RIAA Recommends Students Drop out of College

boarder8925 writes "An MIT student accused of copyright infringement has been documenting her struggles with the RIAA. Upon trying to negotiate her settlement, a representative told her that "the RIAA has been known to suggest that students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements.""

Comments

RIAA has some learning to do

[liliafan]

I haven't ever really understood what the RIAA hopes to achieve from all their lawsuits and extortion rackets, I mean all they are doing is alienating their core market the way they have been going recently I can't wait for someone to make a stand against them in court.

I download music from the internet quite frequently, if I like the song I have downloaded I will usually buy the album if I don't like it I delete it, does this mean I am commiting a crime? In my case p2p has caused my to buy more cds than I usually would have if I hadn't of been exposed to certain artists and songs. Is this common I really don't know perhaps other people don't purchase cds by artists they like personally I like to support musicians I like.

One great example my favorite group collective soul release an album entirely self financed, the day it was released I was able to find tracks on p2p which I downloaded and listened to constantly, until my next paycheck came through at which point I went out and purchased 5 copies of the album 2 for me 3 for various family members, I did the same with two of their previous albums, I own every single album they have release in some cases more than one copy of the album, it gets interesting when you consider I discovered this group through p2p in the first place.

Re:RIAA has some learning to do

[Kadin2048]

Despite the handicap of not actually being the government, they seem to be doing fairly well for themselves in terms of getting whatever laws they want passed. Well, until recently -- seems people have started to notice in the last few years. But as a nation in general we pretty much let them push the DMCA right through without so much as a whimper in Congress -- hell, we don't even know who voted for the thing, the way it was done.

Sure, they're not a government agency, but in many ways it would be better if they were; we'd probably have more control over them then, and they wouldn't be able to pour money into the political system in the way they do.

But to say they're not "in" government, in terms of having their fingers pulling various strings, is a mistake.

Re:RIAA has some learning to do

[liliafan]

If you are thinking about buying a book, you can browse the subject you like in a bookstore, why can't we do the same with music?

Re:RIAA has some learning to do

[e_slarti]

"...and she can go to court if she wishes."

Just a reminder to those who might want to look it up in the dictionary:

extort n. To obtain from another by coercion or intimidation.

The threat and coercion being: Expensive legal fees or expensive settlement. For a person of limited resources, this is legal extortion. That's why some forms of torte reform are unreasonable and unworkable.

And if the fee isn't paid the RIAA gets to file liens or even get the defendant thrown in jail. Also as a reminder liens affect credit ratings which affect loan rates which affect future income... the snowball effect of this really is huge.

I would contend that the REAL piracy is a social piracy on the part of the RIAA. In my opinion, they're plundering our society for short-term monetary gains on what amounts to be bad business processes practices by the RIAA's members. I understand they want to make a buck (who doesn't?), but at what cost to society?

My apologies to the Pastafarians out there for putting the RIAA in the same ball field as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His wrath will be mighty and oregano flavored.

Re:RIAA has some learning to do

[garyrich]

"Back to the issue at hand, the RIAA has criminalized the issue and in the process alienated a lot of their customers. One need only to look at the top selling software to see that pirating does not hurt sales but in fact helps it."

True, but you miss the point. Yes, it helps sales but they don't care about sales, they care about profit. Max profit comes from having everyone listening to the same music. P2P and other post modern music distribution makes that impossible. They need you to buy Madonna, if you buy Ayumi Hamasaki instead you have seriously screwed up their business. Their real business is controlling access to the listening public. you can't get people to listen to your music unless you go through them.

If everyone listens to music that they like, the terrorists win.

Karma to burn!

[Reverberant]

With apologies to a certain CIC: I earned karmic capital on Slashdot, and now I intend to spend it.

1. Submit story to Slashdot, wait for it to get rejected
2. Submit story to That Other Site, wait for it to take off
3. Wait for another Slashdot user to submit story to Slashdot.
4. Profit?

WTF are you guys doing?

[Irish_Samurai]

OK, I have been guilty of defending the business motivation behind the RIAA from time to time, but that shit is over.

Are these fucks out of their mind? Drop out of school or go to community college? This would be horrible advice to anyone going to college, but this is a friggin MIT student. You know, the type of people that come up with some of the coolest shit ever. The type of people that helped develop the technologies the RIAA is exploiting right now.

Did anyone at the RIAA think of what it would be like to piss these people off? I mean, this type of thing could not only unite the MIT campus into taking offensive action, but the whole lot of prestigious technical Universities as well.

Plus, the run of the mill uneducated citizen can figure this one out. "MIT is where the smart people go. The RIAA says that they want this student to drop out so they can pay them. What the hell."

I sure hope the PR guy for the RIAA drops his intestines when he gets this news.

Re:Just in case, article text

[InsaneProcessor]

I don't understand everybody's thinking here. Don't hire a lawyer (thief) and tell them you won't settle. Tell them to take you to court and then demand proof that you stole. Then ask for continuance after continuance for discovery. Petition the court to summons records from the RIAA that shows the evidence for thier claim. There is a hole in thier evidence chain. There always is. I found this to be true in a simular situation with DirectTV that killed thier case and it only took about an hour and a half to find it.

Don't take thier crap and stand up to them firm. Even if you don't fully understand what they are doing, act like you are in control and they can't win. If you press forward this way, they can't win.

One more example to abolish college selectionism

[sethstorm]

note: if the parent poster is screwing around, personally I dont care.

Actually, if she had the grades and the money to get into M.I.T. , she should have had enough 'smarts' to not do what she did.

Think of this as intellectual Darwinism at it's finest. If she had no clue about pirating , she is NOT
M.I.T. material.

Either way, it proves beyond simple reasoning why any student should be able to just go in unimpeded by a "Prestige Class" syndrome - no admissions committee, no ding letters, no "crafted to fail even the smartest" scholarships - just purely open admissions. This way people do get to learn, and possibly have less worry about staying there as they arent beholden to admissions critieria.

Let her learn, then tack on the $5000 fee to the student loan as a suggestion. To suggest a destiny of a debtors prison is hinting that they dont even care how blatant they are. They just want their money, and they dont care if they look like Boss Tweed.

Of a more ironic note, note that open admissions universities were some of the first to be targeted while the Ivies all but get delayed action or get bypassed in the name of "education". It's something to think about every time you see another lawyer grow his or her horns and work another case for the *AA.

What is left to Darwin will be made up when the matters of survival are made more primal. What is not left to Darwin and externally corrected in favor of the many will remove the purpose to go postal.

The funny thing is...

[Ignignot]

I know I'll be modded down for saying this - but what the RIAA is offering is quite a deal if you are actually guilty of copyright infringement. 4 grand is absolutely nothing in comparison to how much they could legitimately attempt to collect. At no time does she say that she didn't perform copyright infringement. She seems to be saying that it is unfair for them to punish her because it is inconvenient at this time. That's why they call it punishment.

Another alternative to CDs

[Phoenix666]

Is to learn to play an instrument and make your own music. As a non-musician I always assumed that learning to play and read notes was a task on par with quantum mechanics, and that it required thousands of hours of lessons and matriculation to Juilliard. It took a lifetime of wanting to learn and 6 years of raging against the RIAA to finally pick up a guitar. And I've discovered that it's really, really easy to learn, and in less than a week of noodling around for an hour here or there you can pick up enough chords to play a large swath of rock 'n' roll. It's also quite fun.

And as you play your happy little tunes you also get a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that you've become the RIAA's ultimate nightmare, an artistically and culturally liberated producer of music who will never again have need of their crap.

Re:This is ridiculous

[bugbiteme]

It just seems obvious to me how these lawsuits couldn't hold up. When I turn on my laptop in just about any neighborhood, I can always find a handful of unsecured wireless networks. What's to stop me from getting on one of these and use a p2p client? I think this is how poor old Grandmas get busted by the RIAA for downloading the new Masta P album.

OK, I guess if they seize my computer and find the stuff, they got a case, otherwise no.

Re:Perfect...

[watermodem]

There are some major issues that need discussion here.

1) Entrapment! Entertainment being part of the culture - the insanely long copyrights (currently 130 years) deny legal access to culture to the in-mature young. (Sort of like holding drugs in front of addicts then arresting them when they use them.)

2) Peer pressure is extreme in the college environments. I remember being shocked when the oldest son was in UCLA. Each floor had its SHARING SERVERS and everybody knew when the latest booty was there. - Again, we need to revisit what all these laws mean in a criminal and social sense.

Are all High School and College Students to be declared DEFACTO criminals just like the justice systems assume ALL DRIVERS ARE SPEEDERS?

Should the whole nation be declared criminal of something and put in jail?

3) What does it say about Big Business when they are putting the nation's FUTURE (in this case a young woman from MIT who can contribute to both Firms and the Nation out of the talented workforce for downloading a $1 song?) Short sighted comes to mind.

4) It reminds me of the the RIAA trying to put soldiers in Jail as they went off to fight the Iraq war. AMAZING comes to mind. Also, small minds in Hollyweed!

5) This criminalization of life reached another stage in a LA suburb a few weeks ago when they banned smoking tobacco outside with a $1,000 fine. The fine for smoking a joint in public was about $50! A factor of 20 less. What gives?

Anyway... we need to discuss appropriate fines and sentences for everything and behaviors of big business and big government in trying to make living life illegal and MAKING TAX PAYERS (not big biz which doesn't pay taxes) pay to convict and jail all these folks.

Back in the mid-90s, the boys in the executive suites of the entertainment industry did liberally dust both sides of the aisles of Congress with gold. In return they got a massive extension on the copyright period. All at the same time they continue to cook the books on accounting. They still charge music artist for 'breakage' in their write offs. Ever seen an AOL or Earthlink CD damaged in the mail? As far as I'm concerned the entire lot needs to have RICO dropped on them cause it'll take the executives' treasury rather than the business'. No prisoners taken. Oh, and demand of your quaking Pub representative concerned about November to repeal the G*D* Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.

BTW... I am surprised that our immature young people have not taken revenge on the RIAA and MPAA. It says something about them when compared to the Riots in France or the Car Swarms in the Mideast. That, being they are basically good kids.... We need a way to change behaviors of them, society and business without wasting their lives and taxpayer pocketbooks!

/end rant

You may flame away on principle but think about the waste. Drug dealers, robbers and killers are not treated as bad as we are starting to treat people who commit more minor infractions.

Simply put: WTF?

[Drinkgreen]

A more than likely very intelligent woman going to MIT is told to either go to a Community College, or drop out altogether, robbing the world of who knows what kind of potential,..... just so J. Lo can buy another necklace and Britney can buy Kevin another car?

Re:Perfect...

[JabberWokky]

Yes, but this isn't the executive branch bringing somebody to the judicial branch who decides your guilt and sentence in a courtroom... this is a private organization acting as the police, judge, jury and determining the fine. How about if MADD started setting up DUI stops and fining people for their own coffers? How about if they suggested you sell your car if you couldn't pay the fine?

I'm all for prosecuting people who break the law -- but in a court system, not by an under-the-table system that borders on (or may be) blackmail.

--
Evan

Re:This is ridiculous

[quarterbrain]

You're forgetting 4 very important letters:

DMCA

All the RIAA has to do is send a letter to your ISP saying that they believe you have infringed on their copyrights, and they must comply with their requests for your information as per DMCA. To do otherwise could financially damage your ISP, as they would have no legal leg to stand on if they refuse, and could also be held liable for your alleged P2P misdeeds.

Re:Just in case, article text

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Believe me, she does not want to go to court. First off, she's probably guilty.

Possibly. But the question is, can you prove it in a court of law with lawfully obtained evidence?

There are plenty on guilty mob bosses and criminals out there who are probably guilty, but we live in a society that demands proof beyond reasonable doubt in order for someone to be convicted. And the methods used to obtain that proof cannot themselves be unlawful.

How can the RIAA prove this student downloaded the files? Do they have this evidence? Has the student's ISP given it to them? Was this done in a lawful manner? Do they have evidence of the files residing on the students computer? Was this evidence obtained from the students computer in a lawful manner? Does the RIAA know for a fact that the files it believes were illegal copies were in fact illegal copies of songs to which it has copyright?

The fact is, if it goes to court, and the RIAA presents its evidence, there's a good chance that they'll face bigger charges than the student.

Re:Just in case, article text

[MikeXpop]

Ask for a damned jury trial. No jury in the world is going to make you pay such exorbitant sums for downloading a movie here or there. People get that downloading "Ice Age" from TBP isn't worth $150,000.

Not sure how it works in Massachusetts, but in New Hampshire jury trials aren't awarded for civil cases unless the damage is $25,000 or greater. And it's not $150,000, they've agreed to "settle" for around $3,000.

And just because you're not rich doesn't mean you automatically get a public defender in a criminal case. The state is paying for these defenders, and they're going to make sure there is absolutely no way you could afford a lawyer otherwise before handing them over. It's kind of sad, but the state would suggest to her exactly what the RIAA did: Drop out of college.

Re:Perfect...

[Pyrion]

An out-of-court settlement doesn't automatically carry the implication or admissal of guilt, it just means that one side doesn't feel like fighting the case. Most people settle, simply because an out-of-court settlement is cheaper than hiring an attorney and blowing all that time away attending court hearings.

Furthermore, "guilt" of a tort crime isn't the same as guilt of a "real" crime; all you're really doing is addressing the plaintiff's grievances, regardless of whatever's codified in law.