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Judge: Schools Don't Have to Help Music Industry
peg0cjs writes "www.canoe.ca reports that a federal magistrate has ruled that two North Carolina universities do not have to reveal the identities of two students accused of sharing copyrighted music on the Internet. U.S. Magistrate Judge Russell A. Eliason ruled that the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University do not need to cooperate with the RIAA in identifying two students accused of music piracy. The two unnamed students, who go by the aliases "hulk" and "CadillacMan", allegedly used University computer systems to distribute copyrighted material. The lawyer for one student said, 'We would never condone music piracy. What we're interested in is the rights of the individual -- privacy rights being protected.'"
For failure to take proper actions to prevent piracy, or something. Maybe it's time for the BSA to do an audit, of that schools information system?
I personally would be wary of doing something like that if I was the sysadmin asked to erase the logs. After all, distributing copyrighted material is a federal crime, and if the RIAA decides to ask the feds to step in destroying evidence could land you in very hot water. Sure, there are no criminal charges being pressed right now, but if criminal charges are pressed later it would be very hard for the person responsible to pretend that they didn't know that they were destroying evidence. After all, the University went to court to keep from having to turn over the names of the people involved, clearly *someone* had to know that valuable evidence existed.
If I was the sysadmin in question I wouldn't touch that issue with a barge pole.
Destroying the evidence probably wouldn't even help the students in question. Someone at the university knows who these guys are. And they will almost certainly squeal if criminal charges are put forward.
I agree completely. However, CadillacMan and hulk probably distributed more copyrighted material than most "professional counterfeiters" could have 10 years ago. The RIAA should be able to defend their copyrights. I feel that they have actually picked a pretty good way to do so. Instead of sending kids up the river they smack them down hard with a civil suit.
These Universities, by not playing along with the RIAA and turning over the names of the distributors are essentially forcing the RIAA to use the criminal court system if they want to protect their property. This tactic will probably work because the folks at the RIAA doesn't really want the bad publicity of putting filesharers in prison. Unless, of course, the students at the University become an even bigger problem. Then someone will go to prison instead of merely paying a fine.
When push comes to shove the administrators of the University know that the students in question were guilty, and if the students had been distributing electronic copies of one of their professor's textbooks you can bet that they would do something about it. Politically it has become acceptable to violate the music industry's property rights, and that's just not a good thing.