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MIT, Boston College Refuse DMCA Subpoenas
phreakmonkey writes "Here's an interesting change of pace- According to today's Boston Globe, MIT and Boston College have both refused to turn over the identities of students to the RIAA under subpoenas. Citing failure of compliance with court rules and student privacy concerns, both colleges have refused to give out the names, addresses, or phone numbers of students based on their Kazaa screen names and IP addresses. I wonder how long the schools will be able to keep the RIAA's pack of lawyers at bay..."
More than simply the temporary blockade for the army of RIAA lawyers which that organization will refer to them as, these new subpoena challenges will hopefully catalyze a new set of appeals that finally lead to some kind of constitutionality ruling, by the Supreme court, about the controversial section of the DMCA which allows these privacy infringements, and consequently, about the heavily-industry-influenced DMCA as a whole...
If there's one thing I can say about the colleges who did this, it's that I have respect for them. By not backing down and not giving into the demands of coporate america, they are setting a precedent for others, and are showing that we are not all going to bow to them. Respect.
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
Having famous, reputable organizations defying the RIAA is very important, because it lends credibility to the fight against the music industry, which is crucial at this point.
Despite all this battling against the RIAA's lawsuits, though, it seems to me that the real issue here (which isn't being addressed) is not file sharing but everything the RIAA stands for and represents. Why isn't anyone attacking their price-fixing and essential monopoly of the industry? I know there was a lawsuit against them for the price-fixing, I believe, but I for one am not seeing any changes.
Obviously, I'm not the most informed on the details of the whole issue, but is it possible that the RIAA's big scare tactics and legal onslaught against file sharers is just to take peoples' eyes off of the real problem?
More than simply the temporary blockade for the army of RIAA lawyers which that organization will refer to them as
Considering MIT has a 5 billion dollar endowment, I doubt very much that the RIAA will be able to outspend them. Besides which, after a while you start getting diminishing returns when hiring lawyers; once you have a large legal team working fulltime on a case, throwing money at them doesn't do anything.
Ever hear of a wonderful thing called Due Process. Well, it's all going out the window now. Unless you are rich enough to hire some good lawyers you no longer have the right to Due Process.
If somebody believes they have evidence of criminal behavior they should have to take it to a Court of Law which would then issue a subpeona or warrent. But in our New World Order big corporations merely have to finger you and you are presumed guilty. So lovely.
but the real issue is neither P2P nor the the RIAA's price-fixing and other disreputable goings-on.
The real issue, why BC and MIT said "Hey, wait a minute!" is Internet privacy. I agree with the previous poster who gave the nice example of the telephone service -- we expect (and should, given the tenets of the US) an assumed privacy in our communications. Once reasonable evidence is brought forth, conforming to the search and seizure laws, then communication can be monitored, and after that, the law can be brought down on the offender.
It seems to me that the RIAA is trying (and often succeeding) in skipping a step -- that of monitoring after evidence is brought forth (a la a search warrant). They're monitoring and then getting the names to prosecute.
Then again, I'm going off hearsay I read here.
My evidence:
1) Article title: "BC, MIT decline to name students in music-use case", as opposed to "music-piracy" or "song-stealing" case. OR
2) "The recording industry's strategy -- pursuing both high-profile users with hundreds of megabytes of music as well as small-time downloaders -- is intended as a wake-up call to Internet music enthusiasts like Alexa Bedell-Healey - as opposed to "illegal file-swappers" or "song-traders"
Any article can be written to have a slightly positive or negative tone while still remaining "truthful" to the facts of the story. The name of the game to write more "positive" sounding articles like this one that portray the RIAA in a slightly negative light.
blue
In fact, MIT's lawyers determined that what the RIAA wanted them to do was illegal, and if there's anything MIT doesn't want, it's lawsuits from the families of students. In order to avoid liability, MIT in fact has to resist the subpoena as much as possible (I'd actually be interested to know if any Northeastern studetns and families are considering suing Northeastern over complying with subpoenas there).
MIT may be willing to comply with a proper subpoena (and, in fact, pretty much has to agree to comply with a truly proper one), but this could be the beginning of a long process. First, the subpoena has to be filed in a court that has jurisdiction over MIT; then they has to be given sufficient time to obey the law regarding informing the students. But it is also possible that subpoenas filed without a judge's approval (which may be done under the DMCA) may be unconstitutional, which is working its way up the court system.
By the time a subpoena reaches MIT which they can follow without being liable to suit by students' families, these students may well no longer be students, and the IP addresses may no longer be theirs, and the records may have been routinely purged.
For that matter, by now the students (who have seen their pseudonyms in the local paper and on slashdot), may have gotten different KaZaa names and IPs, such that when the RIAA gets the proper paperwork through, the address will be registered to one Jack Florey, resident of fifth east, who was just here but left down the stairwell at the other end of the hall... and, of course, the current records will be long gone, per institute policies, as required by federal law.
Ownership of culture. That's what it boils down to. American culture is owned by corps. It's taken to the extreme. Hell you can't even sing "Happy Birthday" to someone at work unless you pay the RIAA a royalty.
A people's culture is a lot like food and water. And there's a huge cartel that owns most of American culture. And they keep changing the laws, so they will keep owning it forever.
This is wrong.