p2pnet - rss feed: p2pnet RIAA school report - 2008
p2pnet news Digests:- | RIAA News:- I posted the first RIAA school report at the beginning of the year —- in February, 2008, to be exact.
I’ve been meaning to update it and I’ve finally gotten around to it.
First time, I included the beginning of 2008 in the post. However, I’ve now made a new section, meaning 2007 stands alone and 2008 to date is a new post, up to June 30, 2008.
Cheers!
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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2008
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Penn State’s Spanier: RIAA all the way
January 1st, 2008
Way, way back (we won’t say ‘back in the day’ 
), not long after p2pnet first went online, we were the first to post on Penn State University, the first senior American school to join forces with the entertainment cartels in a move to turn students not into well-informed, innovative and productive US citizens, but into fully indoctrinated and compliant corporate consumer drones.
With Penn president Graham Spanier (left) firmly planted on the movie and music industry’s Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, alongside ace sophist Cary Sherman (right) of the RIAA, the school provided the foundation for what’s turned into a full-blown entertainment cartel penetration of US teaching institutions, coupled with all-out attacks on their students.
Instrumental in hooking Spanier was Barry K. Robinson, by pure coincidence both a member of Penn State University’s Board of Trustees and senior counsel for the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
UCSC signs up as RIAA copyright cop
January 10th, 2008
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) has become another of the American schools to openly enlist as a Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG corporate copyright cop, acting for the Big 4 against its own students.
UCSC has, “just started blocking and throttling network traffic,” posts b14ck, one of the university’s residential network (ResNet) technicians on projectb14ck.
What’s behind the move?
“They think that they can reduce the number of RIAA complaints they get each year (which reflects poorly on the school) by blocking Gnutella network traffic, but their decision is uneducated if anything, and will most likely not result in any less RIAA complaints, but more student complaints and workarounds,” says b14ck, continuing UCSC is a public university, “which means that funding comes from both students AND California residents”.
RIAA attacks another 18 US schools
January 14th, 2008
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has kicked off the new year with renewed attacks on university students across America.
It boasts it’s sent out a new “wave” of 407 extortionate ’settlement’ letters to 18 universities, using “evidence of significant abuse of campus computer networks for the purpose of copyright infringement” as the excuse.
Mount Holyoke abandons students to RIAA
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837, “when higher education for women was a revolutionary idea,” it boasts, also promoting the conviction that, “women can and should make a difference in the world”.
Not in 2008, however, and not if the school can help it.
The “conviction” doesn’t stretch to protecting students, or advising them on how best to defend themselves against RIAA extortion.
Mount Holyoke was one of the 18 schools named in the RIAA’s first attack of the year as part of the Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG campaign to use US teaching institutions as copyright enforcement and sales units, staffed by teachers and funded by taxpayers.
“A few years ago Mount Holyoke College received one pre-litigation letter,” says the Daily Hampshire Gazette, going on:
“The student settled the claim outside of court, said Lee Bowie, dean of the college at Mount Holyoke.”
Now, “Bowie expects the 14 people who received the letters will pay the settlement at $3,000 per person and not try to fight the allegations in court,” says the story.\
Another MIT student defies RIAA
January 24th, 2008
A second MIT student has decided s/he’s not prepared to cave in to extortion on the part of the Big 4’s RIAA.
Vanderbilt University’s Cindy Frank believes ‘playing nice‘ with Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA is the way go, reported p2net last December, going on:
“And the policy has so far cost the university [read taxpayers and state and federal authorities, not to mention parents] half a million dollars.
“But Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science major Erek Speed doesn’t agree.”
In fact, it’s time to fight back, he said in Tech Online.
Harvard chooses RIAA for law class
January 24th, 2008
Harvard University has a number of distinctions, but one in particular is particularly relevant with respect to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s bloody-minded and bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign.
With that as a backdrop, professor Charles Nesson (right), William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, had added a rather unusual, possibly unique, element to his Evidence 2008 course.
Under RIAA v University, frame a motion to, “quash a subpoena from a copyright holder to the university for the identity of a student downloader on grounds of undue burden,” he says in what has to be one of the most apt law courses at any US school excepting, perhaps, Maine where two student lawyers are actively representing two university students.
Texas school waits for RIAA attack
January 31st, 2008
The Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas is nervously poised waiting, but not ready, for an attack by the RIAA.
So far, it’s ony had to suffer C&D letters. But that’s soon about to change, suspects a senior staff member.
And while the SFA waits, “Virtually every computer that comes through (the SHACK) has Limewire installed on it,” says Jason Lisenby, going on:
“Limewire serves only one purpose, and that is to illegally download files.”
We’re pretty sure Limewire’s Mark Gorton might find a bone or 10 to pick with the statement.
RIAA goes after University of Dayton
February 1st, 2008
“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.
RIAA goes after William & Mary - again - If at 1st you don’t succeed
Friday, February 8th, 2008
Technologically ignorant executives who run Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are too dense to figure out how to use P2P file sharing and other related 21st century distribution technologies to their advantage.
So they’ve resorted to using their RIAA to try to sue their own customers into buying their boring and over-priced ‘product’.
But before they can do that, they have to somehow get hold of the names of the people they want to nail.
Last summer, the Big 4’s RIAA tried to scam judge Walter D. Kelley into granting order which to force the College of William & Mary in Virginia to hand over the identities of students alleged to have committed the awful crime of sharing music.
Seven students used the college network to, “access an online media distribution system for the purpose of downloading and distributing plaintiffs’ copyrighted works,” says a court document.
Kelley ruled the attempt wasn’t covered under the law and sent the RIAA away.
But the vultures are back, his time looking to con double the number of names out of school authorities.
RIAA attacks UCDavis staff member - ‘Waste of taxpayers’ money’
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Having to deal with RIAA extortion letters is seriously, and negatively, affecting Jan Carmikle’s normal work.
She’s the UC (University of California) Davis intellectual property officer and as such, is primarily responsible for getting permission for the university to use various copyrighted materials, and to license UC Davis property elsewhere.
But Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has, “forced her to devote 15 percent of her work to dealing with DMCA infringements - a waste of taxpayers’ money,” she says, quoted in UC Davis’ the California Aggie.
Nor is the university alone in having to puts its metaphorical hand into its own metaphorical pocket to pay for the Big 4’s bizarre, and purely commercial, anti-student marketing blitz, launched at the begining of last year.
Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology atVanderbilt University in Nashville in Tennessee, admits her school has spent half-a-million-dollars to keep the RIAA off its back.
Of the UC campuses, only UCLA has received more pre-lawsuit letters, she said.
UConn hands student names to RIAA - ‘Harboring illegally shared files’
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Hand over student names, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA ordered the University of Connecticut.
And it did, even though nothing has been proven and no one has been charged with anything.
“UConn has now received a subpoena which requires them to divulge the names of those in the university who are guilty of harboring illegally shared files on their personal computers,” says a Daily Campus OpEd which could almost have been written word-for-word by an RIAA hack.
“The administration, as it is bound by law to do, has complied,” says the story, going on:
“As of now, only 84 students have received pre-settlement letters asking for payments of $3,000-$6,000 for their contribution in the massive, online peer-to-peer networks.
“This is terrible. This is scary. But this is completely legal and warranted, and it is only the beginning.”
Oklahoma State tardy on RIAA subpoena - ‘Confidential information’
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
“Anyone have any ideas on why Oklahoma State University hasn’t complied with the subpoena?” - wonders Ray Beckerman in Recording Industry vs The People.
He’s referring to the fact in Arista v Does 1-11, the case against Oklahoma State University students, despite the court’s denial of the motion by some of the students to quash the subpoena, it seems the university failed to snap right to it.
“According to the RIAA lawyers, the university has ‘neglected’ to respond to the subpoena despite ‘many reminders’,” says Beckerman, going on:
“Is it possible that, being a state university, it might have consulted with Oklahoma’s Attorney General, and learned that it has been violating federal law by failing to protect its students’ legal rights?
RIAA loses another ‘joinder’ case - John Doe defendants
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has once again been trounced in a joinder case.
“These kinds of cases allow the corporate enforcer to efficiently terrorise a number of people simultaneously,” said p2pnet recently.
Lumping victims together also allows the RIAA to save money.
Maine magistrate judge Margaret Kravchuk recently criticised the Big 4 agency for using “gamesmanship” tactics in joinder cases —- cases where defendants are linked together.
Now, another judge has accused the RIAA of using the federal judiciary, “as a hammer by … to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants.”
In SONY v Does 1-5, district judge S. James Otero not only threw out as to Does 1-5, based upon the long line of cases which ruled the RIAA has no right to join the John Doe defendants in a single case, he went on to rule that the plaintiff record companies were also improperly joined.
RIAA continues futile university attacks - Well done, the RIAA
Monday, February 25th, 2008
RIAA Marketing 101 —- How to force your owners’ customers to buy ‘product’:
Hound them. Harass them. Label them ‘criminals’ and ‘thieves’. Call them liars. Humiliate them in the mainstream media every chance you get.
That’s The Big 4 Way, the Big 4 being Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the venal members of the organised music gang.
As a continuation of Stage II of their bizarre sue ‘em all marketing and sales plan, the labels have set their RIAA loose on a new batch of students at universities across the country.
Under what the RIAA’s Clara Duckworth has actually been quoted as calling “cool new legal services,” they’re using staffs and administrations —- funded not by the corporate music industry, but by taxpayers —- to serve extortion letters to students, trying to hit them for upwards of three thousand dollars each.
Ohio University buys RIAA ’silver bullet’ —- retains Doug Jacobson
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Ohio University is patting itself on the back for a good job, well done.
Once at the top of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (s)hit list as the, “recipient of more music sharing complaints than any other university,” it’s now a fully fledged corporate copyright cop, passing on RIAA extortion demands to students and spending thousands of dollars in school funds on dodgy ‘filtering’ technology.
The labels claim files shared equal sales lost.
Sharing music is exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing a CD, say the likes of the RIAA’s Cary ‘Tough Love’ Sherman, mischaracterising file sharers —- their own customers —- as criminals and thieves.
However, in sharing, nothing has been stolen, no one is deprived of something they used to own and no money changes hands.
The labels have never come even close to proving the patently absurd contention that when someone shares something with someone else, they’re blocking a sale. But the statement is picked up and rebroadcast by the mainstream media as though it’s fact.
Now Ohio is boasting it spent more than $75,000 for a device that “scans data crisscrossing its network for copyrighted media”.
Cosying up to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA may not do students a lot of good, but it makes for an easier, softer life for school administrators.
University of San Francisco joins RIAA fight - Singled out for special treatment
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA hold their customers and artists in supreme contempt, heaping outrage upon outrage on them as they push forward with a warped sue ‘em all campaign designed to force people into buying Big 4 ‘product’.
Students across America have been singled out for special treatment as the carefully orchestrated scheme moves into its fifth year.
RIAA president Cary Sherman calls the bitter attacks “tough love“.
But the tide is turning, inexorably, with major universities deciding students’ interests must come before those of the corporate music industry.
Now the University of San Francisco Internet/Intellectual Property Justice Clinic has taken the unprecedented step of assigning students to a New York law firm, Vandenberg & Feliu, to help them defend clients under attack by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
Dear p2pnet: about those law students …. - ‘I read with interest …’
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
“Dear Jon,” says an email in response to p2pnet’s University of San Francisco joins RIAA fight.
“I read with interest your report that Vandenberg & Feliu, a company of New York lawyers, are now being supplemented by unpaid students at the the University of San Francisco.”
It goes on:
I find it truly disturbing that students are being used in this way against legitimate enterprises as they try to protect themselves against the rampant theft of their work.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs when this kind of thing is not only encouraged, but promoted by heavily biased media such as your site.
However, it is only a matter of time until the legitimate music industry succeeds in its fight against those who would see it deprived of its rightful earnings based on sale of product it has created, and artists it has nurtured.
Feel free to publish this so that you have at least one accurate report in your ‘blog’.
HCH
Thanks, HCH. As always, it’s a pleasure to hear from the other side.
RIAA closes down Tufts Direct Connect - Another Big 4 ‘triumph’
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
Tufts freshman Jonathan Evans used to run Tufts Direct Connect, a service he created on open source DC++.But ‘used to’ is the operative phrase because thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA, TDC is no more.
File sharing is, “putting a significant number of our students at risk for legal action,” according to Judi Rennie, the university’s information technology supervisor at Tufts Online.
RIAA ‘making available’ ruling cited in Duke case - Will it help?
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
RIAA ‘making available’ ruling cited in Duke case - Will it help?
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
The Atlantic v Brennan ruling by Connecticut district judge Janet Bond Arterton (right) that the RIAA’s infamous ‘making available‘ claim, upon which hinge all Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG P2P file sharing cases, is invalid is already echoing loudly down the corridors of American universities.
Arterton decided the corporate music industry plaintiffs must prove “actual distribution of copies” and couldn’t merely rely on the fact there are song files “available” on the defendant’s computer.
Now her decision may have implications for cases currently pending against students at Duke and other universities, says Duke University’s The Chronicle.
‘You’re jerks!’ - student tells RIAA - Jessica’s story
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA have extorted students across America out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It isn’t known exactly how many have been blackmailed into ’settling’ with the RIAA in the hope of avoiding a civil lawsuit, but it can’t be more than a couple of thousand and as p2pnet posted recently, “given that the US Census Bureau Back to School: 2006-2007 was projecting 7,600,000 students would be enrolled in American colleges and universities by that fall, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the RIAA student victimisation programme is going nowhere, and fast.”
All it’s really doing is further alienating the very people upon whom future sales depend.
Even the name RIAA is a mockery.
It’s short for Recording Industry Association of America but only one of the Big 4, Warner, is American, and that’s run by a Canadian.
The other three members of the organised corporate copyright music gang are Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain).
“I’ll file for bankruptcy.”
That’s Jesssica, one of 38 University of Maryland students who in 2007 found themselves on the wrong end of RIAA extortion letters.
“During an Office of Information Technology forum on file sharing Wednesday, she spoke out about her experience, calling the fines disproportionate and saying she refuses to pay,” says Chris Yu on Diamondback Online, going on:
“Jessica agreed to share her story with The Diamondback, but asked not to be identified because she feared involving her employer on campus. Jessica is a pseudonym.”
Did the RIAA ‘invent’ a John Doe? - ‘Can’t be found’
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
“Could this be an indication that the RIAA’s unlicensed investigator, MediaSentry, doesn’t know what it’s doing? Perish the thought.”
That’s Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.
In the RIAA’s John Doe case against 38 North Carolina State University students, judge W. Earl Britt dismissed all the Does except for Number 2, ruling there was no basis for joining a whole slew of different John Does in one lawsuit.
But, it turns out, it looks as though John Doe #2 doesn’t exist, says Beckerman, quoting Technician Online.
RIAA, MPAA, pressure US schools - P2P file sharing
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
American educators continue to fight entertainment industry attempts to force US colleges and universities into not only becoming corporate copyright cops, but also installing, and paying for, software designed to filter all but corporate ‘product’ from online school networks.
“In a letter to members of Congress dated Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America took exception to claims by higher-education groups that online music services and technology tools to block file-sharing are costly and ineffective,” says the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus.
“The entertainment-industry groups were responding to a letter that 13 higher-education groups sent to some members of Congress last week urging them to reject language in a House-approved bill that would require colleges to use such tools.
“The entertainment industry groups want the House language to become law. A similar Senate bill omits the language on peer-to-peer file sharing.”
RIAA, MPAA, letter to US schools - ‘Education and ethics’
Monday, March 24th, 2008
As part of the ongoing corporate movie and music cartel ‘education’ campaign, two millionaire lobbyists are ordering American colleges and universities to shape up as far as entertainment bidnes is concerned.
US educators continue to fight entertainment cartel attempts to force US colleges and universities into not only becoming corporate copyright cops, but also installing, and paying for, software designed to filter all but corporate ‘product’ from online school networks, p2pnet posted on Saturday.
Quoting a Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus story, we went on:
“In a letter to members of Congress dated Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America took exception to claims by higher-education groups that online music services and technology tools to block file-sharing are costly and ineffective.”
The letter is signed by Tweedle-Dums Mitch ‘Bainwol and the MPAA’s Dan Glickman.
Addressed to Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the committee on health, education, labor and pensions, Michael B. Enzi, the committee’s ranking member, George Miller, chairman of the committee on education and labor, and Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon, the committee’s senior Republican member, ironically, the letter accuses ACE of making “misleading assertions” and “mischaracterizations”.
Bainwol and Glickman are, of course, established experts at both.
Maine students target RIAA ‘discovery’ machine - Monkey wrench time
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
Dear, dear. More problems for the RIAA
“A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution in the P2P filesharing war launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG,” p2pnet posted in December, 2007.
We went on >>>
In what’s probably a world’s first, not lawyers, but student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic have themselves taken up the fight on behalf of fellow students.
Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki from the Cumberland clinic are now officially representing two Maine students.
Ames and Chmelecki are being guided by clinic director and U of M assistant professor Deirdre Smith.
Smith told p2pnet readers what it was all about, and now the students are at it again, only this time, “they’re trying to shut down the RIAA’s whole ‘discovery’ machine: the lawsuits it files against ‘John Does’ in order to find out their names and addresses,” says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman, going on:
“They’ve gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking - among other things - an injunction against all such ‘John Doe’ cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders.
“If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling - depending on its reasoning - might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs.”
Elektra v Barker / London-Sire v Doe - ‘Making available’
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Same day, two federal courts, two different rulings on “making available,” says the EFF’s (Electrronic Frontier Foundation) Fred von Lohmann.
He’s talking about the Tenise Barker case and London-Sire v Doe featuring, says London-Sire Records, “individual computer users —- mainly college students —- who use ‘peer-to-peer file-sharing software to download and disseminate music without paying for it”.
Second University stands up to the RIAA - Marshall has the Moxy
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
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.
Sudden ‘huge’ spike in school DMCA notices - Why? - administrators ask
Friday, April 25th, 2008
A significant number of senior US school and universities are noticing “an enormous spike” in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices, p2pnet has been told.
Does this mean students are ramping up their file sharing activities?
No, says a reliable source, stating, “There’s no identifiable spike in bandwidth usage at the campus level.”
Now some higher education authorities associated with the so-called Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities are demanding an explanation, we understand.
18 universities named in RIAA DMCA attacks - UPDATED
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
[Revised] When p2pnet first wrote about the sudden upsurge in DMCA notices seen at universities across America, we couldn’t name the schools involved.
Now, however, Wired has followed the story up citing Indiana University, the University of Chicago, George Washington University and University of Cincinnati as four of the schools affected.
Ars Technica added two more (Update) and we supplemented the list with another 12 (Update II).
“A significant number of senior US school and universities are noticing ‘an enormous spike’ in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices,” p2pnet said almost a week ago, going on:
“Does this mean students are ramping up their file sharing activities?
“No, says a reliable source, stating, ‘There’s no identifiable spike in bandwidth usage at the campus level.”
Now, “Universities are getting as many notices from the RIAA in one day as what they would typically get from all content owners in a month,” Wired has Educause vice president Mark Luker saying.
Why does Harvard escape the RIAA? - An RIAA-proof vest, maybe?
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
What does Harvard have that most other senior schools in America don’t have?
An RIAA-proof vest, maybe?
Because while other universities across the land are being bombarded with extortion letters which Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA expects school authorities to hand-deliver to students, Harvard has yet to receive even one.
Could it be the immunity is about to vanish as the Big 4 enforcement unit ups the ante even further with scores of DMCA notices which have suddenly started arriving.
RIAA-compliant Indiana U has 2nd thoughts - Hmmmmm
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Indiana University has a scary “Are You Legal” site complete with an ominous logo with a giant eyeball behind it.
There’s even a T-shirt carrying the same message.
The university levies a $50 fine for the first notice officials receive about a student’s alleged improper sharing of copyrighted music or videos, and cuts off his or her access to the school network if he or she fails a 10-question quiz within 24 hours.
In other words, says Doug Lederman in his Inside Higher Ed article, you couldn’t find a more compliant (according to Hollywood and the Big 4 music cartel lights) school than Indiana.
But, Indiana officials, “are now discussing whether they should continue to respond to complaints from the recording industry with the same aggressiveness,” he says.
And that’s because administrators are beginning to question the legitimacy of the notices Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA sends accusing network users of illegally sharing music.
RIAA, MPAA demand college network police - ‘Burdensome and costly’
Friday, May 9th, 2008
Higher-education officials say that the entertainment industry is pushing for state laws that would force colleges to police their networks for illegal trading of music and video files and to buy software to stem the problem.
Lawmakers in Tennessee and Illinois recently considered such legislation, and a similar bill may be brewing in California, according to officials who spoke at a technology-policy conference here on Thursday. The conference was sponsored by Educause, the nonprofit higher-education technology group.
College officials were advised by Educause leaders to watch for lobbying efforts in state capitols across the country by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. The attendees were told to prepare to start a counterattack, which would involve telling state lawmakers that the bills would be burdensome and costly for colleges, and would be ineffective in preventing students from swapping music and movie files on their campuses.
A spokeswoman for the recording-industry group, Cara Duckworth, would neither confirm nor deny that the group is singling out state legislatures.
LimeWire: RIAA, MediaSentry ‘anti-pirate’ app - ‘No capability of targeting schools’
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
P2P file-sharing application LimeWire is routinely castigated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
But, says Catherine Rampell in the Chronicle of Higher Education, neither the RIAA, the Big 4 nor their ‘investigator,’ MediaSentry, banned by the state police in Massachusetts, could get along without it.
Educause ‘astonished’ by RIAA DMCA claims - The ‘wrong end of the telescope’
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
We’re astonished to hear an RIAA official quoted as saying, ‘We’re trying to make universities aware that they have an issue with peer-to-peer file sharing on their network, and so we don’t send automated notices to commercial ISP’s, I think because they are generally aware that there’s a problem’.”
That’s Steve Worona, Educause director of policy and networking programs and founding director of the Educause/Cornell Institute for computer policy and law (right).
Educause is a nonprofit association whose raison d’être is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
Worona says the RIAA is looking at the problem, “through the wrong end of the telescope,” referring to Catherine Rampell’s amazing and revealing Chronicle of Higher Education interview with an unnamed RIAA mouthperson.
“We have no capability of targeting any school at all,” according to the RIAA representative, who argues there’s a large “misperception” among university administrators that individual colleges are being picked on.
“Technically we can’t do it,” he stated. “We find what we find with this process, and that’s what we send to schools.”
RIAA v Maine students. Again. - It never learns
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
It seems the RIAA just can’t get enough of going after University of Maine students.
But from the look of it, the judges in Portland, Maine, may be getting wise to the record company lawyers’ antics.
The RIAA counsel submitted yet another ex parte discovery order to the court (’ex parte’ meaning ‘without notice’) in BMG v Does 1-11, but this time the judge refused to sign, pointing out there’s no emergency since there’s no evidence that records are about to be destroyed (PDF).
This is the same judge —- Margaret J. Kravchuk —- who’s previously suggested the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions against the RIAA lawyers, accusing them of gamesmanship, all of which prompts one to ask:
Has the stupidity of the RIAA lawyers attained even greater heights?’
RIAA, MPAA, bust university’s ‘file sharing’ printer - DMCA take-downs
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
“We reverse engineer copyright enforcement in the popular BitTorrent file sharing network and find that a common approach for identifying infringing users is not conclusive,” say Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno and Arvind Krishnamurthy.
Not conclusive? A mistake, surely.
After all, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG [read RIAA] and Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney [read MPAA] are religiously using ‘evidence’ of alleged ‘copyright infringement’ to shut down sites such as BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy, and to sue their own customers.
However, “With the obvious flaws and inconclusive evidence provided by indirect detection, it is not very believable that these self-appointed copyright cops are unaware of the high probability that they implicate innocent people,” say the researchers, describing, “simple techniques for implicating arbitrary network endpoints in illegal content sharing and demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques experimentally, attracting real DMCA complaints for nonsense devices, e.g., IP printers and a wireless access point.”
Their statements come in University of Washington Technical Report, UW-CSE-08-06-01, intriguingly entitled Challenges and Directions for Monitoring P2P File Sharing Networks with, even more intriguingly, Why My Printer Received a DMCA Takedown Notice, as the sub-title.
Give student names to RIAA, Judge orders W&M - ‘Rampant problem’
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Judge F. Bradford has ordered Virginia’s William and Mary college to hand over the names of 20 students accused of downloading music to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA.
“The music industry is at it again, hunting down small fish in the gigantic sea of music downloaders to make examples of them,” says Central Florida Future.com.
Wanted: RIAA student victims - Share experiences
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
The Berkman Center is looking for college student RIAA targets to share their experiences in a recorded audio or video interview (either in person or through a video chat).
“Berkman’s Digital Natives Project, which investigates issues at the intersection between technology and youth culture, is putting together a series of educational videos for use in a copyright curriculum,” says Recording Industry vs The People.
“We’re looking to teach a nuanced view of creativity, copyright, and sharing. We are also putting together a podcast series on ‘Digital Natives’ issues and may be interested in the possibility of using potential interview materials for that as well,” says the center.
If you’re interested, contact John Randall (jrandall @ cyber.law.harvard dot edu)
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