Birthday student’s RIAA surprise
p2pnet.net news:- It was Anna Whittington’s 21st birthday, recently, and she had a terrific surprise from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA.
A biomedical sciences senior at University of South Florida, she found herself on the wrong end yet another of those phony RIAA assertions that she’s a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.
There was, however, one slight problem. She’d never heard of the RIAA, says the Tampa Tribune. “I thought it was a joke,” the story has her saying. But but there was nothing funny about it.
“The letter, forwarded to her from USF lawyers, also was sent to 80 of her schoolmates” and, “Attached to each was a pricey deal: Pay $3,000 to settle the copyright infringement claim or risk an expensive lawsuit.”
USF is second only to Ohio University in the number of settlement offers received nationwide, says the story.
These days, Ohio has another distinction, and one it has absolutely no reason to be proud of.
Like so many other universities across America, it was cowed by the RIAA, putting the interests of the Big 4 organised music cartel in front of those of its students.
“It appears that many institutions are simply prepared to wash their hands, refusing even to question the tactics of the industry, let alone providing meaningful legal assistance to their students,” and Ohio lawyer Joe Hazelbaker said a little under a week ago.
“In fact, one university has advised its students that they could use the recording industry’s attorney as ‘an information source’ despite the obvious conflicts,” he stated incredulously.
Whitington assured the Tampa Tribune she’d never downloaded music. The USF IP address is in her name but, “the computer storing the music belongs to her roommate, Whittington said,” the story continues.
However, her roommate also denied downloading all the songs, it says, adding, “The room they share in their sorority house on campus is usually open, Whittington said. The 28 women who live there often have guests in the hallways so anyone could have used the computer to pilfer music, she said.
“After daily phone calls with USF’s legal services office, Whittington and her roommate decided to split the settlement offer instead of fighting. Unless they found a lawyer to take their case for free, they figured they would be out at least $3,000 anyway.”
Knowing full well, their victims have no way of acquiring the money they need to hire lawyers who’d be able to take on the RIAA legal hit teams in a fair fight, the RIAA keeps on viciously attacking not only students, but other innocent people who are in the same boat.
Instead of picking up the stories and pointing out the many inconsistencies in the RIAA claims, the mainstream media parrot Big 4 assertions just as if they’re accurate and reliable, emanating from credible sources.
And so it goes, to quote the late Kurt Vonnegut.
Also See:
Tampa Tribune – Recording Industry Goes After USF Students., May 27, 2007
cowed by the RIAA – Ohio U failing students in RIAA attacks, May 25, 2007
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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!
May 31st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Now I really wonder how the mainstrean press would have reported this incedent, if this was done by a group of people with “the” in their name,　and the university was buckling under similar threats?
It’s almost too funny that these attempts my **AA in trying to get money of their customers, really resembles that of the mafia in New York in many areas until recently. Which should not come as a surprise, being that they have been strongly involved with the music industry for a VERY long time.
Just my two cents,
May 31st, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Good for them! Why is it that there is NO discussion permitted anymore about how these people are, in fact, doing things that are arguably immoral (at least if you accept the idea that the creators of content should have some say over what is done with that content.)
Fine. If rampant p2p should be just fine with NO conesquences, then fuck Stallman AND the GPL. Use GPL’ed software any goddamn way you feel like it. (After all, half of you seem to not believe copyright has any validity whatsoever, and the other half don’t give a fuck.)
This is what’s so shameful about the whole p2p “scene” — the digital equivalent of “swag off the back of a truck” is “kewl”, but any and every attempt to make that MORE DIFFICULT is somehow villainous.
Does this also hold for content produced by private citizens?
What if I record a shitload of cordless-phone stuff with a scanner, and make those files available via p2p “for free?” What should happen if the originators of said content (the people having the conversation) complain about violations? “Fuck ‘em! No money changed hands, so it’s all good!”
June 1st, 2007 at 9:10 am
Fuck you.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Exactly!! Fuck Intellectual Property Hitlers like the Original Poster!!
June 1st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
I notice that neither of you intellectual giants bothered to actually address my points. That’s what’s fascinating about the “scene” — you’re so willing to heart-tug about how the “Big Evil Corporations” are oppressing the poor little file-sharers (Patti Santangelo, the poor disabled mom who doesn’t even have a computer, is a better PR risk than, say, a “ripping crew” who call themselves the “MovieRunners”, or some shit.)
Fuck “Copyright Hitlers?” Great. So you want “stuff for free”, and anybody who complains or tries to make the point that, just maybe, those who ORIGINATE the stuff you want actually DO deserve to have some say over…..ah fuck it. You just want “free” stuff. Clear enough, from your responses.
Third-rate leeches, all of you.