p2pnet news | RIAA News:- "As members of a Catholic and Marianist university, we’re challenged to behave in a manner consistent with our values. From a technology standpoint, one of the things this means is that we discourage illegally downloading music/films because it’s unethical – and illegal."

This comes at the end of an article in the University of Dayton’s Flyer News which kicks off with:

The consequences of peer-to-peer file-sharing used to be attendance at a class of computer ethics and a possible 30-day suspension of UD network use. Now, however, UD students are being issued pre-litigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recommending a financial settlement or threat of lawsuit.

"Students see this as something that happens "out there," said Karen Bull, director of UDit business services. "But it is happening here too."

And it’s happening everywhere as Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG put shareholder interests directly in front of the education of American youth.

Instruction is being disrupted, normal student activities are seriously interfered with and public funds are tapped in the interests of maintaining Big 4 profits.

Greg Jackson, chief information officer at the University of Chicago, recently admitted to policing the uiversity’s networks on behalf of the Big 4’s RIAA.

It’s a matter of dollars and cents, he told the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, reports GCN.com.

His department, "spends from $100,000 to $200,000 a year responding to complaints of illegal file sharing from RIAA and other organizations [read Hollywood's MPAA] he said, pointing out he’d rather be spending it elsewhere, but it’s "not an unreasonable amount".

"We want to play nice," said Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

She was 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," p2pnet posted.

Frank went on to say, "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."

Vanderbilt has spent a lot of time and money "marketing" Napster?

Interestingly, Flyer News also carries an OpEd called Griping with Gus from Karl Gustafson which also mentions Napster —- and infamous Metallica drummer and mouth Lars Ulrich (upper right).

Says Gustafson:

The people who downloaded Lars’ music actually liked Lars’ music. If they didn’t like it then they wouldn’t download it. Lars Ulrich literally sued his fans for not giving him their money. Is that absurd or am I just too stupid to understand what is going on here? Keep in mind I arrived at this conclusion when this incident was taking place – I was 14 years old.

The Internet "piracy" (which is way too overdramatic for these incidents) phenomenon is something that is here to stay. The RIAA, America’s most notorious multibillion dollar abscess, has come to UD with pseudo litigation claiming that 16 college kids somehow "pirated" thousands of dollars from them and now these "pirates" are bankrupting the record industry.

Didn’t these guys go to kindergarten? Didn’t they learn the beauty of sharing? Isn’t that all life is – sharing with your peers? One might even call it "peer-to-peer sharing."

I find it very difficult to sympathize with the RIAA – not just because they were the kids who never learned to share, but because I watch MTV. More specifically, I watch a TV show on MTV called "Cribs."

The recording industry seems to be doing just fine, according to Snoop Dogg’s garage, Moby’s kitchen and Nelly’s backyard.

"Buy fewer Aston Martins and I’ll start to care about what you have to say," Gustafson adds.

Slashdot it!

Also See:

GCN.com - Balancing rights at both ends of the pipe, January 31, 2008
Flyer News – RIAA issues UD students pre-litigation settlement letters, Volume 55, Number 26
We want to play nice – Vanderbilt ‘plays nice’ with the RIAA, December 5, 2007

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 9:47 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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