College Demands RIAA Pay Up For Wasting Its Time

An anonymous reader writes "We've already seen the University of Wisconsin tell the RIAA to go away, but the University of Nebaska has gone one step further: it's asking the RIAA to pay up for wasting its time with the silly demand to push students into paying up. The spokesperson for the University also notes that since they constantly rotate IP addresses and have no need to hang onto that information for very long, they simply cannot help the RIAA. They have no clue who was attached to which IP address at the time the RIAA is complaining about."

Comments

Good

[dlhm]

They should stick it to 'em as hard as the riaa is sticking it to everyone else!!

uncle sam (will) say so

[User 956]

The spokesperson for the University also notes that since they constantly rotate IP addresses and have no need to hang onto that information for very long, they simply cannot help the RIAA.

Coming soon, federal legislation giving the University a need to hang onto that information.

Re:uncle sam (will) say so

[BlueTrin]

what if such "federal legislation" is, in fact, not "coming soon"?

Answer: You won't get marked as insightful then :)

Gnat on an elephant's back

[Billosaur]

While I applaud the move, Nebraska is but a minor annoyance to the deep pockets of the RIAA. For this to have the fullest effect, a large proportion of the colleges/universities in the country would have to band together and make a class-action case of it, IMHO. Individual schools can score points, but they won't score a clean enough victory to stop this nonsense.

Re:Gnat on an elephant's back

[e4g4]

Indeed, and let's not forget that for every University of Nebraska, there's a Penn State with draconian AUPs that require MAC addresses be associated with a particular student before being granted internet access, thus greatly simplifying the process of associating an IP address with a particular student.

So, yeah, while this move by U of N is a good one, it's hard to say how significant it's impact will be in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Perhaps

[MightyMartian]

I think in this case it's people getting tired of RIAA making demands on overworked IT departments in what often amounts to warrantless fishing expeditions. I don't think the colleges in question approve of illegal music swapping, but merely that they have better things to do. The attack on RIAA from the legal side is much more interesting, and I wonder if the courts are beginning themselves to tire of what seem to be nuisance lawsuits that often have very little evidentiary backing.

They should play their strong hand

[humphrm]

The RIAA so far has been playing the "We've got deeper pockets and more lawyers than you" card.

Schools should play the "We've got law students galore, just itching for something to work on" card.

Creating a Fearful Consumer Class

[asphaltjesus]

1. The RIAA is the entertainment conglomerates "bad cop."
2. The point is to make consumers deathly afraid of doing anything with digital media without checking for their approval. This makes DRM look like a great solution if you are a consumer afraid of being sued.

"Stick it to them" and haha posts may make /.'ers feel better, but don't take the entertainment conglomerates head-on. The entertainment conglomerates are quite happy about that by the way because /.'er's are a bunch of copyright criminals in an online echo-chamber with their crazy ideas about "free media."

How about organizing an annual no-drm day? Don't by any DRM'd media on that one day each year. That's right no DVD's, no iTunes.

Oh, wait that means we would have to DO something though. Nevermind.

Re:Perhaps

[Blue Stone]

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments in the ablove posts, but I really feel it's important that we drop the figleaf that is the term that is the 'RIAA'.

The people whose actions so many of us detest, who sue disabled pensioners and little girls who don't even own computers, who whine and bitch and claim the sky is falling every time some new technology comes along, who engage in price fixing, who rip off the artists they claim to represent while simultaneously saying that they're engaging in anti-piracy activity for their benefit (all the time without missing a beat and smiling, smiling, smiling), who LIE to the media and inflate and invent the losses they say they're cost by the eeeeevil pirates...

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE RIAA.

THEY ARE THE 'MAJOR' RECORD COMPANIES.

(And their number is legion)

Flawed model

[Himring]

It's a flawed model really. Historically, suing oneself into success has never worked. The wright (right?) brothers spent their last decades suing anyone who made anything that flew -- yea that went well. The maker of the gun carteridge -- who partenered/sold out to S&W -- did the same thing, and spent his entire fortune made on the invention in court, died broke.

The RIAA missed the boat, failed to innovate, didn't see or care to see the j-curve in technology and are thrashing in the water trying to force people back to music listening circa 1990. The genie is out of the bottle. Pandora's box is open. You are not the next american idol. The answer was D. and now regis is waiting for you to leave the stage. Move along RIAA. Game over dude....