Second University stands up to the RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A second US university has had the moxy to stand up for its students instead of instanty caving into to RIAA extortion.
Following the path laid out in Oregon, where the state attorney general and University of Oregon jointly told Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA they weren’t going to stand still for blackmail, Marshall University in West Virginia has become the second known US university to attempt to quash an RIAA subpoena.
This won’t come as a surprise, however.
It’s also one of the few universities to point out the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign is having a seriously debilitating effect on universities and their staffs.
“We have to protect our institutions as well as our students, but we have yet to find a solution,” the university’s Jan Fox was last year quoted as saying, reported p2pnet.
We went on that 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 Jammie Thomas is the only RIAA victim to have actually been inside a court.
At Marshall, 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,” Fox told the Parthenon.
“It takes so many hours between the tracking, logs and write-ups to research these infringement issues,” she said, continuing >>>
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.
We need to know who is doing what on the network, and this is distracting us from our real jobs.
I worry that a major issue on campus will slip through while we spend our efforts dealing with the RIAA’s requests.
The motion to quash, made in federal court in Huntington, West Virginia, was, however, denied by magistrate judge Maurice G. Taylor, jr, who’s evidently labouring under the mistaken impression the RIAA isn’t planning to sue the students once it gets hold of their names and addresses —- rather, it’s only intending to talk to them and, “pursue a further investigation”.
But, “Is he in for a surprise,” says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.
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Update: -
“The music industry’s legal campaign against campus P2P activity marked its one-year anniversary in late February, and the RIAA is still at it,” says Ars Technica, going on:
“The group has sent off another 569 prelitigation settlement letters to students at 26 schools, only a couple of which have attempted to thwart the RIAA. One of those schools, Marshall, was told by a judge last week to cough up the names and addresses of seven “John Doe” students.
“Marshall University was served a subpoena seeking the identities of seven students after the RIAA filed one of its usual John Doe lawsuits (Arista Records v. Does 1-7 if you’re scoring at home… or if you’re alone). The school resisted, arguing that the RIAA made false representations in order to obtain the subpoena and begin ex parte discovery, and also that the subpoena imposed an undue burden on the school.”
laid out in Oregon - RIAA may be spying on students: Oregon AG, November 29, 2007
been inside a court - Jammie Thomas: her story in her own words, November 2, 2007
Parthenon - After 360 copyright infringements this year, university confronts RIAA lawsuits with students, October 4, 2007
p2pnet - RIAA attacks stymie university CIOs, October 4, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People - Second university, Marshall U., moves to quash RIAA subpoena, April 15, 2008
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April 17th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Here’s an idea; Tell the students to get a Hotmail address for their email and then just make the university network open to anyone on campus, no logon required. When the RIAA comes knocking they can truthfully say “We have no idea who was using that IP address.”