University of Wisconsin-Madison Bucks RIAA

stephencrane informs us of an interesting development at UW Madison. The school, along with many others, has been sent "settlement letters" by the RIAA with instructions to forward them to particular students (or other university community members) that the RIAA believes guilty of illegal filesharing. The letters order the assumed filesharers to identify themselves and to pay for the content they are supposed to have "pirated." The university has sent a blanket letter to all students, reiterating the school's acceptable use policies, but has refused to forward individual letters without a valid subpoena. This lawyer's blog reproduces the letter. The campus newspaper has some coverage on the university's stance.

Comments

What a load of shit..

[QuantumG]

The University is in no way responsible for what students do on their network.. any more than a phone company is responsible for what people do with their telephones. As such, they should butt-the-fuck-out of the private matter between the student and the copyright holder.

Guilty until proven innocent?

[Minuous]

>If students do receive a subpoena notice of being sued after being warned by the cease-and-desist letter, Rust said they will have their Internet access suspended and their names forwarded to the dean of students for an official review. So what happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Glad I don't attend a fascist university like this one.

Are you serious you cannot be serious

[idonthack]

Got any sources for that? It's completely ridiculous, but after some of the stuff they've pulled, I wouldn't put it past them.