p2pnet.net news:- North Carolina State University is the latest American school to say No! to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG efforts to use them as pawns to terrorise students.

The Big 4 are wielding their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in a bid to stampede students into signing self-incriminating online documents.

University of Maine System spokesman John Diamond recently declared, “The only way the RIAA can get that information is if the RIAA takes us to court to get those names.”

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee joined its sister school, University of Wisconsin in Madison,” said Recording Industry vs The People at the time.

Now, Pam Gerace, North Carolina State director of student legal services, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients, says Josh Harrell in the NCS Technician Online.

She also confirms a strong suspicion p2pnet has voiced several times: that students who freely giving the RIAA their names at this point could be leaving themselves open for RIAA attacks of some kind at a later.

“She advises that the students should remain anonymous,” says Harrell. “The RIAA actually said they might have use for the names in the future.”

This, “could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies,” says The Technician.

Gerace is also quoted as saying, “There’s no timeline, and that’s driving my clients up the wall But [the students] can take their time - the RIAA didn’t say anything about that.”

After the RIAA sent its first settlement last month, Gerace said only one student came to Legal Services to take the settlement and, “According to the RIAA spokesperson, of the 400 students who the RIAA sent settlement letters to nationally, 198 of them agreed to it,” says the story, adding:

” ‘[The number of songs] ranged from 10 to 2,000,’ Gerace said. ‘They said it could be $750 per song. The letter said, though, that they could just pay $3,000, which would not be based on the number of songs’.”

Recording Indusdtry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman has written a guide for school administrators who want to want to protect their students rather than actively help the RIAA to victimise them, as some are doing.

He also has eight ideas for students in the line of fire, emphasising it’s not legal advise, stressing students should NOT take advice of any kind from the RIAA, MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), their schools or indeed anyone who’s not their lawyer.

“These are my suggestions to college students being targeted by the RIAA,” he says:

• Join together with other students who are being targeted, pool your financial resources, and hire an attorney who is ready, willing, and able to (a) advise you of your rights and (b) fight the RIAA’s “John Doe” cases when they are brought.
• Bring to your college or university’s attention my “Open Letter to Colleges and Universities”
• Join or start campus charters of Digital Freedom and/or FreeCulture.
• Remember that the RIAA does not presently have your identity, and that by calling them or visiting their web site you may be giving them your identity.
• Read and learn about your rights.
• Organize.
• Organize.
• Organize.

(Thanks, Dawn and Kate)

Slashdot it!

Also See:
stampede students - Third school says No! to the RIAA, March 29, 2007
self-incriminating - RIAA college settlement plan, February 28, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Joins Madison campus in Refusing to Forward RIAA’s collection letters, March 23, 2007
Technician Online - RIAA files 23 lawsuits against NCSU, April 13, 20057
written a guide - New RIAA attack on US students, April 12, 2007
eight ideas - Suggestions to College Students Being Targeted by the RIAA, April 15, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 8:53 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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