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RIAA Cracks Down on Internet2 File Sharing
Daverd writes "Hundreds of students at 18 universities nation-wide have had lawsuits filed against them by the RIAA for filesharing over Internet2." The official RIAA Press Release and commentary at MSNBC is also available. From the article: "i2Hub has been seen as a safe haven, and what we wanted to do was puncture that misconception," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA. "This has been a subversion of the research purposes for which Internet2 was developed."
Who didn't see it coming? It was bound to happen.
You just cant keep 100 TB of files "hidden" for all that long. Considering all the press it got last year, I'm surprised it has even lasted even this long.
Also, don't forget our friends in the MPAA. In a short post by the author of the news.com.com article: "According to the RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will be announcing similar action later today."
In case you don't read the article, here are the universities in question: Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Drexel University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at San Diego, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Pittsburgh and the University of Southern California.
Go RIT!
There is also an official press release from the people at i2hub, here: http://press.i2hub.com/i2hubpressrelease-4122005.p df.
i2hub doesn't host any files centrally, nor do they keep any indexes of files on the network, so they should be fine. P2P lives on another day.
About Internet2
Yes.
That has nothing to do with it. It doesn't matter if you are charging money or not. It is still a violation of the copyright owner's IP.
Where the hell did this idea that it's okay if you don't charge came from?
If they feel it's worth the time and money, yes. Fair Use does not allow copies to be made in order to give to someone else. You may make backup copies of your copies for your own personal use.
I think you need to do a little research.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Fundamentally, it's just like the JANET network here in the UK -- it is a network backbone that links educational establishments to each other and the Internet.
(I'd say that calling the US academic network "Internet2" is misleading -- it's just another network, albeit a fast one.)
I can't believe no one has figured this out yet. There is a p2p software program published by a company called i2hub. This program is used by students at participating universities to chat and share files over internet2. So all RIAA did was go to the i2hub company with a subpoena and insist they have access to their login/passwords to people sharing whatever music they wanted to track down. It has nothing to do with internet2 itself, other than that i2hub is used there.
Border router throws bits over internet1 or internet2.
How does it decide? Well, at my uni it's just a matter of the destination. So if I am trying to access www.mit.edu, my packets will fly fast over internet2, and if I want to access www.yahoo.fr, I'll be going over the (slightly slower) internet1 (aka "Commodity Internet").
Generally, you can't decide (although I don't know the networking protocols that well -- there might be a way to flag the packets to request that they get sent over commodity internet, but YMWV).
Clicky thing
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Let me know if you disagree, but actually, this is true.
The thing is, though, the way most sites do their routing, if you're at an I2 site (most major US univerities) and communicating with some other I2 site you're using I2 whether you're doing research or not. All internet traffic between e.g. MIT and Cal Tech goes over I2 whether it's research or P2P. So you really can't get on anybody's case for treating I2 any differently than the "normal" internet.
noah
Additionally, most I2 sites prefer to use I2 where possible because it generally doesn't cost them anything to send bits over it. Whereas commodity bandwidth costs money.
noah
or the TV show that aired last night that I missed, though this is controversial
No, it's not controversial, it's illegal. There is no greay area here whatsoever - unauthorized distribution of copyright material is illegal. The TV show is copyrighted, the copyright holder has not granted you permission to download it (or the sender to upload it).
Whether it should be illegal is of course up for debate, but it is.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I can attest to the enforcement of the distributing of TV shows. I got the following lovely notice about a year ago from our friends at the RIAA- after getting a Star Trek Enterprise episode off of bittorrent:
We have received information that, at the above noted date and time, the IP address [removed] was used to offer or to materially contribute to the offering of downloadable or streaming copies of copyrighted motion pictures. The title(s) offered included: ENTERPRISE (TV) Season 2 - 3
Great. Let us know when they stop going after the technology.
Here is an article about the issue that was published in yesterday's edition of The Tartan, the student newspaper of Carnegie Mellon, one of the universities targeted by the RIAA. There was also an editorial written about the issue. (Note: The Tartan's website cannot be rendered in Internet Explorer. Please use a standards-compliant web browser.)
Also, below is the full text of an email that was sent to all students on April 4 from Carnegie Mellon's Chief Information Officer Joel Smith.
-------- Original Message -------- To: The Carnegie Mellon Community
From: Joel Smith, Chief Information Officer
Subject: Illegal use of copyrighted materials on Carnegie Mellon's network - your *personal* liability
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 22:33:47 -0000
We are writing to remind the entire campus community of the University's commitment to the protection of intellectual property and copyrighted material. When it comes to illegal copying of digital materials - whether music, video, text, or pictures - the University imposes its own penalties (disciplinary action, loss of network connectivity) on anyone who is found to be using Carnegie Mellon's network for such purposes.
Moreover, the trade organizations that are charged with protecting copyrighted materials, e.g. the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), are aggressively searching for copyright violators on the Internet and *will take independent legal action against such violators.* Peer to peer file sharing activity using the Carnegie Mellon network is accessible to their monitoring. Past actions by these industry associations have resulted in substantial monetary penalties imposed on the individuals involved. See:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2003/05/ 02/news/8154.shtml
In fact, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, penalties can range from $750 to $150,000 per song if songs are the items being distributed illegally.
Please be aware that the target of these actions is not the University, but rather the individuals engaged in the violations. As an Internet service provider, following the results of court rulings last year, the University is obliged to respond to subpoenas from organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA requesting the names of individuals who operate computers illegally sharing copyrighted materials. Do not be misled by the fact that Verizon, as an Internet service provider, won its case for not providing user names in response to certain kinds of "John Doe" subpoenas. The ruling allows the RIAA and the MPAA to discover the identities of copyright violators from Internet service providers (including universities) as long as they follow certain legal procedures.
Simply put, if you are engaged in illegal use of copyrighted materials (usually done by peer-to-peer file sharing using programs like Kazza, LimeWire, BitTorrent, and others) and the University receives a proper subpoena asking for the name of the person who registered the computer being used for such purposes on the Carnegie Mellon network, we are legally obligated to supply that name. The result may well be that the RIAA or MPAA will take legal action against *you*. There is nothing the University can do to shield you from such action.
Since your identity on the network is based on the match between your name an the IP address and *MAC* or *hardware* address of your computer, it is a very good idea to be sure that all and only the computers you physically control are registered to you. You can check the list of computers you have registered to your name using Computing Services' NetReg system. Go to http://netreg.net.cmu.edu, click on the Enter button at
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
Have a look at the Internet 2's home page. They're collaborating with the RIAA on ths one.
-kidlinux.
What crime? Having files be named after popular songs/artists? That's not a crime, as far as I know.
I'll point out that the *AA organizations are not the "authorities", even if they like to think they are.
Then you do what everyone else did - block the relevant protocol. Or start easier, by blocking MAC addresses, etc. It's an internal matter, as the Unis are suppose to handle administration of i2 themselves and that includes bandwidth usage.
Of course, this is the real world, and things do not work as intended more often than not. But this still does not justify passing info over to RIAA. In fact, looking at your statement:
lumping the two together looks fishy. Going to the school's attorneys would be normal procedure in such a case (suspected law breaking) while going to RIAA's ones can expose the school to legal action without giving it a chance to correct the problem. I expect normal procedure for this kind of 'volunteering info' would be at the least to have the person fired.
That is funny...
But having said that Jethro Tull's latest album is available over at emusic.com. You can go and legally buy it DRM free.
Yes I know they are old, but it's pretty good.
See, They (RIAA/MPAA) really really hated napster. Why? Everyone was on Napster, so if you looked for something you found it. easy, illegal, Cool.
Now they want to fragment the file sharing networks. They're not stupid, they know they can't stop pirating completely, the goal is to make it harder, less worthwhile so people who have limited time and a budget (working people) to figure out the p2p method de jour and will just pony up th 99 cents for a sure bet good copy.
If you make a network VPN with 10 of your friends that not a real problem for them, much like the mixed tape of yesteryear. Heck if you put your mp3 on a password protected web site and tell a few of your friends, they'll never find out.
If your "sharing" your files the the hundred of thousands of anonymous strangers, they have a problem.
Make it harder to find what you want,
1 by making people less likely to make content available (more leaches)
2 Making many smaller networks with not enough content.
The problem is mainly that setting up a server or p2p is republishing. Everyone is publishing stuff they don't own the copyright too. Expect the law will catch up at some point.
First off, the PeerGuardian concept assumes that all enemy attacks are going to come from known enemy IP space. This is a dangerous and rather dumb assumption; nothing says that the RIAA or BayTSP et al are scanning/probing P2P networks from their own IP space. They might not be popular, but most of these organizations are full of lawyers and other relatively smart people. They do have at least half a clue.
It's long been rumored that some of these organizations recruit a) employees to run P2P crawlers at home and b) students to run P2P crawlers on campus. The fact that they've somehow obtained access to Internet2 makes the idea that they're paying students to run P2P crawlers all the more likely. My guess is that running P2P spidering software on behalf of RIAA might be part of some silent settlements that we aren't hearing about. "We caught you sharing files you're not allowed to. Either we sue you, you pay us $2000 and we go away, or you run this nice little program and promise not to tell anyone..."
So, PeerGuardian blocks a few connections from "known" RIAA IP space (nevermind that many of the blocks are a bit overzealous and will generate false positives). The user is lulled into a false sense of security - hey, it's working! Connections from those evil bastards are being stopped! I'm safe!!
But are you sure that the connection from a Comcast cablemodem isn't really an RIAA lawyer's home PC? How do you know what application is really connecting to you from that rice.edu address?
Secondly, from what I understand of the C&D letters being sent to ISPs, and perhaps even some of the lawsuits being filed, often times no connection was involved at all. The P2P spidering software does a search for "Britney Spears MP3," parses the results, and builds a list of IP/Date/Filename. They don't actually try to connect to your computer and download the file, otherwise Professor Usher would never have been threatened, admins would not be getting C&D letters regarding IPs which have never been lit up, etc.
PeerGuardian is a nice idea. It apparently makes a lot of people feel better. And it might even work if this was 1980 when everyone on the internet was exactly who they said they were.
Don't go crying to the PeerGuardian authors when you get caught anyway.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
how did students running filesharing apps for trading music get authorized to use Internet2?
.25.2]
Hehe. Authorized. You think they want to bother setting up authentication for I2? Hell no.
The packets that go to another university on I2 get routed over it. You can tell if you do a tracert:
7 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms clmbn-r1-po2-0.core.oar.net [199.18.145.14]
8 25 ms 7 ms 4 ms clmbn-r0-po3-0.core.oar.net [199.18.145.1]
9 59 ms 5 ms 5 ms clmbq-r2-po1-0.bb.oar.net [199.18.145.38]
10 31 ms 10 ms 11 ms abilene-IPLSng.ohio-gigapop.oar.net [192.88.192.
134]
11 23 ms 19 ms 20 ms kscyng-iplsng.abilene.ucaid.edu [198.32.8.81]
12 31 ms 30 ms 38 ms dnvrng-kscyng.abilene.ucaid.edu [198.32.8.13]
13 55 ms 54 ms 54 ms snvang-dnvrng.abilene.ucaid.edu [198.32.8.1]
14 62 ms 62 ms 64 ms losang-snvang.abilene.ucaid.edu [198.32.8.94]
15 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms hpr-lax-gsr1--abilene-LA-10ge.cenic.net [137.164
16 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms lax-hpr.losnettos-hpr.cenic.net [137.164.27.246]
17 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms Booth-RSM.ilan.caltech.edu [131.215.254.253]
Everything with "abilene" in it is I2.
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