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King Will Not Sue Schools Over Napster -- Yet
Jon writes: "In this Daily Cal article Howard King claims, 'We made it pretty clear we're not going to sue colleges, at least not at this point in time. I think at this point my clients want me to continue the educational process.' This article mentions that so far only Penn State University has agreed to ban napster. The UC System (includes Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, etc), Michigan, Princeton can be added to the schools refusing to ban it."
Asking universities to stop providing the bandwidth that makes Napster effective is like asking chicken farmers to stop selling chickens because babys could be put in chicken roasters. If anybody should be policing copyrights, it's Napster itself. They're the ones in a questionable legal position, not the universities.
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Just lurking, thanks!
As for asking universities to enforce the laws of the nation on their students, that's bullshit. That's what the legal system is for. If the RIAA wants pirates off Napster, let them go after the pirates. It makes very little sense for them to go after the university (who has lots of money and lawyers) rather than the big time pirates (who according to the RIAA are students, and most likely poor and without lawyers). Asking universities to circumvent the court system and start passing judgement on their students is insane. Notice that the RIAA isn't actually saying "Here's the IP of someone who's making 800 songs available, thereby violating our exclusive distribution rights, please remove them from your network", they're saying "Well, Napster's on your network, so somebody somewhere's bound to be pirating. Shut it ALL down." If universities argree to this, they've set themselves in a huge, huge hole. Next thing you know, someone could come along and say "you allow refrigerators on campus, somebody somewhere is bound to be keeping alcohol in them when they're underage, so ban them all". Somebody could come along and say "you make Xerox machines available for student use; somebody somewhere's bound to be photocopying part of my textbook and robbing me of royalty money, shut them all down!" The whole idea of the RIAA expecting ANY university to shut down a service based on the POSSIBILITY of abuse is outrageous, and insane. I'm glad to see schools standing up to this shit; and I'm glad to know that mine would be one of the last to ever ban anything tech related.
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Just lurking, thanks!
If i dialed my friends computer direct, would the phone company be liable if i xfered a copyrighted song? No just as it would not be liable if i used it to make a threating phone call.
:)
But your friend would. And I think herein lies the rub. Back in my BBS days, that's exactly what you would do. BBSes would even be connected to networks, like FidoNet. Yet they still could be held legally liable for stuff that went across those networks. Remember the case of Steve Jackson Games: their BBS and all of its equipment were confsicated because of pirated software, and much of it was put online by it's users. (We didn't have cool technologies like MP3 in those days
ISPs are really just logical extensions of BBSes, except that most ISPs (with the notable exception of "online services" like AOL or MSN) don't have their own local content. Although some ISPs have portals that are specific to their users, so the lines are blurring. ISPs provide Internet access, but people dialup or otherwise connect to them, and the content does pass through their systems.
I'm not saying that ISPs shouldn't be given common carrier status: I'm just providing background and playing devil's advocate here.
My journal has hot
I am a Penn State Student A few days ago, after PSU received a letter from Napster's lawyers, this email was sent out to all of PSU's students. No where does it say anything about Napster being banned outright. Here's the letter:
Dear Penn State Student,
As you may have heard, computer programs like Napster and computer networks have made copying copyrighted material including music and videos easier than ever. The press has reported this phenomenon widely and there has been considerable discussion of it in the Penn State community. You should know that copying of copyrighted material without the permission of the owner is a violation of state and federal laws as well as University policy. The University regards these violations as a very serious matter.
The University has done initial scans of its networks to determine the use level of programs like Napster. These scans do not examine the content of a particular computer in any way but do determine traffic characteristics. The scans suggest that some students may be making extensive use of Napster and other programs that can facilitate illegal copying of copyrighted material that belongs to another person, group, or company. There is also evidence that computer viruses have been transmitted in the process that owners may not be aware of.
Although it is not the intent to curtail legitimate use of such software, the University has an obligation to ensure that its networks and computers are not used to violate the law or University policy. While some seem to take violation casually, the penalties for copyright infringement are serious. All users should be aware of Penn State's program of continuous review of network traffic to identify copyright violations, viruses, or other unsanctioned activities.
If you are responsible for a computer that is attached to the Penn State network in any way, your use of that network is subject to such review. If the review uncovers symptoms of problems discussed above, you will be contacted for further review of your network use. Assistance will be available to eliminate any problems that exist. This will improve network performance for all network users. If the University receives notice that you have used the University network to infringe copyrighted works, your account will be suspended.
Appropriate use of the Penn State computer network and respect for the copyrighted works of others will help to ensure continued access to the widest possible array of software for all University users.
Sincerely,
Rodney A. Erickson
Executive Vice President and Provost
PS: For further information or questions, contact the Center for Academic Computing (helpdesk@psu.edu), Computer and Network Security (security@psu.edu), or your local campus computing organization. Students in the Residence Halls can contact ResCom (rescom@psu.edu).
Make it idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot.
I can't believe UCLA is siding with the man on the street. When I lived there, I wasn't allowed to run linux in the dorms (no servers... except winblows file sharing, of course). Not sure what their policy is now (I think you have to be questioned and fill out some forms now)
You can read about one student's battle with UCLA resnet here
hardly a reason to go to university.
..
i don't understand how you can have this "ANTI CAPITALIST I'M A RADICAL" viewpoint without understanding the simple fact that NAPSTER IS, YES, A CORPORATION. they are trying to MAKE MONEY FROM PEOPLE TRADING MP3s, which is precisely what the RECORD COMPANIES want to do to, except at least the record companies have some intent of paying (albeit a piddling) amount to the artists, because they live in the real world, where we have laws about intellectual property (ie, you make it, you own it -- until, of course, you sign your soul over to Warner.)
which society is worse off -- the one that has companies that steals from artists to make a profit, or the one that renumerates them???
i'm guessing the later -- anyone who produces their own "intellectual property" should feel the same.
fishfcuerk.
I think all of these universities should be congratulated for for one not bowing to the capitalist nature of modern society and at least pretending to take a stand for freedom of access to information.
Yadda yadda yadda... Do you think Harvard, MIT, and UC have such noble intentions? I wonder.
Translation: "We have a business to protect and unilaterally punishing our customers er... students is bad business.
On the other hand, it's a nice legal argument from the universities. "We are not responsible for the actions of our students while on line." It's almost the same argument that Napster uses. "We are not responsible for the actions of Napster users."
Unfortunately, Napster doesn't appear to be winning with this argument.
Defecation occurs.