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Analysis of RIAA vs Princeton Student

Posted by timothy on from the dan-peng's-empire-of-evil dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Joe Barillari, a computer science student studying under Prof. Ed Felten, posted an analysis on his blog of the lawsuit filed by the RIAA against a Princeton college student for running "Napster-like" networks. He argues that the case doesn't quite live up to its contributory infringement claim due to limitations in the DMCA. A good read!"

5 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. Not that it matters... by Anonymous+Struct · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He makes a lot of good points, and the gist of it is that the RIAA's case is pretty poorly made. But that's something that most people already know, maybe even including the RIAA. Thing is, they don't have to win in order to be effective. They could get creamed in court and it still wouldn't matter. All they have to do is scare the living bejezus out of a handful of people and they'll get what they're after. Aiming a multi-billion dollar lawsuit at one student has a pretty sobering effect on anybody that's nearby and watching, and the RIAA has the resources to file suit all day and night, win or lose.

    Of course, based on some of the numbers that have been coming out over the last few years, they might actually stand to gain more by collecting the $96 billion from this one guy than by ending file sharing.

    1. Re:Not that it matters... by MMaestro · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The 'scare tactic' of the RIAA isn't effective against its target though. You're talking about a David and Goliath battle with less than 5% of the Davids looking on as the Goliath sneezes on one of them splattering them in the ground.

      Ok a little too graphic but the point is this; you're targeting millions, if not billions, of people who download illegal MP3s many of whom have not even heard about this case. Even if it succeeds in scaring people, or even distantly succeeds in having a law passed against these programs, whos going to be insane enough to enforce it? (Using China as an example) China has trouble as it is censoring webpages which it deems illegal, so how is China going to start censoring certain search programs without censoring Windows or web browsers such as Google which has a search programs?

      This is the internet, not your hodgepodge hippie group with a bunch of college kids protesting against Vietnam that you can isolate and silence. Unless you want to try and enforce the Internet, which is suicide even if you had a couple trillion dollars and the world smartest programmers working for you, in the long run; this is going to blow over like a hyped up wimpy rain storm.

  2. Re:RIAA can collect by abhisarda · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Challenging the legality of this case applies to Joesph Nievelt too. He had 1100 mp3 on his system, unlike the 650,000 that the RIAA stated. While Napster could *only* be used to search for mp3's this search and index tool is used for a lot of files other than mp3's.

    Speaking as a present MTU student, if Joseph is expelled then MTU will be loosing a very talented programmer.

    He was ranked 4th in the nation in the Top Coder competition
    Top Coder MTU News

  3. Re:Did anyone bother to ask... by MP3Chuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I'm sure that at least some of the artists being shared are among the 90% or so of musical artists that are in favor of file sharing;"

    BAHAHAHA ... where did you get numbers like that?? Do you honestly think that 90% of musical artists agree with distribution of their music without getting paid for it (regardless of whether they get a lot or a little)? C'mon now...

    --
    Who doesn't like free music?
  4. Re:RIAA can collect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, lets compare. In the OJ suit (the civil, not the criminal), he fined less than a hundred million for murder. Four students get fined about a hundred billion for setting up a file sharing network. Another case is Microsoft. For alleged monopoly practices, there were discussions of fining them several billion, not a hundred billion. But maybe the RIAA is correct: four students will start the end of the free world, so it is good to ruin their lives and make an example of them for any other doomsday followers.