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Educating Users/Students on Reducing Exposure to the RIAA

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-a-low-profile dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "I work for a medium-sized university (25K students), and have been asked to come up with ideas on how to reduce our exposure to the RIAA. Our head of IT gets 50 to 100 emails from the RIAA every week, complaining about IP addresses where P2P applications offer copyrighted songs for download. We don't want to firewall off P2P applications completely, we just want to get the RIAA off our backs. How do other university IT departments educate students to stop attracting the RIAA's attention? Thanks for any war stories you might be able to share !"

1 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Letter of the law by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Informative
    First, read the DMCA (might be an idea to get help from a sympathetic lawyer to translate from legalese). Make sure you are 100% compliant. See if the letter is. Specifically, (according to chillingeffects.org) the letter has to contain:
    • The name, address, and electronic signature of the complaining party [512(c)(3)(A)(i)]
    • The infringing materials and their Internet location [512(c)(3)(A)(ii-iii)]
    • Sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works [512(c)(3)(A)(iv)]
    • A statement by the owner that it has a good faith belief that there is no legal basis for the use of the materials complained of [512(c)(3)(A)(v)]
    • A statement of the accuracy of the notice and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on the behalf of the owner. [512(c)(3)(A)(vi)]
    It may well be that the letters are not fully compliant. Usually they don't sign these because the complainant isn't the RIAA. See what happens if you respond asking for a compliant letter.

    It may be that they do include a signature, in which case you're up the creek. Also it is essential that you are compliant with te provisions since two can play at that game.