Down on the Bayu with the RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “Back in April, I received an e-mail from Northwestern’s Office of Judicial Affairs informing me that I would need to schedule a meeting with them after they received a compliant [sic] from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),” posts Ryan Gallagher on Northwestern University’s North by Northwestern, going on to site the missive, which reads >>>
Ryan,
I have received a complaint from the RIAA alleging that you engaged in illegal transmission of copyrighted files. You need to come in and meet with me regarding this complaint. Please call the number contained in my auto-signature below and ask my assistant to put you on my schedule.
Sincerely,
Katy Shannon
Graduate Assistant for Judicial Affairs
Gallagher continues >>>
I met with Shannon in her Scott Hall office the next day. She handed me a two-page paper, which was a copy of the complaint e-mail Northwestern received from the RIAA. In what appeared to be a pre-digested response, Jeremy Landis of the RIAA’s Online Copyright Protection Department wrote that they intercepted a transmission of copyrighted work from my IP address: a unique, numerical identifier for a computer on a network.
The work in question was Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. Below that, the paper showed a list of 30 or so other IP addresses that allegedly uploaded the file via BitTorrent.
Shannon informed me that my case wasn’t unique. During April alone, the university received 85 complaints against students from the RIAA. The number has grown from the previous year, she said, where the university throughout the entire year received only 160 complaints in total.
“We’ve called other schools. They aren’t getting as many complaints as us. Someone needs to push back.”
Someone does. Because clearly, the vicious RIAA onslaught against American schools to force them to act as corporate copyright cops, paid for by local taxpayers, is continuing unabated, despite assurances from an unnamed RIAA source who claimed, “We have no capability of targeting any school at all. Technically we can’t do it.”
Notwithstanding, “Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA has been blasting non-stop DMCA notices at universities across America in numbers never seen before,” p2pnet also said.
At Northwestern, in 2007 only 16 students out of 160 were contacted by the RIAA, Gallagher has Shannon saying, going on, “they received notices that they could either settle out of court for amounts that ranged between $3,000 to $4,000, or hire a lawyer to prepare for a court date.”
Fifteen victims decided giving into the RIAA blackmail was the best of a bad business and only one student, Shannon said, hired a lawyer, “but later backed down”.
His/her temerity boosted the extortion, “to the $5,000 to $6,000 range.”
Be Aware You’re Uploading
There is, of course, a way to halt the RIAA bltiz.
Buy Bayu, short for Be Aware You’re Uploading, “a program already in use at the University of Michigan since late 2007,” says NU’s North by Northwestern
“I was told by Shannon that Northwestern was spending a ‘great deal of money’ to have the program implemented by the fall of 2008,” says Gallagher, adding, “But after speaking with Woodward, I was told that Northwestern is still only ‘investigating the launch of a similar program at NU’.”
Or they could follow the lead of Ohio University and get Audible Magic’s Copy[Non]Sense, a so-called ‘filter’ being peddled by RIAA ‘expert’ witness Doug Jacobson, of which p2pnet posted >>>
Ohio University paid out almost $100,000 in anti-P2P software – $75,000, to be precise – in a bid to make Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) members of the Big 4 organised music cartel leave the school and students alone,” p2pnet posted last year, going on we should have looked a little further because the $75K wasn’t everything.
Ohio University is also paying Dr Doug Jacobson’s company $16,000 a year in “maintenance,” we said, continuing, “and Lo! – ’suddenly RIAA letters stop!’ – as Ray Beckerman points out in Recording Industry vs The People.
“Jacobson was hired by the RIAA to provide expert testimony in a case in which the Big 4 gain is trying to paint Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old New York woman who knows as much about computers as she does about flying a 747, as a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.
“However, instead of shoring up the RIAA’s fictional claims, Jacobson (right) has become a(nother) serious embarrassment.”
So what is Bayu?
The University of Michigan created it on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA, using state and federally funded school staff and resources.
Falsely touted as an “educational service,” it’s an, “automated system that notices when computers on selected University networks appear to be uploading files using peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology,” says www.bayu.umich.edu, going on, “BAYU then notifies the person whose computer was used to upload.”
However, it admits, “The system does not look at the content being uploaded”.
In other words, notwithstanding, and in blissful ignorance, “When BAYU has noticed P2P uploading, it will send an email with a link to educational information and University resources to the person whose computer it noticed,” says UM.
Think about that.
Meanwhile, guess what it uses to achieve this?
Traffic-shaping software.
“Any time you have P2P software on your computer, you’re taking a risk,” says Michigan.
“The University’s recommendations are supposed to be educational and helpful to you, but they are not a guarantee. You are ultimately responsible for your use of P2P technology. And while there are many lawful and important uses for P2P technology, if you choose to use it, you will have to be vigilant to make sure that you’re using it properly, safely, and lawfully.”
Of course, if you’re a Michigan student, you’ll be bugged by Bayu.
But that’s a small price to pay to protect the interests of the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 labels.
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May 30th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
so much for a view that the students are innocent until proven guilty.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Its impossible to prove so why bother when extortion demands are enough to do the trick
May 31st, 2008 at 9:54 am
Folks: Enougth is enought and we have to get ride of these RIAA/MPAA parasites once and for all.
Yes. They are dying, but how many more victims before they go dead?