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RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names
uofmtech writes "This morning's Michigan Daily is reporting that the RIAA will be subpoenaing the University of Michigan for the names of nine students suspected of file-sharing. University General Counsel Jack Bernard has said 'We are waiting to receive them ... (t)hese are very difficult subpoenas to refuse.' The RIAA had previously notified the University they were looking into this, but the University has tended to handle such matters internally."
I've said it before and I'll say it again... Please don't disable sharing on Kazaa or other networks. It degrades the quality of the network and makes you a leech, and many people will simply refuse to let you download from them because you're not sharing anyway. If enough people refuse to share, the network becomes *useless* because nobody is there from which to download. It kills the point of peer to peer file sharing.
If you're looking to be protected from the RIAA, there are other ways to give you a layer of security. Kazaa Lite K++ (download at OldVersion.com, v2.4.3 is likely the one you want) includes an IP Blocker extension built on the PeerGuardian database of blocked (read: RIAA) IPs, so the RIAA under normal circumstances cannot scan you. Admittedly it's not perfect, but it's better than using the spyware-filled, vulnerable official version.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
argued before the Supreme Court that affirmative action is different than a race-biased point system.
I bet they'll do a fine internal review.
Regarding the legalities, unless there is some agreement that most folks unknowingly consent to, having the RIAA looking through "material" on someone's computer should be illegal whether or not they are engaging in illegal theft of intellectual property......right?
Wrong, you are publishing them for all the world to see. It is no more illegal for the RIAA to look at what you are publicly sharing than it is for you to look at their website.
I don't think the RIAA remotly scanning all the contents of people's harddrives (if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT), just the materials they are making available for download.
Finkployd
Maybe if you didn't charge ridiclous amounts of money for a CD, people wouldn't steal music. CD's cost between 12-20 bucks which is an absolute ripoff, they should be sub 10 bucks...oh but wait then P. Diddy wouldn't be able to buy that new Escalade with the 24K grill and built in "Hide the gun the police are pulling us over!" compartment.
I wonder how many will fight these suits in court? All enrolled students as UM get free access to a law office (Student legal services http://studentlegalservices.dsa.umich.edu/) who have helped me successfully sue two slumlords in Ann Arbor (and got helped resolve a work dispute at my non-U job). I know if I were sued by the RIAA (not that they would have any reason to) I would be totally f*%^ed since I've graduated and cannot afford a major legal battle on my crappy IT wages. But, if I had 4 trained lawyers for free, I might consider fighting for a bit of fun!
You're getting mixed up here. In the US, the government must have a search warrant if they want to search your personal effects that are not in plain view. The fourth ammendment does not apply to private entities such as the RIAA.
Next, no search authorization is needed for anything on public display (e.g. anything visible outside of your house, things you've published in the newspaper, and IMHO, anything you're publishing on the Internet.)
"in order to search my house you have to get a court order"
Not if you invite them in (at least in the US).
Assume you murder someone and set the bloody murder weapon on the coffee table. The police come by and you invite them into the living room to talk. They see the bloody murder weapon in plain sight. They can then take posession of the weapon and later use it as evidence.
If you publish the contents of your hard drive over the internet (e.g. by sharing your files in a P2P network), then they can certainly come by and check them out. They can use that as evidence later. No invasion of privacy at this point, they are just using information that you chose to make publicly available.
Essentially all they are doing is they've written their own client for Kazaa, etc. Once they find someone running one of these programs they do ask the equivalent "right click, show all files shared by user" question and it then tells them all that they are sharing. Nothing really legally nefarious going on, basically doing what the programs are meant to do. It's not like they are cracking your box and going through the entire system, just whatever you have shared out in the P2P program you are using.
As to your point of having a collection of software/music wide open: how do you think you get to download those songs & programs to begin with? People do leave collections of songs & software completly wide open to the pubilc, that's basically the cornerstone of filesharing. If you aren't sharing then all you are doing is leaching, if everybody's leaching than nobody's downloading at all anymore. Contrary to the "I'm downloading songs from the Internet legally" commercials which make it seem like the download is what get's you. Nobody has been hit for the act of downloading, it's all about the sharing them out.
I've recently discovered the Russian website www.allofmp3.com that allows downloads from $0.01 per meg of mustic and it appears on the surface to be legit. You can even pay for content using paypay so you don't need to worry about the Russian mafia hijacking your account number. (Just your regular paypal problems).
A recent interview with the content manager makes it appear that this site is legal, and it looks like RIAA has nothinng to say about the site. A search on the RIAA web site for allofmp3.com returns zero hits, and doing some searching for the RIAA view of all0fmp3.com also gives no results.
Have other slashdotters had experience with this site? What is your opinion of its legality?
"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
The UofM has intelligent people in charge. They haven't blocked file sharing yet (as far as I know) because they believe in running an open, noncrippled network. I don't think they will block anything anytime soon either.
The UofM also believes in the personal responsibility and integrity of its students and staff. For several years now they've required students to agree not to share copyrighted material without permission. (I think it was a click-through deal, I don't quite remember.) So, they won't condone blatent copyright violations.
I am currently a student at the University of Michigan. I also work for their Engineering Network (not the organization involved in this case).
I think that so far the UofM has handled itself quite well as far as file sharing is concerned. It's true that they have refused to block ports or obtrusive firewalls, and have refused to give up the names of students so far...
Sharing copyrighted material is of course covered in the AUP for the campus network, the main points of which are highlighted when every student registers to use the network.
The current way complaints about file sharing are handled is: 1) for the first offense, student is warned and forwarded the complaint. Student has 24 hours to reply to the University claiming they have stopped their illegal activity. 2) for the second offense, student is temporarily banned from the network for a week and fined $20. 3) third and subsequent requests result in longer bans and larger fines.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
However should a private entity do this you are fully within your rights to call up your local branch of law enforcement and charge them with breaking and entering or whatever the equivilant crime is for computers(I knew I just forget). Both of which are felonies. So the RIAA could charge you with IP theft, and even send you to jail, but you could do the same thing.
As has been noted however that this does not apply to things which are within plain sight/the public domain. Which is to say that if they log on to kazaa/bittorrent/etc and find you sharing their stuff they can probably do something about it, especially with the somewhat loose strictures on subpoenas for account information these days.
- P2P Developers start moving towards anonymous encrypted file sharing networks.
- The Legality of the RIAA methods could be struck down.
- Federal and State governments could get fed up with the RIAA attacks and actually do something about it. (unlikely)
Since the original suits last year, we have seen a slight move towards security in file sharing networks with smaller specific projects but the larger players leave users prone to the same harvesting attacks that the RIAA used last year. Really, nothing is going to change until Shaman networks makes Kazaa an anonymous system. From what I have seen, the RIAA has subpoenaed Kazaa users exclusively. That doesn't mean other networks like Gnutella are not harder spider.One of the easiest ways around the technique the RIAA is using, is to disable the browse host feature in your file sharing app. This doesn't prevent them from suing a file sharing user but it does make it a little bit harder for the RIAA to get a laundry list of all the files a user is sharing. They could only find songs that match specific queries.
The link you provided states: "FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records" I do not think a student's internet usage falls into this category. "However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR 99.31): To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;"
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The Indiana Daily Student is also reporting that Indiana students' names have also been subpoenaed.
The article also mentions that the university has recently revised its' policy for dealing with copyright infringement complaints. Students are required to take delete offending material and 'filesharing quiz' or face losing network access.
The article metions that these subpoenas have gone out to 21 universities.
Here at the University of Virginia, they've also firewalled the dorms so you can't host servers that are accessible from outside the Grounds network.
It blocks legitimate things like students who want to connect to their computers from home and access files and such. Of course, you can still run servers within the dorm networks, so it really doesn't stop the music trading at all.
Well, unless the 'network' is FedEx/UPS/USPS etc., by 'lending' it over a network, you have made a _copy_ of it.
"If I buy a book from the store, and I want to go watch TV, and my friend wants to borrow the book, but I don't want to give the actual book to him, so I photocopy each page and give him that."
Takes longer, more resources, etc. But effectively the same.
Unless you have permissions from the _copyright holder_ (Read carefully - 'Holder of the right to copy'), you have infringed upon the holder's copyright.
That, currently, is illegal.
Morality notwithstanding.
trm
Yes, but most IPs tend to not ever renew the IP numbers and most people don't swap out their NIC cards all the time. When I was on Comcast I had the same MAC address and recived the same IP address for 1.5 years, and yes, that is from leasing via dhcp.
The Vanderbilt Hustler reports that nine "notifications of intent to subpoena" were submitted there, as well.
Because the University of Michigan typically uses year long DHCP leases that are associated to your MAC address. This happens when you register your computer to get ethernet access in the residence halls, after you sign the IT environment usage policy document, which by the way states that although they don't have a technical barrier to any network protocol, you are not allowed to do anything that breaks the law while on their network.
G uide/Registration/Conditions.of.Use.php
From: http://rescomp.umich.edu/Residential.Ethernet/Net
I understand that the security of my computer system is my responsibility, and that I am responsible for all activity originating from my computer system, including but not limited to: a) traffic generated by viruses; b) the sharing of music or other media files; and c) other users who have gained access to my computer.
As a University of Michigan student, I always read these articles with a bit of skepticism. The Daily isn't exactly a reputable journal of opinion. After all, they still believe that academic integrity is a problem.
What about the DMCA? Doesn't it make reverse engineering a patented process illegal?
No, you're wrong three ways. First, the DMCA says nothing about patents. Second, the DMCA criminalizes defeating measures that protect copyrights, which file sharing networks do not do. Third, and most surprising, the DMCA has an exemption for reverse engineering! That's right, the DMCA's treatment of reverse engineering is exactly the opposite of what most people think. It specifically says that defeating a copyright protection measure is legal if it is part of a reverse engineering effort aimed at creating a compatible product.
But that part's not even relevant here since KaZaa's technology cannot be reasonably construed as a copyright protection measure.
Yes, they actually did apologize:
CNET.NEWS.COM:RIAA Apology
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"