RIAA Targets LAN Filesharing at Universities

segphault writes "The RIAA has sent letters to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network. Apparently, the RIAA wants to get universities to use filtering software on their networks to detect student filesharing. The RIAA did not disclose the methodology they used to determine that filesharing is occuring on those local networks, but it probably didn't involve asking permission. The article goes on to predict that the RIAA will eventually try to get the government to require use of anti-filesharing filtering technologies at universities."

Comments

Enforcement?

[MadUndergrad]

Really, what are they going to do to enforce this? It's not as if they have a way to snoop on lan traffic, and if they did it would be illegal. I know that for one, my university has a "don't know, don't want to know" attitude about filesharing, so long as you keep the traffic below about 1.5GB per day. I really don't think they have the muscle to do anything about lan sharing.

Seems Reasonable To Me

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA did not disclose the methodology they used to determine that filesharing is occuring on those local networks, but it probably didn't involve asking permission.

And it's really no big secret if you just ask either. Having just finished school, probably almost all of the filesharing is in copyrighted material which they have no right to "share". Therefore it is illegal and should be stopped. It was disgusting to me how much people were trading movies, games, and music which didn't belong.

The schools probably will realize they could be liable if they don't try to put a stop it or slow it down. I like how the article and slashdot makes no mention of the copyrighted nature of the material, as if everybody is just sharing Linux distributions. At least be honest about this, guys.

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[Wes Janson]

It was disgusting to me how much people were trading movies, games, and music which didn't belong.

You don't get it. The whole damned point is that it shouldn't be illegal. That the law itself is immoral. Your reactions are themselves disturbing to me.

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[raoul666]

You don't get it. The whole damned point is that it shouldn't be illegal. That the law itself is immoral. Your reactions are themselves disturbing to me.

You think copyright law is immoral? Do you mean the current laws on the books, or the idea itself that people can own the rights to copy things they produce? If it's the first, I (and most here) would agree; if it's the second, you need to do a reality check. You honestly think that if I produce something, through honest means and hard work, you should be able to copy and sell it without my permission? That attitude is damn disturbing to me.

Please note that I don't believe the current system is good. Copyright lasts far too long, has become monopolized by companies like the RIAA, and definately needs an overhaul. But I believe someone who creates something should have their work protected to some degree. If I write a novel, why should anyone with a printing press be able to turn out copies unless I allow them?

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[theLOUDroom]

If it's the first, I (and most here) would agree; if it's the second, you need to do a reality check.

Maybe you need to chill.

Just because things are the way they are today, doesn't mean they have to be. Works of art were produced before copyright and they would continue to be produced afterwards.

People seem to have this crazy idea that no books would get written if copyright were to suddenly disappear. It's just not true.

Maybe you'd have less ghost-written autobiographies, but things like Newton's Principia Mathematica were not written to make a quick buck.

Think a little bit more, there is a real issue here, especially ethically. Copyright restricts what consenting parties do behind closed doors. Free societies should try to aviod such restrictions in all but the most extreme cases.

Then there's even an arguable benefit to society because, even if there were less books written, you would be able to afford to own more of them.

I'm not saying this viewpoint is the only correct one, but thinking that someone is a nutcase for not liking a law that hasn't existed for most of human civilization and has many points against it is what's really going off the deep end. Everyone who does not agree with you is not crazy.

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[hunterx11]

Think a little bit more, there is a real issue here, especially ethically. Copyright restricts what consenting parties do behind closed doors. Free societies should try to aviod such restrictions in all but the most extreme cases.

Nobody cares about you making copies of something you already own for personal use or private exhibition. In fact, that's probably already covered by fair use. The issue here is redistribution. I believe that copyright reform is in order, too, but don't try to cast it as a privacy issue when it isn't.

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[KevinIsOwn]

Because it's somewhat difficult to write more novels if you cannot afford a new pencil and paper, since you haven't made any money due to everybody else stealing your work and profiting off of it themselves.

Re:Seems Reasonable To Me

[arkhan_jg]

Copyright law hasn't existed for much of human history. If I write a novel, why should anyone with a printing press be able to turn out copies unless I allow them? - why shouldn't they? After all, they own the printing press. Copyrighted works are supposed to eventually end up in the public domain, which is where the inspiration for much new work comes from. Human culture - stories, histories, myths and art, in all their many forms - is a shared process. The artist needs the audience as much as the audience needs him. We tell ghost stories round the fire, we discuss our opinions around the watercooler, we listen, watch and read other people's stories. They enrich us. The same with scientific ideas, they are largely small increments built on the progress of those before.

Before copyright, art and written works were created, but it was expensive to make and copy, so the wealthy paid for artists to go round doing their thing, recognising the value of culture. This attitude still survives today, with corporate and foundation grants and government subsidies. Copyright was a way to increase the amount of works produced, by giving the creator a cut of the reproduction money long after the printing press was invented. It was supposed to be a trade, you get to be sole source of your work for a time, so we have more products in the public domain as a result. This was never meant to be a new form of property right, so that wealthy companies could lock up culture in digital prisons, and never release it to the public domain from which its inspiration came.

Yes, artists should be paid something - but to produce new material. The idea that culture can be parceled up into someone or some companies exclusive property, that it can restricted for hundreds of years, that artists get to make one big hit and they and their families get to live on royalty paychecks for ever-more - that's wrong. I don't get paid repeatedly for the work I've already done, why should an artist have a special right? My work is an expression of my skill and knowledge, but I only get paid the once for doing it. Why shouldn't artists? Why should my free speech in sharing what I know, what I've heard, be restricted for someone elses profit? Why shouldn't I have my fair use ability to make my own copies for my own use? At the very least, content creators should have a choice between DRM and copyright, if you use DRM, you also lose copyright protection. DRM'd works will never enter the public domain.

Now, I recognise that copyright is one way to increase the amount of culture and art, when it works (which is another question, now we have DRM). There are others, such as recurring opt-in flat fees to join broadcast streams and collections (online or in the RF spectrum) - e.g. TV licence fees or an addition to your ISPs bill. We can ask that music artists get most of their money from concerts, touring and generally performance work, rather than a tiny percent getting big bucks from exclusive CD contracts. Hell, nobody says that people can't still be a copy-provider of their own works, iTunes and bottled water shows people will pay for convenience and perceived quality.

About the only thing from copyright law I agree with is the moral rights, specifically the ability to be exclusively known as the creator of a work. Passing someone elses ideas off as your own, should still be prevented. Other than that? I see a legal fiction, a government created artificial monopoly that those who've got theirs are trying to codify into a permanent exclusive ownership on our culture that was never intended.

Re:How do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying an insider on a network to reveal security info about that network to an outsider: sounds like the RIAA is doing exactly what is implicated by that statement.

When last i heard from the majority of congressmen

[plasmacutter]

When interviewed, the majority of congressmen said point blank that person to person "dormroom" sharing of music was fair use and in no way objectionable.

Further, the DMCA's notice and takedown only applies to the internet, not local area networks.

Any university complying with these bs "complaints" has to have the stupidest administration ever, and any claims made by the RIAA are now utterly specious.

What next.. "illegal sharing through car radios"? .. "in the news today the RIAA demanded that automakers comply with new requirements to prevent passers by and non-drivers from "illeagally hearing" music from car stereos which "by law" is only entitled to the owner/operator of the vehicle alone."

Purge the evil

[topical_surfactant]

The record cartel (RIAA members) are quite clearly evil. Indescriminately suing 12-year olds, senior citizens and welfare-moms has sealed their judgement in my mind. Eroding personal rights and freedoms for the sake of pure greed doesn't hurt either. Musicians stupid enough to sign with an RIAA member deserve no listeners, no profit, and no airtime.

Don't buy RIAA member CDs, make music mixes for friends and support the indie scene. If someone chides you about filesharing, tell them to get stuffed.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/ http://www.eff.org/ http://www.riaaradar.com/

admissable in court?

[a_greer2005]

How can any LAN data be admissible in court? There are two ways that the RIAA can get the data:
1: gain unauthotized access to the network: a crime
or
2: pay off students, who are not experts, or potentialy worse, students with know-how and malis to collect the data, so how can they prove that the data is valid, and not tamperd with?

Any lawyers in the house? Care to give it a shot?

Re:admissable in court?

[thepotoo]

you don't undersand their tacitcs. It's all about fear. They are trying to scare you into thinking that if you pirate music, you'll get caught.

First Gonzales, now the RIAA

[Gary Destruction]

Gonzales wants to track users on the Internet for the sake of "fighting porn". This in of itself is scary because it's not difficult to imagine the potential for abuse. Now the RIAA wants to monitor college networks for "file sharing". This could easily be manipulated to filter out certain ideas and beliefs as a means to suppress freedom of speech. It could also be used to target students for their beliefs.

Re:who defined insanity

[DrEldarion]

The university demographic is probably one of the least likely to be their cash cows, i.e., many, if not most students aren't living fat and happy on exorbitant budgets (I know, some are). They don't have tons of money to fill the RIAA and cohort's coffers.

IIRC (don't have sources, but I remember it from somewhere...), college-age people are historically the second highest spending group on music, only after early to mid/late teens. They may not have a lot of money, but they also don't have a lot of responsibilities for what money they do have. Music is one of their top purchasing priorities.

The RIAA..?

[wingman358]

First of all, why is the RIAA monitoring colleges' LANs? Is that even legal? Secondly, I fileshare on my LAN all the time. The sharing of my clients' orders and bills is necessary to the survival of my business. Don't flame me for asking this because I honestly don't know the answer: does the RIAA have any authority or legal right to be monitoring students and their actions on private college's LANs? Where does the Recording Industry Association of America get off thinking that they have any authority over the sharing on local networks?

Re:The RIAA..?

[Randall311]

This all depends on if the students are sharing inside the school LAN privately like the i2hub did, or if students are hooked up to the outside world sharing illegal files via bittorrent and gnutella protocols. I'm willing to bet that it's the latter I have grown sick and tired of the RIAA coming after everything and everyone they feel are hurting their precious bottom line. They are alienating future cursomers with their scare tactics. I could give a shit if they have a legitimate argument or not, I am so sick of them beating this dead horse to a pulp. When the hell are these MFers going to learn to adapt to the times. If you can't beat 'em join 'em. I like Microsoft more then I like the RIAA.

Does anybody remember when the MPAA was bitching and moaning about VCRs back in the day? Ohhhh nooo peple aren't going to buy movies any more. Guess what, people still buy movies because they're superior format and quality. The RIAA should be imbracing file sharing instead of trying to squash it. If they had brain one over there then they would be trying to spin this to their advantage. Good business adapt to survive. Bad ones try to muscle everyone into doing what they want, and die trying.

Re:who defined insanity

[theJML]

The university demographic is probably one of the least likely to be their cash cows, i.e., many, if not most students aren't living fat and happy on exorbitant budgets (I know, some are). They don't have tons of money to fill the RIAA and cohort's coffers.

I agree with all of what you say, however, I'd have to say that if anything the RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot even more in this crowd due to one overlook in the statement you made above. Kids in Universities (I know, I was there once) may not have tons of money, but a higher percentage of what they do have is disposible. They have student loans, they have parents assistance, they have federal grants, etc... and they have lots of free time and not as much forsight as some like to believe... Not to say they're stupid, they're spending habbits are just different. Go to an average college campus and check out the kids in the dorms for instance, they have more CDs, Game Systems, Up to date PCs, and are probably the single largest demographic for purcahsing many genre's CDs. All the people I knew in college had lan parties, got the latest CDs, watched movies all the time when not at class, etc... By sueing these people they're taking the money right out of their own mouth.
They're also one of the most technologically impresionable group out there. If it's cool and high tech they'll go for it, however the RIAA seem to want to punish them for that because they don't know how to use it to their own potential.

Off that topic, but part of the main article, I've noticed people saying that we should just not buy CDs to boycott the RIAA. Sounds like a good plan except when you notice that CD sales are down according to the RIAA and they don't blame it on themselves or crappy CDs, they blame it on piracy. So the more we boycott, the more it shows they're right. Maybe they should go back to school...

And just for the record, I've been sharing files since 8" disks. I guess it was harder to sniff those, maybe I should go back to them... or atleast USB Drives. This may be the perfect time for a group of students to put up some WAPs and start sharing over that instead.

Re:How do they know

[raoul666]

Using the LAN to share files you don't have the rights to is also unauthorized use of the University's network. If the Unis expelled students for spying on pirates and didn't expell the pirates themselves, they would have a buttload of lawsuits on their hands.

Nice roundup, and on top of...

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

...being ineffective (or more likely, counterproductive to their own interests in the long run), the various incarnations of **AAs' recent strategies just have to implode before long. I mean, here you have a whole industry -- arguably second only to jurisprudence advisory services in sheer disingenuousness -- and somehow we've let them get away with using one after another of our nation's institutions as their own little unpaid stop-loss departments.

It may take a while, but eventually they're going to run that tap dry. Being a fruitless-effort hobbyist myself, I'll try to hasten the day by pissing and moaning at my elected officials. Hey, someone has to, what with all the actual grown-up problems sitting on the back burner while public servants pour ever more time, money & former constitutional rights into legislating a perfect digital Fort Knox for the entertainment industry.

Filesharing - so what?

[sbaker]

I really don't understand this witch-hunt against file sharing - peer-to-peer. etc. The Internet is all about moving files from A to B - http, ftp, scp, nfs, email, bittorrent...these are all just ways of moving data around.

You can illegally copy copyrighted works using almost any protocol you can imagine - so the existance of a community of people moving data around means NOTHING. Unless the **AA can show WHAT is being moved around - and that it's illegal, there is no reason to single out any one particular protocol as the cause for worry.

Even if you imagine one particular protocol is predominantly used for wrong-doing - you can't reasonably penalise the legal uses of that protocol. If you actually succeeded in shutting down one protocol - another can be invented overnight. This is simply the wrong approach to dealing with copyright violations.

Argh.

Re:Download while you still can

[ECELonghorn]

Correcty me if I'm wrong, but providing a link to a bitTorrent client doesn't really have anything to do with the article. Or the summary. Or the Headline. FTFS - segphault writes "The RIAA has sent letters to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network.

I am a student at one of the Universities that had our local DC++ file sharing hubs shut down. The hub was up 24-7, sharing roughly 20TB of pretty much everything. Students loved it because you could get almost any file that was available on BitTorrents with up to 1.5Mbps transfer speeds, and almost always at least 300Kbps. On BitTorrents, similar first release movies on public trackers often peaked at about 30Kbps download speeds. Now students still download the movies, using BitTorrent, it's just much slower because they can't utilize the LAN. As far as "download while you still can," these is no reason universities are going to stop BitTorrent downloads. Additionally, I don't think the RIAA even thinks it is significantly curbing piracy by shuting down LAN networks, it just knows the student have to go out into the more public file sharing arena, and RIAA at least theoretically has the ability to catch them then.

This is what pisses me off.

[Gno]

Lets forget that this is a university for a second. This is a LAN. A LOCAL AREA NETWORK. I know, I know there might be illgal sharing at a university. But if we let the RIAA have it's way then what's next? Manadatory filters on home PCs and LANs? I don't like the idea of my PC being controlled by someone else. I might be a control freak, I disable windows services, I unistall stuff I don't want, I edit my registry, I built my PC. I control every aspect of my computer and I hope to never see the day when I don't know who does. This may be slightly off topic. But the problem with the RIAA is that they only understand piracy. They don't understand computers, or the spirt of the internet. When US goverment agencies start trying to control the internet you know what hapens? More offshroe servers, more outsourcing, less jobs in america because of offshroe servers and outsourcing. You see, the more laws that get apporved that behinder productivity or the freedoms of the geeks, nerds, and hackers, the more we are screwing ourselves over. Unfourtunaly we the people no longer have the power to say no. The system is to complex and shadey to be at the right place and time to vote against the right bill or law in order to preserve what you belive. Say for instance New York puts put laws against LAN sharing, well if you live in Georgia you can't fly up to New York to say no. Well then Virgina does it because NY did. Then it gets to Georgia. BY popular Vote on some BS board it gets apporved because you and only 5 other people were there to say no. A university might be goverment funded but at its roots it's a private school, a place of Work, a companay. A bisinuss such might have a LAN. Joe in graphics needs the video on how to use photoshop. You have it so you send it to Joe. WHOOPS. You can only get this video by paying for photoshop. You are now a horrible person as far as the RIAA is concerned. Insted you say nope, can't do it Joe. So joe hunts arround for his photoshop serial key so he can match it up with the correct video. 3 hours later Joe still can't find it. He gets fired for it. Now that is what I call extreemly counter-productive. Now Time for some reality. The above is what will happen if we let the RIAA countine to do this stuff. What is happening is that there are alot of files being sent around by students. I actully doubt that even 10%of thoose files is music. I think that is would be better to burn a CD. It is probolly the videos of whom got punked at parties, the tests answers, homework info, pictures, etc. etc. And if the RIAA is looking for this stuff without asking permision then they themselves are even worse than the people that they are fighting.

Re:Download while you still can

[scotch]

Boo hoo, slashdot is not some homogenous group of people who think just like you do.

Re:When last i heard from the majority of congress

[Zarhan]

What next.. "illegal sharing through car radios"? .. "in the news today the RIAA demanded that automakers comply with new requirements to prevent passers by and non-drivers from "illeagally hearing" music from car stereos which "by law" is only entitled to the owner/operator of the vehicle alone."

Already true in Finland for Taxi drivers - when there's a passenger, either the radio is switched off or the driver (or Taxi company) pay's levys to the RIAA equivalent here.

Who Will Pay?

[CodeBuster]

If the RIAA wants the university to filter their network to protect their copyrights and their bottom line then they should pay the university for all of the network equipment, bandwidth, employee/consultant hours, and any other expenses necessary to conduct the filtering. The mission of any university is to provide higher education and policing the student body so that a private industry organization, which is entirely external to the mission of the university, will not suffer from potential loss of profits is NOT the responsibility of the university. The question is not whether file sharing is legal, but rather to what extent the university can be compelled to shoulder the cost of protecting the intellectual property of someone else, especially in the expensive and escalating arms race between the RIAA and the file sharers. If the university makes a good faith effort to inform students in their acceptable use policy what is and is not acceptable use and complies with reasonable and specific subpoenas (subject to reasonable charges for research, copies, and other legal expenses that any other civil plaintiff would have to pay) the I would say that they (the university) have satisfied their obligation under the law. If the RIAA et al wants more extensive monitoring then they can shell out the $100,000+ for extra servers and network monitoring gear along with the consultants to operate it all and the university employees' time (billed at least $100 per hour for interruption of normal university related duties). They cannot compel us to pay to protect THEIR property, only the government has the power to tax. Anyway, no other private business gets anywhere near the cooperation from law enforcement at the expense of the tax paying public and still they complain. The FBI should be traking down the identity thieves, terrorists, serial killers, and other really nasty criminals...not wasting their time busting copyright infringers on behalf of the entertainment industry. The RIAA should get off our campuses and they should take their craptastic "music" with them.

Re:Download while you still can

[Ex-MislTech]

LAN oriented simple VPN that could be shared between known friends .

http://www.hamachi.cc/

Very simple, works well, even clear across the world network neighborhood works
if you tweak your firewall and port forwarding requirements if using NAT .

Ex-MislTech

Re:How do they know

[rtb61]

Adults can also enrol in university for additional courses. So no one needs worry about their peers betraying them. Invasion of privacy would make it very dangerous for universities to start interfering in student to student digital communications.

It is only one step further to start searching the students computers rather than just communications between students.

Filtering rather than monitoring sounds nicer but it is still the same thing. Even though the current US administration has become more than a little loose when it comes to spying on it's citizens, universities had better take a very deep legal look at the ramifications of implementing automatic monitoring or interception of private digital communications, using a computer to automatically monitor digital communications is no legally different to listening in yourself (the only allowable context is for maintaining network trasmission quality).

Next thing you know the RIAA and the MPAA will be demanding the all telecommunications companies monitor the private traffic of all their customers all of the time for any digital communications that the RIAA/MPAA disagree with.

Good Luck

[focitrixilous P]

They'll never stop LAN sharing. While I'm an engineering student, most people can understand Filezilla, a nice ftp client that supports SFTP. Hard drives are cheap these days, and anyone with a weeks linux experience can set up an SFTP server and share the username password. I doubt my school will bother to track down and break the encryption on it, the worst ehy would do is shut off our connection for a day as a warning, and there are enough poorly configured wireless points that losing the ethernet for a day isn't a problem.

Re:If 100,000 people would sit and write

[EzInKy]

their congressmen and demanded that they deal with the mad dogs that are the RIAA, they'd geek in about 20 seconds. We need to speak up and put an end to this insanity.


People are speaking up, they just aren't "greasing" the wheels of justice properly. Now if every one of those 100,000 people enclosed a $50 "donation" and a pledge of $50 more when sane legislation is enacted you might actually see something done.

Shots in the Dark

[Nexox Enigma]

In the letter that the RIAA sent to these colleges, they specified DC and Mytunes/Ourtunes. Now I have no idea how common DC hubs are at universities, but I do happen to know that iTunes pirating is very popular. How many campuses out there are absent of this form of piracy? Maybe the one without computers? The RIAA could have sent these to any campus with a listed administrative email account (Though I'm sure they went for larger campuses...)

I looked up the two devices that they reccomend. One has taken heavy flack from the EFF and is seems easy enough to defeat. The other's website hasn't been updated in years, and their 'news' lists events that vaguely occur with piracy. I'm sure that these 'solutions' would not be inexpensive, especially if the average campus's networking situation is anywhere near as kludged together as the one I attend.

I don't see what the RIAA is getting at here, unless they get some profits from however many of those filtering devices sell. If they do, though, I think that falls under the category of racketeering, though I'm far from an expert on the subject.

Its obvious that the RIAA has no future. I just want to know when they'll get around to realizing that.

If one thing needs to be shut down

[Opportunist]

it's the RIAA. A dinosaur whose right to exist has expired.

In my capitalism books, what is obsolete has to vanish to the market can concentrate on material that is valuable. Now, capitalism has been turned upside down. Obsolete companies and market structures are kept artificially alive with laws.

Roll back about 100 years, when the automobile came into existance and hackney coaches became obsolete. Remember the laws that look so stupid today? The "man waving a red flag that has to walk in front of automobiles" and similar rubbish? Same shit.

What did it serve? It was annoying then, and it's something we can only shake our heads at today. Who'd come up with a STUPID law like that?

Well, now you have it all over again. Instead of traffic laws, now it's copyright laws that come up with harebrained ideas to protect a business that is essentially dead.

Re:When last i heard from the majority of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

> What next.. "illegal sharing through car radios"? .. "in the news today the RIAA demanded that automakers comply with new requirements to prevent passers by and non-drivers from "illeagally hearing" music from car stereos which "by law" is only entitled to the owner/operator of the vehicle alone."

A similar thing has already happened in Germany. A GEMA (German equivalent of RIAA) representative was going around harrassing shop owners who had a radio on, because that was unlicensed use of the music "to attract customers".

Isn't that hacking?

[HangingChad]

The RIAA has sent letters [CC] to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network.

Assuming university computer networks are not public, wouldn't that constitute illegal access to their computer systems? I don't remember anything in the law suggesting it was okay to illegally access someone's system if you thought there was abuse of your IP going on...not that we're buying RIAA's definition of abusing IP in the first place.

Why isn't the FBI asking RIAA how they got access to those networks? Perhaps they're busy out intimidating Republican political opponents. It is getting down to six months before the election, this would be their busy time of year.