The agony of Emory U: Part II
p2pnet.net News View:- Yesterday we ran an item relating how Emory University in Atlanta is having a tough time trying to decide if iTunes is better than Napster II.
That’s a bit like trying to figure out if dysentery is better than diarrhea.
Anyhow, here’s a comment from an Emory student:
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’ve posted my feedback to my own school newspaper, and I’ve submitted editorials on this subject (none have ever printed of course, they really suck up to school administration)
But here it is:
This feedback is long, but I think it warranted. I urge those who moderate this before posting that they consider repetition in a future publication of the wheel. I request it be given a full read before being dismissed as “just someone arguing for a free lunch”.
I’ve kept close eye on the ongoing battles over p2p, and I don’t appreciate this blanket labeling of an entire technology as “illegal”. The 9th district and circuit courts have both ruled that p2p nets are legal because, much like the VCR before them, there are substantial non-infringing uses of p2p nets, and many uses which are arguably fair uses (i have 1.5 wks of foreign and out of print music which attest to that). Further, the audio home recording act of 1992 made clear that noncommercial trading of music was legal, the only reason why doing so over p2p is not is because of a loophole in the act’s definition of “digital audio recording”.
The school is protected under the safe harbor provisions of the digital millennium copyright act, and I believe it had no excuse blanket banning p2p networks which have many legal uses (ex: bit torrent used for linux and political videos). The administration decided to step in and make our students’ decisions for them on a controversial issue in which they had no business … they “legislated morality”, but I didn’t make too big a stink then because it’s their right to do what they want with their network, and it wasn’t costing me anything.
It’s different now, now I have to pay for something i don’t want to buy. This is a free market society. There is nothing in campus policy preventing people from subscribing to itunes or napster if they want it. Theyll end up paying for it in tuition, so why not just let them pay for it as is without involving people who dont. I disagree on multiple grounds with the idea of compulsory payment to music stores. For one, they encase their files in DRM, which represents a dangerous and orwellian principle that corporations be allowed to control the minutia of our lives, and I personally prefer not to fund any endeavors which are predicated on the idea that you are no longer allowed to own and govern what you buy . I also disagree with the RIAA’s war on technology , and don’t want a single dime of my money going to them through any channels (i don’t want their music for free either), and that includes indirectly through my tuition or housing fees. I don’t appreciate the idea that if i refuse to pay this (for lack of a warmer term) ransom, i will be denied the education I invested in.
As a collector of obscure, independent, and hard to find media, and an avid net addict, I can vouch for the fact that iTunes compares to general p2p technology as tears do to the ocean. The fansubs I collect (which are symbiotically tolerated and allowed by the anime industry because of the publicity it provides) don’t come through services either.
I say the proper course of action is simple. The RIAA has announced it will be targeting elite universities. I say free the network of it’s restrictions, let people who use the p2p nets for legal or inconsequential purposes do so, and let people who want to take the risk do so at their own risk. The only thing Emory is legally responsible for in the case of such infringement is to report the name of the perpetrator.
Either way I personally intend to head this off at the pass. I will not be applying for housing for the 2005 year, but that doesn’t help those who can’t afford that.
The last line is particularly painful coming from Emory wheel staff.
I didn’t think people of this calibre were capable of such sycophantic slanderous copy.
They manage in just a couple lines of text to thoroughly and baselessly slander an entire class of early technology adopters.. their own peers!
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
===================
See:-
tough time - Napster II, iTunes at Emory U?, p2pnet, February 12, 2005
February 19th, 2005 at 8:48 am
It is time for you to make conact with like-minded students and start a collection in order to hire a lwayer to fight this decision in a local court. When a court date is set, publish the information on as many blogs as you can so that the mainstream media is forced to cover it. I personally no longerr participate in RIAA music, and I, like you, resent the idea of being forced to pay for a product that I no longer wish to consume. I’m sure that the RIAA and the school will be able to buy more clout in the courtroom, but the black eye cast on the school may be more damaging. A company backed out of the mandatory student RFID most likely because of public outrcy and maybe possible threat of litigation http://p2pnet.net/story/3919
February 19th, 2005 at 9:04 am
Even if students have a pay-music service thrust upon them, many of them – perhaps even most – are still going to prefer getting their tunes from P2P, since P2P has no restrictions.
The LAN network of a major university offers high speed and should have enough students to make a good collection of music. Instead of buying crippled commercial music services, colleges should invest in building an inter-LAN music streaming service that would allow anyone on the network to LISTEN to every song of every other person’s collection. This should technically be legal as long as the files are not being copied.
Universities should spend more effort looking at ways to devise a legal music-sharing service instead of paying into an extortion racket. The record industry has a long history of finding and exploiting legal loopholes – it’s about time their victims/customers started doing the same.
February 19th, 2005 at 10:20 am
This is exactly what I propose. I would like to see any method legal or otherwise brought against the music cartel. I have been proposing local wireless networks that are independent from the Internet. Students or anyone else can be a part of these networks. In fact, people can be on both a local network and on the Internet. People can use the local networks to share files that any network member is willing to share. Only if the file is not available on the local network will a person have to connect to the Internet to download the desired file.
A local wireless network can be setup in an encrypted format and in many cases can be set to run in stealth mode so that the cartel goons (a.k.a.) will have a harder time sniffing them out. If people did this, then there would be less traffic from the school’s network reaching the prying eyes of the media cartels. A single file being downloaded from the Internet only once will be a smaller blip than a 100 downloads of the same file.
I am not condoning downloading RIAA music. I just want to take away the financial incentive for the media cartels to shut down this wonderful technology. P2p levels the playing field for those who deserve to be heard, but who do not have the funds to get on the cartel-controlled airwaves. I plan on helping two political parties, the Libertarian Party ( http://www.lp.org ) and the Constitution Party ( http://www.constitutionparty.com ) get their voices heard before the next election. The media I’m planning on using is P2P. I think that the media cartels are fighting P2P simply because they want to keep their monopoly on the information reaching the minds of the masses. It is time that we start fighting for our freedom, since the legislatures and courts have stopped doing so.
February 21st, 2005 at 7:34 am
Good for you. But just for the record, downloading out of print music might be legal, but downloading foriegn music certainly is NOT. That includes anime fan subs, just because its not licensed in the USA does not mean you are not stealing it. The world is not part of the USA, the USA is part of the World.