University Tests Legal File Downloading System

philospher writes "Dorm students at Northern Illinois University are testing a legal file downloading service. It is made by Ruckus Network, and was developed by a group of MIT students. NIU pays 5$ a month per student, and the students can get music, movies, TV shows, local content and community features. Sounds a lot better than having the RIAA sending you a court summons."

Comments

Yay...

[geminidomino]

Force students to pay whether they want the Uni to sell their souls to the RIAA or not.

Nothing new here. Move along.

Re:Yay...

[geminidomino]

I see this less as "Selling music" and more as "blanket extortion."

"Pay us $5/student or risk being sued."

Doesn't sound like "sales" to me.

Re:Yay...

[ChairmanMeow]

Force students to pay whether they want the Uni to sell their souls to the RIAA or not.

That's what makes me angry... The college I go to signed a deal with iTunes, which basically means that students will be forced to pay an RIAA tax in their tuition, regardless of whether the students actually use the service or not. In my case, I don't want to use iTunes, and since there's no Linux client I can't use it anyway (yes, I know about the Crossover Office story a few days ago, but I'm not going to install Crossover Office to use the iTunes software I don't want). Also, going to a private college is expensive enough without bring forced to pay for academically useless things such as iTunes. Personally, I think it should be at the most an opt-in program: that is, students who wanted to use iTunes would opt-in to the program which would be organized by the college, and the fee would be added to their bill. In that case, any student that did not want to participate in that program would not sign up, and those who did want to participate would sign up. Then again, since when was there reason in the music downloading discussion?

Re:Yay...

[squiggleslash]

I wonder if Shawn Fanning ever realized that this was the logical end point of the revolution he started - deliberately create a network that makes it easy to infringe artist's rights and makes it difficult to identify specific infringers, and you end up with a situation where the innocent - be it "every broadband user" (as proposed by El Reg and the EFF - I'm serious, both are proposing the solution to P2P is a compulsory broadband tax) or in this case, "every student", ends up having to pay for the music instead, with the RIAA and MPAA desperately leveraging any single point of liability they can find.

Kind of sucks, doesn't it? Everyone suffers because two groups - artists and copyright infringers - decide to take everything to the most extreme extents they can.

Good use

[Nos.]

At least we're starting to see the Industry start using the technology to everyone's advantage instead of trying to quash it. Of course I'm in Canada and I'm pretty safe right now from the letters (mind you, I haven't downloaded an MP3 in a LONG time either). Of course with Morpheus's recent win in court, this sort of 'legal' P2P system may not catch on as well as hoped. Have to admit though, if I knew I could get high quality, legal MP3's I'd probably consider paying the $5/month.

$5/month is nothing...

[b0r1s]

$5/month is nothing compared to what they're going to be paying for the bandwidth used up by all of the downloading.

Let me get this straight...

[hazman]

These students can download or stream music, television and movies (presumably fairly recent releases in a VOD arrangement) for $5 a month? And I'm paying $70 a month for my DSS service which has nothing on demand? And it's legal?

This begs a few observations:

There is no way this service will make it into the real world at this price.

or

This service is not legal.

or

My rectum problems are NOT due to a lack of fiber in my diet.

content is king

[martin-boundary]

The article seems weak on explaining exactly what you get for $5/month. One of the big attractions of filesharing software is the timely content being shared.

The most popular downloads, which also account for the greatest bandwith used, are things like the latest DVD movies, theatre camera captures, popular albums. That's a simple fact, whether it's legal or not.

I can't believe Ruckus or any other small media company is ever going to be able to offer these kinds of downloads on their networks. I mean, is WB going to make a deal with them so that they can distribute movies at $5/month right at the same time as those movies are released in theatres?

So then, what kind of content *can* they distribute? Movies that came out two years ago, or Britney Spears' very first album, I guess. The same stuff that's on free to air TV.

In that case, there is still going to be alternative "illegal" networks for sharing the latest popular media, and I suspect that the illegal networks will stay much more popular.

Why is the university paying?

[iamdrscience]

This download network, like many other legal, commercial networks that have struck deals with colleges, is paid for by the university, not by the students themselves. I never really understood this. I mean, I know most schools feel that it is in some way their responsibility to pay for their students entertainment, i.e. concerts and other performances, fairs, etc., but this seems like going a little over the edge. I mean, NIU has 25,000 students, so if they were to pay for this program for all of their students it would be 25,000 students times $5 times let's say 8 months of school (plus whatever they pay for the kids that are there in the summer) or $1,000,000. That's a lot of money to add onto whatever they budget for student entertainment functions.

"Legal" file downloading system?

[Anonymous Coward]

University Tests Legal File Downloading System

File downloading services are not, in and of themselves, legal or illegal. They simply exist. What makes file downloading systems legal or illegal is what people do with them.

Much like Grokster and Kazaa were recently ruled to not violate the law, FTP, HTTP, Samba, AppleTalk, and other file transfer technologies are perfectly legal.

The title would be better stated as "University tests new copyright management system". That's what this system really is, an RIAA sanctioned music distribution system wrapped in DRM.

Define Illegal

[LuYu]

Dorm students at Northern Illinois University are testing a legal file downloading service.

Which is to say that all other downloading is "illegal", right?

This is the problem with the current debate. It seems that "file downloading" has become "illegal" in general because of the political campaigns by the RIAA/MPAA to change the way we think. This is more than a little wrong. Just because the *AAs say it is wrong or illegal, does not make it so. These are the same people who claimed that Spiderman [I] did not make any money so they would not have to pay Stan Lee.

All file sharing systems, yes, including P2P, are capable of and indeed to share lots of legal files every day. There is no "system" for legal downloads. All systems can carry legal downloads.

This is a system for controlled sales of *AAs products. Warning. Lanugage, when used in the wrong way, can be hazardous to your freedom.

Re:Good idea

[Proc6]

This is like the third time in 24 hours I've read this analogy and it's really lame.

If you don't pay mafia protection fees, then "bad things happen to you".

If you don't pay the RIAA for its monthly fee or buy it's content, then the only things that could happen to you (such as not listening to Britney Spears) are good.

If you're referring to the court cases brought against people who were file-sharing and infringing on copyrights, then I don't think a monthly college file sharing fee protects you if you continue to file-share copyrighted works that aren't part of the deal. It's safe to assume if you pay a $5 a month college file-sharing fee, then rip your copy of Lord of the Rings and put it up on eMule, you can very well still find yourself in court.

Stop with the knee jerk quip karma bait comments.

Reality Check

[Kioti]

If a system like this was ever supported by the MPAA/RIAA does anyone really think $5 a month would be the going rate here in the USA? More like $5 a song. The theft will never stop until the RIAA/MPAA stop alienating their customers. An amazingly large percentage of this country would actually tell you that the RIAA/MPAA are getting exactly what they deserve. The same group would then tell you that it's wrong to steal a candy bar. It has nothing to do with a misunderstanding or dis-association due to the internet. It has to do with people legitimizing the theft because they are angry and they know they have no other recourse in this country. File sharing has become a grass roots campaign to punish the music industry.

Re:Good idea

[silicon not in the v]

The problem with this is that some students who don't end up using the service, pay for it anyway. Students who don't have computers pay the same price for residence, even though high speed internet is included. ...gym. ...library. ...books.

Yeah, my taxes pay for jails, but I don't get to use them. The criminals should pay for it. My taxes support schools, but I don't have any kids; that's not fair.[/sarcasm]
The same kind of thing happens in society, but it's especially true in a university setting. You are getting access to amazing stuff because of the economy of scale of the students that are there. You get to use science and electronics lab equipment that you could never hope to afford. You get to use expensive software packages--autocad and such--that you could not get, gym and fitness facilities, high speed internet, etc., etc. Plus if you act now, you'll also get this great education that will help you get a job! And here's the best part: it's not like taxes where you have to pay it. If you don't like the service package of a university, DON'T GO. Or if you prefer, go to a smaller college or community college that is cheaper and has less features. Would you whine and cry about some place that sells a $15,000 computer that's packed with features you would never use? Instead, choose the one that has the things you do want at a reasonable price.