RIAA attacks stymie university CIOs
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- While world attention focuses on Minnesota single mother of two Jammie Thomas, under attack from the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry, chief information officers from 25 universities across America are conferencing to find ways to properly do their jobs in the face of increasing onslaughts from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.
The labels are trying to sue students into becoming compliant consumers of corporate, and only corporate, product and ‘piracy’ notices for the 2006-2007 academic year have been the focus of conference calls with CIOs, “trying to find a way to protect and inform our students,” says Marshall University’s Jan Fox.
“We have to protect our institutions as well as our students, but we have yet to find a solution,” she’s quoted as saying in Marshall University’s The Parthenon.
As p2pnet has pointed out over and again, the RIAA sue ‘em all lawsuits do no more than seriously disrupt normal functions at American schools ranging across the whole of the US which are being attacked by the Big 4 organised music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
The so-called trade organisation has been successfully using the mainstream media to create the illusion that thousands of people in America, students and children included, have been found guilty of file sharing, never mind that no such crime or offence exists in civil or criminal law, and that Thomas’ case is the first to go to trial.
Marshall is based in Huntington, West Virginia, where the file sharing issue has been so time-consuming for Fox and her staff, “she fears many employees can’t focus on the real issues that need to be confronted,” says the story.
“It takes so many hours between the tracking, logs and write-ups to research these infringement issues,” she says in the story.
We receive between four and five different types of notices, all of which have the RIAA’s name on them.
I would much rather my time and my staff’s time be spent bettering the school.
That’s of absolutely no concern to the labels, however. ‘Competition’ is a filthy word in their lexicons and under the pretext of educating students, they’re trying to sue them into toeing the corporate line.
“We need to know who is doing what on the network, and this is distracting us from our real jobs,” The Parthenon, has Fox, continuing.
“I worry that a major issue on campus will slip through while we spend our efforts dealing with the RIAA’s requests.”
Major institutions with law schools have a less-likely chance of being attacked, Fox said.
Harvard and WVU have never had network users sued for copyright violations, she points out, adding that, “Harvard has even gone so far as to take a stance that if the university had students accused of violating the RIAA’s interpretation of the copyright law, that Harvard would attack the case and believe it can win”.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
under attack – We’ll keep on suing you: RIAA, October 4, 2007
The Parthenon – After 360 copyright infringements this year, university confronts RIAA lawsuits with students, October 4, 2007
Harvard – RIAA student victimisation campaign, July 21, 2007
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