p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- “We are pleased with this decision,” Duckworth said. “This affirms the fact that those who engage in illegal file-trading are not anonymous, and universities must respond to valid subpoenas.”

That’s ‘Duckworth,’ Clara (right) , an ex-MPAA employee who now works as an RIAA spinster whose mission is to make Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s desperate activities in their anti-consumer sue ‘em all campaign seem well considered and reasonable.

Ars Technica says judge Michael R. Hogan quashed an RIAA subpoena the corporate music enforcer was using to try to ferret out the names of 17 University of Oregon students and Duckworth was responding to Hogan’s decision.

But, says the story,  he, “gave the labels another shot at getting the names of the students whom they believe were using P2P networks for copyright infringement”.

”Going bananas in RIAA land’

“Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers has joined people and organisations demanding Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA either puts up or shuts up in its bizarre sue ‘em all anti-student, anti-P2P, anti-file sharing marketing campaign,” said p2pnet a little more than a year ago, going on:

“He also says the RIAA may be illegally spying on UO students and ferreting out data they’re not entitled to.

“They’ll be going bananas in RIAA land.”

At the time, Myers declared »»»

The University of Oregon (University) currently finds itself on a battleground not of its own making. By challenging Plaintiffs’ overbroad and burdensome subpoenae, the university has attempted to protect the fundamental privacy rights of its students, conserve limited public resources, and to provide pertinent information of the court’s consideration regarding whether the plaintiff’s discovery efforts are appropriate.

Sadly, the university’s efforts of thus far have been met by accusations that the University is obstructing the process and even is conspiring with lawbreakers. Those accusations are not warranted. Certainly it is appropriate to the victims of copyright infringement to lawfully pursue statutory remedies.

However, that pursuit must be tempered by a basic notions of privacy and due process. their record in this case suggests that the larger issue may not be whether students are sharing copyrighted music, but whether the plaintiff’s investigative and litigation strategies are appropriate or capable of supporting their conclusory allegations.

Oregon attorney general and University of Oregon became the first to American institutions to jointly make an active and determined effort to protect state students against the depredations of the RIAA, said p2pnet, continuing:

“The quoted paragraphs in the intro are from Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers who’s now demanding immediate discovery into the RIAA’s illegal and unlawful efforts to terrorise UO students into becoming good little consumers.”

‘Give us the names, addresses so we can prove it’

In an earlier post, “the RIAA ‘investigation’ halted at the precise point where it should have begun,” we had Randolph Geller, deputy Orgeon general counsel, and a special assistant attorney general, saying.

We went on »»»

“In the case of sixteen of the seventeen [UO] John Does, I believe it is not possible for the university to identify the alleged infringers without conducting interviews and a forensic investigation of the computers likely involved,” he states in a motion to quash.

However, in these cases, as with all others, the RIAA simply says it believes somebody may have done something.

‘Now, give us the names, addresses so we can prove it.’

“This is the first such motion of which we are aware that has been made by the university itself, rather than by the students,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.

In a court document, “Plaintiffs may be spying on students who use the university’s computer system, and may be accessing much more than IP addresses,” Hardy accused, going on:

“The University seeks the Court’s permission to serve the attached interrogatories on Plaintiffs and conductor telephonic depositions of the individuals who investigated the seventeen John DCoes named in this lawsuit to determine 1) what their investigated practices and 2) whether they had any additional information with which to identify John Does.

“Plaintiffs have refused to provide the University with answers to these basic questions. If plaintiffs had nothing to hide, they should be able to agree to these reasonable requests. Since Plaintiffs have declined to share any information about what they know and how they know it, the University seeks the assistance of the court to obtain it.”

‘Slightly more restrictive subpoena’

Now, “Judge Hogan sided with the RIAA on the DMCA issue, ruling that since the infringing material wasn’t stored on school servers, it wasn’t applicable in this case,” says Ars Technica, going on:

‘”‘He also denied the Oregon AG’s motion to do some investigating of its own. (The school said that the RIAA might be ’spying’ on its students and might be ‘accessing much more than IP addresses.’)

“The RIAA can now serve a new, slightly more restrictive subpoena on the University of Oregon, which RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth tells Ars it plans to do in ’short order.’ Once served, the university will need to provide the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the possible infringers; it will be up to the RIAA to try to determine which of those people were actually using Gnutella to share music.”

[PS - The pic of Duckworth is a blow-up from Saitor’s photostream Flickr post of the RIAA feat: Kanye West party in which the Big 4’s RIAA, “tried to use poverty to get into the hearts and minds of US politicians and their aides,” as p2pnet summed it up. ]

(Thanks, f4te)

Jon Newton - p2pnet

Los Angeles Times - , September , 2008

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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