Duke Demands Proof of Infringement From RIAA 159
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to a report at p2pnet, Duke University has told the RIAA that it will no longer forward the RIAA's 'early settlement' letters to its students unless the RIAA submits 'evidence that someone actually downloaded from that student,' and said that 'if the RIAA can't prove that actual illegal behavior occurred, then we're not going to comply.' While it is good news that a university is requiring the RIAA to put up or shut up, the forwarding — or not forwarding — of letters is pretty insignificant. What I want to know is this: 'When the RIAA comes knocking with its Star Chamber, ex parte, 'John Doe' litigation to get the students' identities, is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it's based on zero evidence, and on the ground that the students weren't given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard?' Over 1,000 infringement notices were sent to Duke students in the last year."
Why not earlier? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's [engadget.com] the top-25 universities which handed out copyright infringement notices during the 2006 - 2007 academic year.Note the geographic locations of the majority of the list.
1. Ohio University - 1,287
2. Purdue University - 1,068
3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002
4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959
5. University of South Carolina - 914
6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897
7. Michigan State University - 753
8. Howard University - 572
9. North Carolina State University - 550
10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513
11. University of South Florida - 490
12. Syracuse University - 488
13. Northern Illinois University - 487
14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473
15. Boston University - 470
16. Northern Michigan University - 457
17. Kent State University - 424
18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400
19. University of Texas at Austin - 371
20. North Dakota State University - 360
21. Indiana University - 353
22. Western Kentucky University - 353
23. Seton Hall University - 338
24. Arizona State University - 336
25. Marshall University - 331
From the 2008 list [dispatch.com] we see that the RIAA seem to be bolder, but the trend as before remains the same, for the most part. Texas Christian university? Thou shalt not steal
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Because, brah, out here on the coast, stealing music is so totally heinous.
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I was wondering what 'geographic location' he was referring to. All I could tell was that they were in the USA. Is it really a 'coastal' thing me meant?
Re:Why not earlier? (Score:4, Informative)
Let's see, most of the colleges listed are East of the Mississippi river, so I'd assume that yes a reference to the eastern USA is what was intended.
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Wait I thought that Memphis was the penguin's daddy, not one of the Orcas?
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One word, FEAR
Seems to be in fashion these days, it even works on our Congress, Senate and the President(s).
You can sell anything with Fear.
Oh, I forgot the Fear cousin "Intimidation"
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Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Interesting)
Damn straight. From your original post, let's do the math.
1287+1068+1002+959+914+897+753+572+550+513+490+488+487+473+470+457+424+400+371+360+353+353+338+336+331=14646 letters sent to the top 25 universities in 06-07.
14646*($3000) (the typical settlement amount) [arstechnica.com] = $43,938,000
Sure beats working for a living, doesn't it? Greed personified.
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I seriously doubt that each letter costs less than $3000 to send out, when all of the legal and P2P spying costs are factored in.
From what I've heard, the money "earned" from the legal crusade of the RIAA mostly goes right back into the costs incurred in perusing new victims. Not a cent goes to artists, but I highly doubt that any of it does to the executives either.
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RIAA is making a packet off this racket
But the hassle is their vassals have the DRM that is FU!
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Second, how the heck does Steamboat Willy promote "the Progress of Science and useful Arts"? How does Britney Spears promote it? They don't, and should never have been granted copyright in the first place.
You seem to be arguing that copyrights should be based on taste. Well I hate to tell you this, but your tastes differ from others. Who exactly sets the bar here on whether an art is "good" or "bad"? You might not like Steamboat Willie, but there are many that find it to be a milestone in animation. Granting copyright based on taste can only result in the government (as they are the ones giving out copyrights) dictating what is "good" and "desirable" to the public, by withholding copyrights from "bad" wo
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Not sure about the offtopic mod on the parent comment. I have heard the same thing... that the RIAA legal war is not sustainable because the settlements don't cover the cost of waging the war.
If this is the case, they are fighting to make a point, not a profit - a tactical subtlety that is critical to understanding how to fight back.
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Mmm many of them in Midwest... remember midwest has the lowest GNP.
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I'm not sure that is the whole story. Off the top of my head, Boston University, Syracuse, U of Wisconsin-Madison, and IU all have pretty well respected law schools.
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Location is not the point here. Much more telling is noting the lack of significant law school.
You also probably don't see many medical schools on the list, either.
Does that mean the RIAA is afraid of doctors-to-be?
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Because they don't give a damn about their students?
The same way most CEO's and boards don't care about their customers (or employees). It's actually surprising that the University isn't giving in. Probably has something to do with the cost of complying.
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The numbers you are quoting are basically arbitrarily grouped. If you're trying to show which schools are the "worst" schools with these letters, it would make a lot more sense if you quoted % of student population who received letters. Of course larger schools will be sending out a larger number of letters.
Example, Marshall is listed as #25. It has 14,000 students and gave out 331 letters, or 2.36% of its student body. Ohio State is listed as #1. It has 60,347 students and gave out 1287 letters, or 2.13% o
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University administrators regard students rather like wardens regard prisoners at a minimum security institution.
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So if the University says "bugger off" to the RIAA, why doesn't the RIAA go after the University as a contributor?
Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Insightful)
So if the University says "bugger off" to the RIAA, why doesn't the RIAA go after the University as a contributor?
Because
(a) it has no legal basis for doing so, and
(b)universities fight back. The RIAA lawyers don't know what to do with people who fight back. Their game is picking on the defenseless.
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Only 22 had no law school. My pals who are/were in law school cited money and prestige as primary reasons for attending, and given that most of these schools have their own law department...what the hell?
Are the aforementioned top-25 lists results of left arms(regents and admin) not talking to the right arms(legally-schooled staff) or should we continue to despise 99% of lawyers(except Ray and the proud attorneys at EFF and other l
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This is encouraging. It always is when the previously defenseless dig in their heels against standover artists.
I wonder if a certain amount of this new-found courage is coming from the subtle tides of a nation changing direction?
Sometime during the recent campaign marathon I heard one sound bite that made a difference to me -- "I will reinstate Habeas Corpus". Five words, that's all it took.
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You may well be right. The universities may have realized that with the new Administration they now have freedom, as defined by Janis Joplin: Nothing left to lose.
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From what I've seen legal basis hasn't meant much in the RIAA strategy so far. The fighting back though could be a good reason....
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From what I've seen legal basis hasn't meant much in the RIAA strategy so far. The fighting back though could be a good reason....
It's the combination that frightens them. (1) Knowing that they have no legal position, and (2) knowing that -- if they were to take on universities and colleges -- there would actually be a lawyer in the courtroom representing the defendant to point it out, unlike these [blogspot.com] cases [blogspot.com], where the absence of any meritorious legal argument doesn't matter since there's no defense lawyer to educate the judge.
Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Insightful)
Something tells me it's a bad idea to sue a school full of law students, law professors, and likely a few more lawyers on retainer or payroll, when you don't have a legal leg to stand on.
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"Something tells me it's a bad idea to sue a school full of law students, law professors, and likely a few more lawyers on retainer or payroll, when you don't have a legal leg to stand on."
-It's like knocking on Death's front door and asking to come in. .....Especially when you've pissed them all off by making a mockery of their profession.
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Buddy, I was thoroughly amazed by the fact that you actually got a serious reply to your post. Because I didn't understand a bloody word you said.
What are you smoking? The other day, when I was in Amsterdam, I bought me a couple of grams of good Skunk and I couldn't manage to sound as incoherent, disjointed and whimsical as you just did.
When they tried to make you go to rehab, don't you think you should have said "Yes, yes, yes"?
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Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand, the RIAA doesn't have a specific name they are sending to, they get it down to a room at best, with a "John Doe".
Then they send a form letter with a settlement, and try to get the individual to give up who they are and pay up. It's more like mail fraud on the RIAA's end, really.
So if the mail isn't addressed to anyone, who isn't getting their mail?
Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Informative)
Now Duke is growing a pair and saying, 'you do your job and we'll do ours: provide education and experience.' This should have happened a long time ago, but at least it's happening, right?
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The university is not the post office, nor are the RIAA paying them to operate a private courier service.
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If the University doesn't deliver the mail isn't that some sort of mail fraud? Or am I missing something...
Not if it's addressed to a specific IP on their internal network :)
In fact many would probably argue that an IP address is personal data, and shouldn't be given out public unless a warrant is present.
E.g. Sharing means given name and address of those who have been using a specific IP.
Somehow I don't get the EU, they don't like it when Google stored peoples IP forever... But when ISPs shares peoples IP with counter piracy organizations like the RIAA, nothing happens...
Re:Why not earlier? (Score:5, Interesting)
Advice from Harvard [thecrimson.com] perhaps? Whom, as you pointed out before, the RIAA seemed to be avoiding. Maybe they finally read the advice you sent out too. The government dropped those weighted hints that the universities should work against copyright infringement in an overly broad manner and threatened funding, but if institutions like Harvard who could live without government funding for prolonged periods of time are willing to take up the fight then other institutions are more willing to stand up with them perhaps.
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Harvard and other big-name schools like that, especially Ivy schools which are older than the Revolutionary War, have endowments in the tens of billions. As you can see here [boston.com], Harvard has nearly $40 billion on hand -- more than the GDP of some [cia.gov] countries in the world.
Who the hell is going to try and push back against Harvard and why would they need government support? I think that's hardly a fair indicator.
Re:Curious... (Score:5, Insightful)
What do think about people who are pirating music and/or movies?
The term "piracy" in the world of copyright infringement means:
-large scale
-commercial
-running off of exact copies for commercial gain.
I have never met anyone who is doing that so I have no real opinion of them as people.
I have seen poor people going around in the streets selling pirated copies, and they do not seem like evil people. They seemed a lot more decent than the people I've seen from the RIAA. They don't even seem to be aware that what they are doing is contrary to copyright law.
Re:Curious... (Score:5, Funny)
They seemed a lot more decent than the people I've seen from the RIAA.
It's a low bar.
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My guess is that RIAA is carefully choosing the states in which it litigates so as to minimize the probability that it will get stuck with an unfavorable precedent.
No, that's not true. They will sue anywhere. Probably less than 1% of those who are sued fight back.
Dang (Score:5, Funny)
For a minute there I thought this meant Duke Nukem Forever had been released, and it was about Duke fighting the RIAA in a court of law. Man, that would kick ass.
Re:Dang (Score:4, Funny)
From what I heard, someone from Duke administration stopped by the RIAA office and said "I have come here to chew bubble gum and to kick ass, and I am all out of bubble gum."
Can we get a new tag? (Score:2, Funny)
This might be better filed under fsckthatyoudontmakesense instead of suddenoutbreakofcommonsense
Too late.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I've never studied law in my life, but "RIAA Defence 101" is a course i'd sign up for!!!
Re:Too late.... (Score:5, Interesting)
make defending students against the RIAA part of the law school curriculum
I've never studied law in my life, but "RIAA Defence 101" is a course i'd sign up for!!!
Actually Prof. Nesson once assigned his students the task of drafting a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena [blogspot.com]. Now his law students are fighting the RIAA in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum. Also law students at the University of Maine and University of San Francisco law schools have been fighting the RIAA, and I believe law students at the University of California are going to be getting into the act as well.
Re:Too late.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look, I once worked for a university, and I was asked to comment on a policy about this. What I told the university's lawyer was, we did not have any way to associate an actual person with an IP address, we didn't even have any way to associate a specific computer with an IP address because they changed from time to time, we had no business reason to implement this sort of tracking, and so if the RIAA came knocking, all we could tell them was "sorry, can't help you"... and doing so would be completely honest.
Any university that is keeping enough tracking information to be able to say, upon receipt of a letter from the RIAA, who was using what IP address when, is wasting too much time and money tracking information it doesn't legitimately need.
I don't approve of infringement. (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer disarmament [abolishcopyright.com].
Nerve (Score:5, Insightful)
let's hope this sends out a ripple of nerve to the other universities and more of them have the guts to stand up. If nothing else, this would skyrocket the administrative costs of these previously cheap mass shakedowns and hopefully put a stop to them.
Now that the heavy lifting is done... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now that the heavy lifting is done... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, Duke is bold now that NewYorkCountryLawyer and other lawyers stood their ground in a proverbial Battle of Thermopylae defending a bunch of homemakers and retirees against the RIAA army!
Why thank you, cenconce. I've always found inspiration from the brave men who resisted the Persian empire at Thermopylae.
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Ray,
I was dying to have one of these cases cross my desk, though frankly, I was a solo and it probably would have killed me to take it. I can't stand injustice like what the RIAA is doing... guess that's why I became a Public Defender. :)
Regardless, like many Slashdot readers, I've followed your work over the years, and you have certainly brought a number of smiles to my face from the documents you have posted on your website.
Regards,
Anthony
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"The thousand lawyers of the RIAA descend upon you. Our court filings will blot out the sun!"
"Then we will litigate in the shade."
How long before the dorms are nat'ed so the ip goe (Score:3, Insightful)
How long before the dorms are nat'ed so the ip goes to a lot more then just 1 person?
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If they're anything like my dorms, every machine has an Internet-facing IP.
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And if anyone's smart enough, they've dropped their own router on that line to help obscure everything.
"Yea, my router has that IP Address, but there's over four hardwired computers and six laptops connected to it. You got a MAC address identifying which computer was doing what? No, my router doesn't keep logs. No, I will not turn logs on, you cannot tell me what to do with my legally-purchased hardware."
Already? (Score:2)
Well, you already have room mates who share PCs. So we're pretty much already there in terms of not knowing who the actual infringer was.
And yet the RIAA still likes to claim that they have detected a "person" doing unauthorized things with copyrighted files...
cue vague legal question (Score:5, Insightful)
When I hear about these RIAA letters-of-doom-death I always wondered, are the Universities even legally required to forward them to students? Why don't the Universities say, "no way, you deliver your own threat letters to people."
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It could be "cooperate with us or we'll sue the crap out of you. Nice school, would be a shame if it went bankrupt in court wouldn't it"?
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I think that if they were legally required to, they would do so. The RIAA is acting on the basis that "we haven't got a court order or anything, but how about you do as we say anyway and nobody has to get hurt?". The University, while initially bending over, has now taken the stance "show us some actual evidence first, eg something that wouldn't get laughed out of court if you went to try and get a court order".
As someone else pointed out, if only they'd stood up to the RIAA a few years earlier...
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If the letters aren't forwarded, or the student refuses to settle, the next step is for the RIAA to file a John Doe suit to get a court order (or subpoena, I forget which) and compel universities to hand over information on the student. On
Not the best option but... (Score:1)
Licensed Investigators Requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Licensed Investigators Requirement (Score:5, Informative)
The university should have also stated that the evidence must come from investigators licensed in the state of North Carolina.
Interesting you should say that, because their "probable cause hearing" [blogspot.com] in North Carolina is coming up soon.
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Do you have contact information for the university? It would be great if you could pass that information along to them, along with all the past troubles they've had for using unlicensed investigators ...
What is proof? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean seriously, how can you proof that someone at IP-Address X offered a file.
The typical way is that they show a screenshot of some programm as well as someone claiming under oath that it's real. Well let's see where someone evil could modify that information to blame someone else:
1. the application: It can display any IP-Address it wants, even random numbers
2. the video card driver: It gets commands to write strings. It's trivial to exchange strings here and most video card manufacturers refuse to provi
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What they were actually asked for is to prove that random two people, one of them being a Duke student, communicated over the net and that the content of that communication was file of which the RIAA claims "intellectual ownership". File sharing is, after all, as it's called, peer-2-peer, and is thus private, even if the initial offering negotiation took place in public.
I can't imagine how actually that should work without RIAA having a possibility to monitor _all_ actual communication, not only the offerin
What I don't quite understand (Score:2)
... is this: The RIAA have been proven to break the law as a matter of principle, isn't that correct? If I do that, I end up in jail pretty soon; so why are they not only allowed to go free, but also to continue exactly as if nothing has changed? There ought to be a way for a judge to simply close down a business that repeatedly ignores the law like that. Or slap them with a fine big enough to take them all the way to bankruptcy. And then throw the managers in jail.
Why don't they band together? (Score:2)
Presumption of Innocence? (Score:2)
I have no doubt that turning on future alumni and trashing them without proof is bad for Duke's business.
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I know Slashdot users tend to stay in basements, avoid sunlight, yadda yadda etc, but rugby and lacrosse are two very different things...
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So Now Duke Cares about Student's Rights? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm surprised Duke is actually doing the right thing here. Based on their track record, I expected the students to be expelled, their sports team disbanded, the coach fired and have full page ads run in local papers signed by their professors denouncing them. I mean, that's what happened the last time Duke students were accused of something based on flimsy evidence.
I guess Duke learned the expensive way that their students don't check all their rights at the door when the are admitted to Duke.
most of this makes sense but: (Score:2)
prior notice and an opportunity to be heard
Sounds like what you'd get if they were using a search warrant IMHO. You don't get an opportunity to defend yourself until they bring suit/charges against you. They are "just looking" so the right to counsel etc isn't really defended as much as once they actually accuse you of something.
Duke & admin don't seem to serve student inter (Score:2)
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What is the legal age of majority in the US ? In the UK it is 18, and nobody (other than prodigies) attends university before the age of 18. So the university is not responsible for any parental role.
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more proof (Score:3, Insightful)
They should also demand that they don't just download .5% from the student either. They should demonstrate that they actually got a working copy of the song from that individual student.
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they have no evidence that what they got from that person is copyright material until they have a working copy...
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Resistance isn't futile (Score:5, Insightful)
is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it's based on zero evidence, and on the ground that the students weren't given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard?
The thing is, the RIAA doesn't really want to sue people. They want people to roll over and pay the $3000. That's almost entirely free money - they pay some small amount per IP to their dogs at MediaSentry, they pay some paralegal to fill in blanks on a form letter, and they pay some postage in order to send them out. Then they just wait until the money starts rolling in. A 10:1 profit margin wouldn't seem unreasonable, even if you factor in the supposed "losses" due to online sharing.
But every time someone fights back, whether it's against the RIAA's ex parte tactics or in a full-blown lawsuit, it costs them big. There are real lawyers getting paid real money to litigate real suits. Any returns are years off, and it's a roll of the dice as to whether they'll see anything for their efforts besides a bill from the defendant's lawyers.
The only reason that the RIAA files these lawsuits is because a few people have called their bluff. Imagine if the mob decided that breaking people's kneecaps was too risky/costly. Once people found out, nobody would pay them the protection money. Very similar situation with the RIAA: if the RIAA started ignoring people who ignored their settlement letters, and other people found out about it, then nobody would pony up the $3000. (Which, of course, is why these articles usually get tagged "mafiaa".)
By not forwarding the settlement letters, Duke complicates the cash cow portion of this formula. Ostensibly, the RIAA could find some way around this, but it'll undoubtedly be more complicated and cut into their settlement revenues. At some point, there's a line at which any hoped-for decrease in sharing is more than offset by the increase in pre- and litigation costs, and once the RIAA actually realizes that, their litigation campaign will stop. While many of us believe that the RIAA has been past that line the whole time, it'll take a lot more people fighting back to convince the RIAA of that.
Oh, and a ruling on unconstitutionally high damages favorable to the public interest wouldn't hurt, either.
Simple solution... (Score:2)
..just turn off the music...
The price we must pay to put the RIAA out of business.
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Turn off the Big 4 music AND movies.
There is no harm in supporting independents, especially if you have opportunity to support artists directly.
Explain "Evidence" (Score:2)
Civil Disobedience (Score:3, Insightful)
Now isn't Civil Disobedience also Protected Speech?
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"...the outright destruction of Big Music since now any even reasonably competent band can record, produce, and distribute their music outside of the traditional channels for a tiny investment in hardware and software."
Yep, and it scares the industry to death (hence the Draconian methods). For a couple of thousand dollars one can setup up their comp with a Pro-quality (e.g. multi-input/track @ 16,24,32bit/44.1 to 96kHz rates) interface, along with a bit of knowledge about recoreding, mixing/mastering and p
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I would imagine they were tired of tracking down all of these students in order to forward the RIAABS. I doubt they're really thinking of the students, they're just saving themselves a little work. If the RIAA has any actual proof they'll come up with a court order, then Duke will track them down. In the end, Duke will likely have to track down fewer students that way.
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Well, Duke is certainly well endowed financially. But why should they spend even one minute of administrative time, or one dollar of university resources, to serve as the RIAA's flunky and errand boy? I'd have to guess that they're more than tired of it. Without some kind of concrete evidence in hand, it's a complete mis-allocation of their time and money.
Re:Recall the Duke Lacrosse case... (Score:4, Insightful)
To anyone who may have misunderstood my point...
Duke is fighting vigorously to protect people from charges of downloading but when the Duke Lacrosse team was falsely charged with gang rape they were completely thrown under the bus.
The more serious the accusation, the more important the presumption of innocence.