!!??!? are they out of their minds? this is just getting stupid now. it reminds me of the iraqi information minister "we are in control, the usa is running away in fear" Denial. It runs rampant among out of control regimes.

  • Fully-Cooperating Site is all that Cooperative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by _bug_ ( 112702 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:14AM (#5693279) Journal
    The college I work for has had to deal with requests to shut down users found pirating music. When it receives such a notice it usually starts up a process which is definied in the DMCA. This requires that the complaint include all of the following:


    1. A physical or digital signature of the owner of an exclusive copyright right (i.e., the copyright owner himself or the owner's exclusive licensee of the right(s) to reproduce, distribute, display, perform or create derivatives) or the owner's authorized agent;

    2. A description of the works claimed to be infringed;

    3. A description of the allegedly infringing works, sufficient to enable the agent to find them;

    4. Sufficient information to enable the agent to contact the complainer;

    5. A statement that the complainer believes in good faith that the use of the material is not authorized by the owner, the owner's agent or the law; and

    6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the complainer is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of one or more exclusive copyright rights.


    Usually #1, the physical or digital signature of the copyright holder, is never sent with the complaint. So the college responds with a request for the signature. Usually there is never a reply back.

    A lot of the work in tracking down pirates is done by third-party companies which have to send the signature request back up to the people they are working for. This small but significant bit of red tape seems to become an annoyance enough that no signature is provided. Thus making the complaint more or less dead.

    So one can be fully-cooperating with the MPAA but at the same time not cooperating in a way the MPAA would like, mainly to ignore the signature requirement and just shut off whoever is providing the pirated content.

  • Chilling Effect and Precendent. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Grendel Drago ( 41496 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:23AM (#5693345) Homepage
    This isn't about those schools. It didn't matter whether the President of MTU, of Princeton or of Wake bent down and licked the choccy starfish of the RIAA---they wanted to make this a loud, ugly lawsuit. Two reasons:

    (1) Chilling effect. Every local sharing service I know of is shut down. The UConn Phynd hub had a message up the day of the lawsuit, and the website had vanished the next day. By making every kid in American thinking "I could be next0rz!!", they shut down every Phynd/Direct Connect/Flatlan system in the nation. But that's just gravy, because the real goal is...

    (2) Precedent. If they can get these kids to knuckle under (which they most certainly will do, given the threat) and waive their federal appeal in return for a reduced settlement (pay $1k/year for the rest of your life, for instance), a big, shiny precedent will have been set---that the original settlement amount ($98B or whatever it gets reduced to) is a legit fine for the offense. Then, armed with precedent, they go after the bigger fish---KaZaA, ShareReactor---for setting up similar services.

    It's dastardly clever.

    --grendel drago
  • if anyone hasn't yet, read the letter that's linked. no, really, click on the thing and read it in its entirety. it's a great letter that basically says, "look, we worked with you guys, you were supposed to work with us. we do for you, but you don't do for us... so..."

    and then, that's it. MTU's president constructs a good letter pointing out just how puupy the RIAA has been and is, but then ends with:

    "Taking all of this into consideration, we realize the seriousness of the allegations against Mr. Nievelt

  • As Keanu would say, "Whoah" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nemus ( 639101 ) <astarchman@hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:43AM (#5693477) Journal
    I'm still trying to wrap my brain around someone actually being sued for that much money. Being just shy of $100,000,000,000 , one normally doesn;t expect to see something that large except when one megacorporation is suing another megacorp for something damn serious. But instead its some dude my age, doing what I do.

    I think that theres a general consenus that any judge with any guts is gonna look at this suit and laugh their ass off. One person here has already raised the issue of selective prosecution, so theres one defense. But beyond that, the amount being asked for, especially considering who its being asked of, screams "Publicity Stunt." And, while many judges may not give much of a damn about screwing someone over, most of them, in my experience, have severe issues with having their courtroom being used as an advertising campaign. Severe issues.

    I hope and pray that this kid gets a good lawyer, who has the stones to take this to trial and not buckle beforehand, and wind up just reccomending that the kid just settle. As others have noted, if he settles, then everyone is screwed, as it would set precedent. But the RIAA has already scored one point: two of my friends run a p2p service at school here in Nashville, and it has since been closed down. Oh well.....

  • Money (Score:2)

    by sporty ( 27564 )
    It's all about money. Universities are out to make money and so is the RIAA.

    The university does a nice thing, producing students (hopefully) of good quality and doing research.

    The RIAA is a group of people representing the interests of large music corp's.

    They have no interest in supporting each other. If universities were to be blown off the face of the earth, the RIAA MIGHT see some fluctuation in their companies' revenues, but nothing direct. If the RIAA disappeared, universities won't be affected.
    • "I say get all the major law schools to find why the RIAA itself is illegal and shut them up once and for all."
      • Why would they want to do that? Look at all of the billable hours they're generating for lawyers.

  • so, let's see here. MTU is upset at the big bad RIAA now. hmmm. lets boil things down a little further.

    some hairbrained academics over there must have quaked in their boots when they read over what fines and whatnot could be applied if there's a successful prosecution. so, they ignored some intelligent attorney's advice and admitted complicity/guilt and tried to Cover Your Ass (their ass, whatever) and get in bed with the RIAA.

    those SOBs are getting their just desserts. the /. crowd is likely to info

  • Should they disclose $100bn loss on stock market? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by divec ( 48748 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @12:25PM (#5693675) Homepage

    ISTR that in the Kevin Mitnick trial, companies including Sun claimed that Kevin's actions had cost them $billions in lost sales. However, some share holders took legal action against them, because by law, publically listed companies must disclose losses of this scale in a formal statement. The fact that none of them had suggested that either (a) they had not incurred the losses they claimed, or (b) they were guilty of misleading their shareholders.


    I was wondering if a similar approach could be used in this case. Mythical multi-billion-dollar losses are being arrived at by multiplying hypothetical figures together once again. Anyone know what happened to Sun et al in the end?

  • More cooperation isn't needed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @12:43PM (#5693747) Homepage Journal
    Our orientation sessions, freshman hall programs, and acceptable-use policies all cover the copyright issue.
    And that's all the RIAA needs from the school. If someone still uses the school's network for infringement after that, what is the point in the RIAA continuing to "cooperate" the school and do something that will just have the student sent to a disciplinary process' "one hour presentation on copyright law"? The kid doesn't need a one hour presentation; he needs a bitchslap. Well, maybe I'm being a little harsh, so let me put it this way: he needs a direct confrontation with the people with whom he is in conflict.

    Don't expect your school (or any other common carrier) to take your heat or cushion the consequences for what you do. You think what you're doing isn't bad? Fine, make your case in court, or with the public, or with your legislators; that isn't the issue. Don't drag your school into it. Even if your school has been shielding you up to now, it is apparent that the RIAA now sees through this.

    IMHO, this is probably a good thing. While I believe this president desires to act in his students' interest and likely just wants the RIAA to go away so he can getback to his real job, waging this war through proxies is probably really just imposing additional burden on the school and really hurting everyone. And it must be damned unsatisfying for the RIAA. And it just muddies the issues. Let the engagement really begin, and if the results turn out to be radically different than peoples' sense of justice, then public policy can be revised as a result of it.

    There isn't any reason for the schools to be a major part of the process, except to perform their duties as a common carrier. Just let it go, president Tompkins, and in a few years -- one way or another -- you won't have to deal with this crap anymore.

  • All this made me wonder if free broadcast is copyrighted. I mean, you never see that FBI warning at the beginning of a movie on broadcast (free) tv. You never hear any copyright warning announced on the radio before or after a set of songs. So, if you recorded FM broadcast, and parsed the songs out as mp3s, could you trade those? It's more work, but would it be legal? Most of the mp3s out there are 128kbs anyway - I imagine the radio rips would be comparable. So, we leave our computers on recording th
  • Evil bald guy (RIAA) starts out small... requires "1 Million Dollars" (small fines)... gets laughed at by UN.

    Evil bald guy makes correction... inserts pinky into corner of mouth, and asks for "1 Billion Dollars" (big fines, and/or jailtime)... it tends to get a bit more notice.

    I'm guessing that initial attempts with the DMCA worked, but the lesser penalties didn't really attract notice. Now that they're asking for "1 billion dollars" (in essence), as well as MS pursueing jailtime for modchips, I expect

  • Relevant Slashdot Reading (Slashback) (Score:4, Informative)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @01:21PM (#5693902)
    Here are two past Slashdot articles that are on point:

    Rosen, Valenti Warn Colleges About P2P [slashdot.org]
    Handling Campus AUP (non-)Violations? [slashdot.org]

    The second one is particularly interesting as it deals with Windows file-share indexing ... the very type of system that the Princeton student is being brought up on charges for running.

  • He wimped out at the end. This letter basically says "I'm mad at you, but I'm not going to do anything about it. Please don't hurt me."

    He should have told the RIAA to go screw themselves and try pressing charges on 15,000 students all sharing files openly. In which case, of course they would just press charges against the university.

    It's unfortunate how much fear the RIAA wields. This letter is essentially pointless, and will have no effect. I'm sure the recipient had a good chuckle and threw it away.

  • MTU has got a buttload of NRA members, being up in the U.P. and all. It's my understanding that the NRA is one of only two lobbying organizations that can effectually push legislation through.

    So, how about we ask the NRA to come to bat for it's yooper members, and push some legislation through that compromises the integrity of the RIAA? Something to the effect of "Thou shalt not be a middle-man in industries that don't require it..." or "If you write the song, you own the copyright to both the song and

  • until i found out the RIAA existed, i continued to buy music. The old adage of any publicity being good publicity doesnt work when everyone who understands your existence wants you to be destroyed.

  • Personal interest in this case (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moyix ( 412254 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @02:52PM (#5694603) Homepage

    Since I run a very similar indexing and search engine at Wesleyan University, I'm more interested than most in how this is going to turn out (and a bit worried that I'm going to be sued too, though it was really cool when PySMBSearch [sourceforge.net] got mentioned in the analysis [barillari.org] posted by the Princeton student). The idea that I could be liable for up to 15.1 billion USD (checking just a second ago, there are 100,921 files ending in .mp3 returned by my search engine) just for indexing other people's files, without explicitly providing any method of accessing them is just ridiculous.

    I haven't taken the search down yet, but I'm seriously considering it, given how much the RIAA is asking, and given that I'm doing no more than any of the current defendants were (though I'm not sharing any copyrighted materials myself, so they wouldn't have the "direct infringement" case).

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