Vanderbilt ‘plays nice’ with the RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “We want to play nice,” says Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
She’s referring to Vanderbilt’s efforts to keep on the good side of the corporate music industry and its adherents, which have so far cost it in the region of half-a-million-dollars, she states.
Blithely, she goes on:
“We’ve negotiated very inexpensive deals for students. Napster is $2 a month and offers 3 million songs. We have also spent a lot money and time marketing them. We encourage these legal methods for downloading music.”
The above bald faced admission from Frank in InsideVandy makes it clear not only is the university working —- unpaid —- for Napster, a desperately broke, hard-core commercial music marketing service, it’s also acting up-front for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.
Are Napster and the Big 4 footing the bill?
No. That’s down to parents and state and federal authorities responsible for America’s educational systems.
But that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
‘At no additional cost to students’
“Basically, the idea is – if students download music supplied by the labels to ’services’ such as Napster II, the RIAA won’t have spend all that money dragging them into court to force them do the same thing,” p2pnet posted.
But not recently. That was back in 2004.
Because Vanderbilt isn’t the first school to be sucked in. That distinction goes to Penn State which set the pace for the Big 4 and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
“Dear Penn State Student,” wrote Rod Erickson, Penn State executive VP and provost in December, 2003, going on:
Penn State announced that it has reached an agreement with Napster to provide its “Premium Service” at no additional cost to students and at a reduced rate to faculty and staff. I would like to use this opportunity to answer some frequently asked questions regarding this initiative.
First, what is Napster? Napster is the leader in legal online music services and provides access to over 500,000 songs.
Despite all the help from Penn and the Big 4, Napster continues to slide slowly but inexorably down the tube, and meanwhile, according to Vanderbilt’s Frank, the $500,000 notwithstanding, the university has seen an increase in students being sued by the RIAA.
“Last year we had 20 students (sued) for the whole year,” InsideVandy has her saying. “This year we have had 32 students in October alone.”
Of them, “23 have been identified, while the rest remain anonymous IP addresses,” says the story, going on:
Because Vanderbilt operates on an open Internet network, the RIAA is able to track down IP addresses, linking them to individual computers engaging in illegal music downloading.
The school itself, however, has been asked to give students’ names to match their IP codes.
“We make the best interest to give the names,” InsideVandy has Frank said.
“We live in Music City, and musicians … are benefactors, and we often work with them. We have to be mindful of that. RIAA represents the music industry, and the music industry is right across the street. Some universities say they aren’t going to do this, but we want to play nice with everyone.”
Frank also admits she estimates Vanderbilt TS has spent half a million dollars [our emphasis], “on the efforts to inform, educate and provide legal alternatives for the student community”.
‘Universities should have no part in this extraordinary process’
Meanwhile, a handful of American universities, with Harvard and Oregon to the fore, are showing their determination to prove schools are for education, not marketing corporate music product or enforcing corporate music copyrights.
Oregon attorney general Hardy Myers and the University of Oregon are the, ‘first American institutions to jointly make an active and determined effort to protect state students against the depredations of the RIAA,’ p2pnet said recently.
And Charles Nesson, William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society; and John Palfrey, clinical professor of law and executive director, the Berkman Center, made their positions clear back in July.
“This Spring, 1,200 pre-litigation letters arrived unannounced at universities across the country.,” they said, going on:
“The RIAA promises more will follow. These letters tell the university which students the RIAA plans on suing, identifying the students only by their IP addresses, the ‘license plates’ of Internet connections. Because the RIAA does not know the names behind the IP addresses, the letters ask the universities to deliver the notices to the proper students, rather than relying upon the ordinary legal mechanisms.
“Universities should have no part in this extraordinary process.”
And on IP addresses, ‘by itself an IP number on a packet has only suggestive value and is not reliable evidence at all,’ says University of Chicago professor Mike O’Donnell.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
InsideVandy – RIAA to sue 23 students for illegal downloading, December 5, 2007
p2pnet – ‘The courtship is complete’, April 23, 2004
p2pnet – RIAA silent on Oregon case, November 30, 2007
back in July – RIAA student victimisation campaign, July 21, 2007
not reliable evidence – IP addresses and identities, July 16, 2007
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December 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
no, a bunch of yuppie shops and hospitals are right across the street. i got a decent scholarship to vandy, live about 15 min away, and i am SO glad i have not given them any money. bunch of traitors and corporate puppets, the lot of them. >:(